Our Homeschool Journal: Gearing Up and Cleaning Out

We’ve had a productive two weeks: lots of summer fun, a good dose of schoolwork, painting and organizing in the schoolroom, and a major clean-out of our entire house.  I’m tired just typing the things we’ve been doing, but it will be worth it when we’re relaxing on a camping trip next week.  Then after that we’re back to full time school!

In our homeschool this week…(and last week since I didn’t post a journal entry then…)

We learned about granite and igneous rocks.  Nature study is so enjoyable, and the ideas from Barb’s Handbook of Nature Study blog are so easy to implement, that we rarely skip this in our schedule.  This Outdoor Hour Challenge came at a great time because we had recently hiked to a granite quarry after visiting a fort built with granite from that quarry.  We got a chance to use our stereoscope, and decided it made the granite look like the surface of some strange planet!  Notice the differences in the notebooking pages: My 6-year-old picked plain paper and drew pictures (including volcanoes), my 10-year-old chose a more structured page (a freebie from Barb).  That’s the flexibility I love about notebooking!

We’re having a lot of fun in history, and have spent quite a while on Lewis and Clark.  We finished up this week by exploring our backyard in their style–drawing all we found in our field journal and having snacks at camp.  Our helpful dog came along just like Lewis’ dog (we really enjoyed the book Seaman’s Journal: On the Trail with Lewis and Clark).

Places we went and people we saw…

We visited a lot with friends, especially those who are heading back to school next week.  We picked blackberries and made jam–not my favorite project, but opening a jar of summer in January is worth it!

My favorite thing this week was…

I was so happy to finish painting the set of lockers and moving them into the schoolroom.  It meant I could finally put the room back together, and I just love how they turned out!

Here’s the link to our home schoolroom post if you want to check out the rest of the room!

My favorite resource this week…

The book All Through The Ages.  I just know I’ll be using this guide to teaching history through living books for the rest of our homeschooling years.  You can read my full review of All Through The Ages here.

What’s working for us…

Much of our time has been spent in a whole-house purge and it feels terrific!  I realized that I feel less overwhelmed if the house is tidy, and that less stuff makes it easier to keep things tidy.  I was able to persuade the kids to jump on board with getting rid of a lot by offering to have a garage sale and letting them keep the money for things they sell.

Things I’m working on…

I’m getting our weekly lesson plans ready for starting our full-time school year after Labor Day.  The new addition this year is an assignment form I made for my daughter.  I wrote a post about how I tackle the paperwork side of homeschool planning.

I’m reading…

We finished Farmer Boy (loved it) and have moved on in the series.  We’re listening to the audiobook for Little House on the Prairie and really enjoying the talents of Cherry Jones and the fiddle music!  My daughter is reading Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh.  I’m reading Beyond Survival: A Guide to Abundant-Life Homeschooling by Diana Waring–I’ve just started it so I can’t give an opinion on it just yet.

I’m grateful for…

My kids not heading back to public school full time in five days.  We love enjoying fall together.

Thank you to the wonderful hostesses with fun link-ups on Fridays. Be sure to join the fun and see what other homeschoolers are up to!