The Homeschool Mother's Journal

In my life this week...
We have been snowed in much of the week here in central Indiana and have spent our days at home in the warmth. It has been a busy week for our homeschooling studies and also at work as we are gearing up for the Schoolhouse Expo.

In our homeschool this week...
Briyah (8) is finishing up the first set of her Singapore Math booklets and we are getting ready to begin the second semester set. This year we chose Singapore over Saxon. Singpore's Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract approach is working for us. We also began utilizing ALEKS this week for a supplement. Math is Briyah's least favorite subject but she loves online learning. It has been nice to hear Briyah ask to do Math first thing in the morning this week. ALEKS offers a great assessment tool (free trial available) which provides statistical insight into what levels of mastery students have achieved and also what they need to work on.

Shaiya (17) is getting ready for her graduation in May and preparing for her college studies in the fall of 2011. This winter and spring is a busy time of college visits, applications, deadlines, graduation planning, and finishing up the 12th year of homeschool studies. She recently completed an internship at a Christian school in an elementary classroom and plans to enter an education program in the fall. I just know that the next few months are going to fly by!

My nephew Malachi (4) is growing so quickly and he is quite a digital learner, which does not surprise me, given our very techie family. Malachi loves Starfall online. We are also using the free online curriculum Head of the Class which is a great resource that offers interactive content.

This week I registered for my spring semester classes at Liberty University which will begin the week of March 20. I am now in senior standing so I have approximately one year left before I earn my degree in education. God willing, I will have an opportunity to work towards my Master's degree when I complete my studies at Liberty. This is a long term goal that I am prayerfully considering. Ball State University, which is near our home, has graduate programs in educational psychology and educational technology that I am exploring. I will just need to continue to seek God's will and for now this is just a long term goal.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...
For the most part, we have been homebound this week with the snow and ice storm. We have missed visiting the library this week and also going to church. It is still snowing over the weekend but when the road clears up we are going to visit grandma for her birthday.

In a few weeks we plan to visit the Indianapolis Children's Museum. I am also really looking forward to the spring so we can visit Zionsville which is the cutest village in central Indiana.

 My favorite thing this week was...
My neice Zolie is growing so quickly. She is two months now and this week she has started smiling and interacting more. This week she has been smiling at me with big happy grins and that is just about the best thing ever.

What's working/not working for us...
Briyah loves her new science classes at a local university. She has been asking to study Physics and they are going to spend a few weeks on this subject.

The snow outside is beautiful but it is not working for us this week. Everything has been cancelled... church, science classes, and our visits to the library. I am ready for spring!

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...
Why have we not started Latin yet? I planned to begin in our spring semester. We have been focusing on our core subjects as we settled in after our big move from Missouri to Indiana in December 2010. I think we will add Latin to our routine this month.

We are going to use Latin for Children (A) by Classical Academic Press. They have an engaging support website with free multimedia content at Headventure Land which convinced us that this was the Latin curriculum we would use in our studies. If you have not checked out Headventure Land yet, you will enjoy all of the wonderful content that includes Latin, Greek, and Spanish multimedia activities, stories, and games.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you'll go." ~ Dr. Seuss

Happy Homeschooling friends!
Sharra