End of the Week Wrap-Up {new curriculum and a military field trip}

Yes, I'm a bit past the end-of-the-week, aren't I?  You'll forgive me though, won't you?  I'm just relaxing a little with my self-imposed blog deadlines.  You may have noticed that I'm not posting quite as much.  I have made some decisions to simply cut back some and enjoy "real" life a little more.  So ...unless I just feel like it, no more staying up late to finish a post, or blogging while the rest of the family watches a movie ...you get the idea:)  My proverbial plate has been filling up too much again and I am having to take measures to keep my priorities focused.  

Now ...for what's been happening in our homeschool this week!  

As I mentioned last week, this has been a pretty good month of getting back into our routine following the holidays.  We have had a few bumps, and even some tears (mostly mine!), but that sometimes happens. 

(The Princess' "preposition sandwich")

The Princess is cruising right along this year.  She is still loving Teaching Textbooks (I can't tell you how glad I am not to have a fight or tears nearly every day over math!!).  She's having a very good year of grammar (you can see her above making a "preposition sandwich" for one of her exercises this week).  She is doing very well with her Bible curriculum this year also.  We have made a change in one of her core subjects since the beginning of the school year.  

You may remember my mentioning last fall that Writing With Ease was just not doing it for us.  Since scraping that I have been coming up with my own writing assignments for Mr. B using Lego writing promts, copywork, etc.--all free things that I've found online.  Feel free to check out my Homeschool {Language Arts} board on Pinterest if you're looking for anything like that.  It's going fairly well (writing is maybe his least fave thing, so I know it's probably never going to be a breeze).  For The Princess I've begun using Write With World.  This was a review product for us a couple of years ago and while we did a few lessons to get a feel for it, it was really for grades older than she was at the time.  So I set it aside for possible future use.  I'm glad now that I did.  That is working out well for us so far.  

Mr. B is also doing well this year.  He loves his Bible curriculum.  Last week we wrapped up our first unit for this year and purchased and begun the second one: Grapevine Studies New Testament Pt.2.  He also is doing very well with his grammar and the change we made to his writing exercises that I mentioned above have been such a good improvement.  He was getting frustrated with his math this year though.  I'm not sure if it was moving too quickly for him or if he just wanted to do math on the computer (like his big sister), but math had become the battle of the day for us.  It was exhausting.  And after learning my lesson with The Princess, I didn't want to let it continue and become a source of constant contention.  So I put a plea out to our local homeschool group to see if anyone was selling the version of Teaching Textbooks that he would need.  Within just a few minutes I had a response and even had it delivered and paid for by the end of that day!  It was Providential!  Since getting that, Mr. B has proceeded to do 3 math lessons per day so far.  He is loving it and I am so thankful.  

(Mr. B with his new math program)

We are enjoying our history and science together as a family also!  Next week I'll have an update on our ocean box for you.  But that's enough of a curriculum update for now;)

This is my 6th year as a homeschool mom and I am glad that I have grown in wisdom over the years.  I certainly don't know it all by any means, but I'm thankful that I feel confident enough to call it quits with something that just isn't working instead of forcing it.  Making the changes in writing and math this year and continually looking for ways to increase my children's love of learning makes a lot of difference in the tone of our days.  

We also had a fun field trip on Friday.  I almost didn't go because it was so C-O-L-D!!!  Single digits (Fahrenheit) over night and in the mid-teens at the time we were on our trip.  As you can see in the pictures below everyone is very bundled up!  

Our trip was at a local state park where a special forces squadron from Ft. Campbell came to demonstrate their equipment, talk about how they support other parts of the military, participate in a weather balloon demonstration, and more!  The kids really enjoyed it--and I did, too!

This weekend we have mostly enjoyed time at home, watching Turbo (very cute, btw), going to a birthday party, and going to church today.  It's been a very good week!  I hope yours has been as well!

This post is linked to The Weekly Wrap Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.