It's November!!

Time is going fast, isn't it?

This is how we finished up October:

Here it is in the dark:

October was a real struggle for us in so many ways. Every week in October we had either someone show up unexpectedly, call or in one case we invited them. (All of these on Monday!!) Monday's seem to set the tone of our week, so we were "out of it" the rest of the week each time. Along side all of this, we have all been battling sickness. Colds - coughing, sore throats, runny noses all that icky stuff. I think we're mostly through it now, but it lingered all month long. Not to mention the black widow who took over my laundry area and made me really behind for awhile. It's dead now, but it's still hard to go out there. ugh.

So, as for school, we didn't do all that I had planned this month. That's life. I'm not going to stress on this. We're doing our best and we're really doing ok.

Here's the hard part. I feel like we should just move on - keep going onto 1A9. But, I can't. I have a hard time letting go of what didn't get done. I'm not ready to move forward!!! The struggles in life, ya know. ;o) I know me though - this month and next I have a very hard time getting everything done. My mind gets a little hijacked during the holidays and I'm just trying to keep joy in my heart. I have four weeks left until I'm done with 1A. My plan is to be totally done with it by the end of the year. Should happen, if I stay on track. I actually have some Christmas stuff planned and I like to keep that month very light.

Ok. After talking to my husband, I have decided to just move on. We'll come back later to these things that we missed. Hopefully this will help us get a jump start so that we are able to get though everything before Christmas.

If you feel led, pray for us as we battle through these trials.

We can't do it without God!!

We're "Rock'n"

MAKING CRYSTALS:

We got the "recipe" from - Mrs. Steward's Bluing Salt Crystal Garden. We started them today. We'll see how it turns out.

And here's a shot I took of my 9yo identifying some rocks & minerals from a kit I got from a teacher awhile back.

We've had a lot of things happening this week. We had an unexpected visitor on Monday and on Friday we'll be out all day. Today was spent almost all day looking at this box of rocks. Hey, we we're having fun! But, we didn't get some of the other stuff done. So, after looking at it today I think we'll break up this week and make it two. (Well, technically three since last week we didn't get much done.) So our "off" week will be spent doing make-up work. That's ok, that's partly why they are there. ;o)

Anyway, I'll check back in later & let you know what else we've done.

Until then...

Rock on! ;o)

PS: Anyone know what kind of rocks /minerals these are?

Wow. Has it been THREE weeks already?

Updating this blog is a little bit time consuming sometimes. Sorry about that.

Ok, week one (1A6):

The first day went great. Tuesday went fine until the evening hit and I came down with a really yucky sickness. I was frozen, curled up on the couch with a blanket and apple cider. I wasn't planning to have school Wednesday, but we pushed through and we really had a blast! Learning about Noah and how the flood affected the earth at the same time is really cool!

If you followed my old blogs (with MFW) you will know that projects always seem to get put off until the end of the week. Little Bear and I worked on Noah's ark all by ourselves Thursday night - all the boys were busy. We worked on cutting out and gluing all of the animals. She just about did the whole thing almost all by herself! It was a good hour she cut and glued. Over the weekend the kids finished the ark totally.

And...here are the fossils:

LOL! I'm just not good at these projects.

Last week (1A7):

Speaking of projects - we also got halfway through making our volcano this past weekend, but our little d got into it and broke our mountain. Everyone was really bummed. We'll probably try to patch it up just do a makeshift type just to show the "explosion."

Otherwise, I am beginning to see how SOW is supposed to work. (Please don't ask me why I didn't "get" it before, because I don't know.) But, I honestly believe that SOW is THE best curriculum out there.

I keep telling my husband that I feel like I've gone back to school, because I am learning so much! In my spare time I am reading books so that I know what I'm going to teach my kids. It's so fun!

Here's what the whiteboard that is hanging up in my dining room usually looks like:

I had a friend over for lunch the other day. She is a newer convert. While we were sitting in the dining room, she got quiet and asked me WHY exactly I had the word "Nimrod" written up there. LOL! She'd only heard it used as a bad word. (Not that it isn't - he was pretty wicked from what we do know about him.) It was just really funny!

I did switch the schedule around a little bit. I forgot to add "share work" on there and I wanted to add in a time for cleaning up & brushing teeth. Also, as expected, we now go for a walk AFTER we eat. I know, I should have just started that way...

Now, week 3 (1A8)

We are studying Abram and rocks. This last week was a little bit of a rough week, so we're extending it until next week. After this week I'm planning to take a light week. During this non-sow week we will catchup on some of the independent work and read few fun read alouds just for fun.

We're going on our walks, collecting rocks. We'll be doing a chart and growing crystals here soon. Hopefully we can also finish some of these other projects that we're in the middle of.

I really want to update weekly, but it just seems like if it's not one thing it's another! I'll just try to keep updating when I can.

After this week we'll be traveling into space & learning more about Abraham who was promised as many children as the stars!

3...2...1...BLAST OFF!!