Monday Musings

It's a beautiful day here and we plan to enjoy time outside later this afternoon. We're doing leaf rubbings this afternoon. Maybe we'll build fairy houses, too!

This week's schedule for school for our younger ones:

Math - Measurements of length (Metric and US)
Language - Plural Nouns, Picture Study, and Creative Writing Narration of Picture Study
Memorization - Continue perfecting Ephesians 6:10-16 & Autumn Fires by Robert Louis Stevenson
Spelling Words - gardens, vale, autumn, bonfire, smoke, trail, pleasant, blazes, gray, seasons, bright, towers, summer, something, flowers
Nature Study - Make a nature study journal; Nature scavenger hunt; Nature walk - observations
Zoology - Notebooking habitats, biomes,instinct,extinct, endangered species, and fossils
Handcrafts - Monday - Thanksgiving Cards, Tuesday - Watercolor, Wednesday - Turkey napkin rings, Thursday - Autumn Hot Pads, Friday - Mobcap and Tricorner Hat
History - Paul Revere's Ride; Import/Export worksheet - The Light and the Glory Activity Book; Chapters 9-10 The Light and the Glory; Name the 13 colonies and work on memorizing the Preamble of the Constitution
Reading (Fluency) - Tippy Lemmy, The Paint Brush Kid, Jake Drake Bully Buster
Read Aloud - The Animal Family, Rabbit Hill, The Bible

For my personal reading, I've started Twelve Extraordinary Women by John MacArthur. I'm also beginning my holiday check list and countdown for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I can't believe it will be here before we know it.

School for our older son is so much more independent. I am so pleased with what we chose for Bible. We chose "Rooted and Grounded" from Deeper Roots for our general Bible. We're also using "Don't Check Your Brains at the Door" for apologetics. In addition, we use BJU Geography, BJU Physical Science, BJU Spanish 2, Glencoe Geometry and Smarr Publishers Intro to Literature. I love the Smarr course; it includes great literature like The Importance of Being Earnest, White Fang, The Prince and the Pauper, The Merchant of Venice and more. It also includes a writing course with tips for improving writing and essay assignments of various types. We have been very pleased with that. It's a full day for our high schooler and a challenge to stay on track, but he is learning so much and really doing well.

I'm busy trying to revamp our schedule so that I'm doing all my fine-tuning of our weekly plans on the Thursday prior. I think it will make Monday mornings go smoother and we'll all be more productive. There never seem to be enough hours in the day, but I think this will make better use of them.

On that subject, I do have another recommendation. There is a wonderful cd that I got from Vision Forum that speaks to the subject of prioritizing and wise use of time. It's called Twenty-Four Hours is all you get. Here's a link:

http://www.visionforum.com/search/productdetail.aspx?search=Twenty-Four+Hours+is+all+you+get&productid=37952

I highly recommend it; it has been a blessing for me!

Happy Monday!