Well, while life has gone on in our tiny town, my little blogging world seems to have halted. So much has been happening around our house that I’ve made no time for my bloggy friends. : ( I’ll do my best to catch you up to speed here and now.
Home life has sped up since the school year started. The kids are into a nice routine and daily work goes quite smoothly. (I know, right? I probably should not have spoken those words so soon!) We’ve stopped our Madsen journey. At least for the moment. Mainly because I just don’t have the funds for Part 2 right now. It’s amazing, though, how the Lord knows our needs better than we do. With baby #5 on the way, I am welcoming the Alpha Omega Lifepacs that we’d shelved last year. The kids are enjoying them quite a bit too. After all the testing and trial, I have a feeling we’ll be hanging onto the Lifepac Language Arts for a long time. They really are a good fit for us. All the bells and whistles (and sometimes lack thereof) have drawn me away in the past. I think I’m over that now. … okay so until convention season, that is.
As I mentioned, baby #5, Talitha, is scheduled to make her appearance in 7 days. We had a few hours of contractions just a couple days ago, so we’ll see if she holds out that long. A few weeks ago, we spent several days deep cleaning the house – knocking down cobwebs, moving all the furniture, wiping the walls, dusting everything. It was wonderful. I’m always amazed at how a good cleaning can make a house sparkle. And now it’s all ready to be decorated for Christmas. Thankfully, I had the forethought to get all that cleaning done before time to decorate with a new baby in tow.
As the holidays approach and the excitement of the new baby grows, I’m trying not to get too distracted from our schoolwork. So far, so good. Math is coming in the form of Alpha Omega Lifepacs, just like the Language Arts. History is a slow go, mainly because we keep finding such fun and wonderful books to read. We really enjoy our history reading and every now and then we work on some lapbook project or other craft from our History Traveler series. I just can’t say enough good things about these resources. I highly recommend them for history supplements. We’re hitting science once or twice a week. Our studies here have been focusing on various topics we’ve come upon in daily life. For example, after spending a week in Florida during October, the last few weeks’ studies have been revolving around jelly fish, sea turtles, dolphins and the like. Lapbooks and films make the learning very memorable for the kids.
Reading has been going very well for all the littles. I’ve found that as I relax about which books are acceptable for school reading, they seem to read much better! Go figure. I’m sure I’ve never heard that kids read better when they enjoy what they’re reading. : P
Anyhoo, I could go on and on but I think I’ll give it a rest for now. I do have some good stuff planned for the next few weeks. We’ll talk about Netflix, what kinds of books you allow your kids to read and count for school credit, and we’ll look at some fun Christmas gifts that aren’t necessarily T*O*Y*S. I don’t know about you, but that’s one thing there’s no shortage of here!
Not only all that, but we’ll be looking at some fun stuff from Crayola that includes a prize pack giveaway. Stay tuned…
Oh, and it’s good to talk with you again. : )
-Sara O’
Glad to see you are back!
good to be back : ) think I just may catch up on my blog reading too!