This was back to school week for us.† For some reason, even though I was very excited about starting back, I was being a huge procrastinator about the whole ‘planning’ thing.† I have our curriculum, mostly, but I have decided I am not going to spend hours and hours actually planning daily lessons.† I am taking advice from Theresa at OurLifeInWords and just jotting down what I want to cover each day and just going with the flow.† It seems to be working pretty well.†

We started SOTW 2 and are already in the 2nd chapter.† I am also reading aloud “Our Island Story” for some British history.† You can read it free online here.† Here is the free audio version from LibriVox.† Kei and I were talking about it yesterday.† How Americans know so much [well SOME of them] about US History but so very little about other countries.† She was very interested in British history because she is planning on living in England when she is older. She loves all things British.† We are doing Life of Fred for Math for the first month or so.† I bought this last year but Kei wasn’t interested.† Now she is.† She is so funny, for those of you who know what LOF is …she was reading a chapter yesterday and she yelled, “Do you know what that fool just did”? and I said “Who” and she said, “Fred! He paid a billion dollars for a bicycle!”.† I told her that is why you can be a genius in one area and not have, as my grandmother would say, ‘walking around sense’.† We are using Writing with Skill for Writing which Kei seems to like so far. [3 days in!]† We are finishing up Zoology 3 and going to start Botany and then do Real Science 4 Kids Physics.† I have heard from so many people that Botany is gets a little intense the last few chapters so we will see. †

Kei is practicing for a Character Tea on Saturday.† It is a fund raiser for the Hartselle Fine Arts Center.† She is once again playing her favorite bad guy role, Horace, the bumbling, extremely stupid henchman.† She was in the Hartselle paper today promoting the Tea.

She also is practicing for her BIGGEST role to date.† She auditioned for “To Kill a Mockingbird” and got the role of Scout!!† She is so incredibly excited.† It is her first non musical role.† At the first rehearsal she knew every line already!† There are only 4 children in the entire production.† It is mostly an adult cast.† Kei has wanted to play Scout since she saw the movie when she was 7.† What is so ironic is that we were listening to the book on audio when we heard that they were doing this play.† Kei said it was a ‘sign’.† Harper Lee is from Alabama and the story, of course, takes place in Alabama.† I wish I could scoop you all up and bring you to the theatre on that day!

So we are busy around here.† Plays and learning cool things and building fairy houses and hanging out with friends.† We had a† couple of nights that it got cooler and it was so lovely around 7:00 AM.† I am ready for fall, I just wish we had a longer one.† It seems to be HOT and then COOL for a couple of weeks, then COLD.† I hope this is a wonderful year of learning for everyone.† I hope it is full of magical times with all of your children that you will remember forever.† Make it count.

Homeschooling Rocks!

Karen

ìWe ask children to do for most of a day what few adults are able to do for even an hour. How many of us, attending, say, a lecture that doesnít interest us, can keep our minds from wandering? Hardly any.î ~John Holt~ How Children Fail†

*More GREAT John Holt quotes here.