Spring Break

At the beginning of our school year, I like to plan out when we hope to take some week-long breaks. This gives both and kids and me something to look forward to when the daily grind is feeling very... daily-grindish :o) .  Somehow knowing that we have break time coming up helps motivate everyone to work a little harder for a little longer.

In the past it seems to work well for us to work 6 to 7 weeks, and then take a week of holiday time. I called this first break "Spring Break" just because we are having spring-like weather toward the end of October in Madagascar. We will return to school on Monday and look forward to an extended break at Christmas time, which also happens to be summer! I have also appreciated taking much of December off each year, to make room for swimming at the pool more often and just getting my brain re-energized to finish out the rest of the school year. Once January hits I find June is right around the corner. And every other year, that means a trip to Canada which is a huge distraction away from school.

This week of holiday we've done a lot of nothing... and I have thoroughly enjoyed myself! I've brought some plants indoors, spent many hours reading, working on Bible study, and exercising. I even revived a 3-year old cross-stitch project I'm working on. We bought another wooden shelf for the school room, so Rob and I worked together sanding and staining it. It was so exciting to re-organize school upstairs and to clean up a bit.

Next week we begin a new social studies focus. During our first weeks of school we learned general geography of Canada, the provinces, capitol cities, its government, and freedoms citizens enjoy there. Our next term, beginning Monday, will be more focused on Canada's Natives and we will use resources from Donna Ward at Northwoods Press that I picked up while we were in Canada. The kids will each make a project book to highlight different people groups around the country.

On My Side Table