Monday, Monday

Monday's - I don't really care for them. Our weekends are often so busy that I don't get done nearly what I need to and then Monday hits you - BAM! - and we are back into school mode! This weekend proved to busy extremely busy. Andy had an all day Urban Youth Conference in which several of the youth leaders attended. He left at 8:00 am and didn't get home until 4:00 pm. The kids and I hit the grocery store and then headed home to get to work. I cleaned the kitchen and the school room. Why does it take twice as long to get things clean than it does to make them dirty?? I also did several more loads of laundry - we have far too many clothes!

Sunday proved to be busy as well. We had church and then soccer at 2:00 pm. I laid Daniel down for a nap, worked at school for the week and then woke Daniel up early from his nap so I could go see the kids play at least one game. With Daniel's nap I haven't been able to see them play. They are getting pretty good - but with a coach like Daddy - how could they not! There were a bunch of kids this year. It was great! Unfortunately this may be the last year we can have soccer as the city is planning on taking the only green space in our area to build a new school. Building is scheduled to start sometime in the spring. I ended my Sunday with Prayer Pals. We had several kids out this week. We had been low for a few months. Hopefully we are picking up again.School went okay. Matt didn't finish everything which always puts a bit of a strain on the week. It's not that he couldn't get the work done - he just goofed around too much. This is a potential battle ground. He knows he needs to finish school in order to go to Kids Club and with the work he has to do for tomorrow plus his work from today - well it can get touchy. But we have been through this enough times that he knows the drill - no school work - no club. He will learn eventually.

We did do something interesting today. At one of the homeschool conferences there were several seminars about lap booking. I went as I thought it would be fun to try to incorporate this into my teaching - but it is a lot of work. My friend Donna has done several of them with her kids and now my friend Carisa is doing them with her son. Carisa has been "encouraging" me to try it. So, instead of doing our "normal" history I decided to take this week and focus on Thanksgiving - pilgrims, Indians, Mayflower, etc. It will count toward our American History that I am required to teach every year. We are going to attempt to make a lap book. Today we read about the trip over on the Mayflower and then the kids had to pretend they were one of the passengers and write a journal entry about a day on the Mayflower. They had to incorporate several things they learned like the food they ate, events that occurred (ex: the birth of Oceanus, storms), the conditions, etc. They did a great job. I think Matt even enjoyed it a little bit! I'll have to put it in pictures when I am done so you can see what they are like.