Getting in our Groove

   Our second week of school went off without a hitch, basically. Of course, there are always those things--deliveries at the door right in the middle of read alouds, taking time to look for that misplaced book... Besides those normal small things, the week went as planned. Yay! I always love when that happens. Once Friday hit, I kind of felt like we needed a "Just Because We Can.." day off. (As Sarah Mackenzie from Read Aloud Revival likes to refer to them.) These are days off that we take simply, because we can. This is, indeed, one of the reasons we love our homeschool so much. But I already have one of those days scheduled in my calendar (which my kids do not know about), so I resisted the temptation to take it early. I'm glad I did too! Once we got going on Friday morning, the kids were very motivated to finish their work and get on with the weekend.

In History or Social Studies this year, we are diving right into Canadian and American History. I am using Sonlight Core D+E, which is American History condensed into one year. Alongside, I am pairing it with Canadian resources I have collected over the years. Everyone seems quite excited to be out of ancient civilizations and focused more on North America this year. Truth be told, so am I. :)

There aren't specific social studies assignments within Sonlight. The majority of the curriculum focuses on learning by hearing stories and reading from different materials. Since some of my kids are getting up into higher grades, I wanted to create some kind of history projects throughout the year. My idea is to have the kids complete one history mini project per week on a topic we have studied that particular week. This will be a mixture of student-interest projects and assignments I'm able to brainstorm for them to do. But hopefully, by the end of the school year, they will have a collection of approximately 36 projects!

This week we looked at the cultural areas of the First Americans and First Peoples of Canada. So we created regional maps showing the main groups.

Our newest member of the family---a great dane puppy, now five months old. We are enjoying her so much! And boy, is she ever growing fast. Her food consumption is also growing.  ;)

My favorite time of the year in Madagascar is November, when everything is in bloom and Spring is full on. But when the Jasmine starts to bloom in August, it is also lovely.

 Drinking enough water throughout the day has always been a struggle for me. But I think I'm well on my way to getting this habit mastered. It's almost been a month, and actually, drinking 2L per day hasn't been that difficult at all. Filling my glass first thing in the morning, and keeping it with me all the time really helps. And drinking through a straw makes it even easier for some reason???? Having a cool cup to drink from is just a bonus! I just found this one, and it's a whopping 710mL and glass too!

Lemons are in abundance in the shops, so I buy a bunch, slice them and then freeze, so I haven't been without lemon slices to put in the water.

As far as experiencing any benefits from this water increase in my life??? I still have yet to really notice anything substantial.

Over the past couple of months, since the beginning of the pandemic actually, we have re-instituted afternoon Quiet Time. We had fallen out of this habit as the school work and outings increased over the last couple of years. Introducing this concept back into our lives has done wonders for my reading life. I have forced myself to also spend some of this quiet time (one hour) doing leisure reading and it has been so nice. How tempting it is to complete other tasks around the house when everyone is in their own space quietly reading. So, taking advantage of this quiet time to read for myself has been a treasure over the last months.

Currently, A Ring of Endless Light by Madeleine L'Engle. Besides A Wrinkle In Time, this is the only other book of hers that I have read. It's not fantasy, but rather a series about a charming family of four children. I think I will have to look for the other titles!

Even though Sonlight does not have this book, The Phantom Tollbooth, scheduled during the first week of Core D+E, I wanted to start our school year with a fun read. (And I remember Walk The World's Rim being difficult to get into, which is the actual scheduled read aloud.) Instead, this one has been hilarious! Reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz or perhaps Alice in Wonderland. This book is full of puns and word plays. I'm not sure if the kids are getting all of them, but it has been very entertaining nonetheless.

Making smash-burgers on our outdoor grill..... yum :)

And that's another week wrapped up.