Next Wednesday is the first day of school!  DH will be teaching 4th grade again at Neighborhood Christian School where J1 will be in 6th grade and J3 will be in 1st grade.  J2 and I will persevere at home. 🙂

J2 will be in 4th grade – with the exception of the subjects that are directly affected by learning disabilities.  Here is what we are planning to do for our school this year:

Bible – we will be listening to an audiobook format of the Bible and then J2 will narrate (ala Charlotte Mason) daily.

Math – at recommendation of our consultant Sharon we are not proceeding with Saxon math this year.  J2 loves math – and likes to do it independently – but Saxon math requires more and more reading.  Which means that he would need me to read it to him.  So, we are going to use Modern Curriculum Press’s mathematics this year.

Science – Elementary Apologia’s “Exploring Creationg with Astronomy

History – California History with Beautiful Feet and field trips with Daddy’s class.  Beautiful feet is a literature-based approach to history.
Language Arts – This is where J2’s learning disabilities hit us the hardest.  We are using some older curriculum and going as slowly as necessary.  We are going to create games using flashcards of our hardest words and steadily work our way through it.  J2 is still writing a book about pirates and he’s eager to get back to it.  When I say ‘writing’ I mean that he tells me what happens and we develop those ideas into complete sentences and thoughts on our whiteboard.  He copies it down into his notebook and illustrates the section.

That’s pretty much the bones of our education this next year.  I look forward to it and dread it at the same time.

Truly.  It was the worst.  The day before my birthday, Wednesday, I took my brother to San Francisco for his weekly checkup – with his new attachment, he can’t drive. DON’T follow that link if you are sensitive to medical stuff!  Traffic was good.  I got all my work done for the day in the wee hours before we left so when we realized we had a few hour to kill we joked that we could get lost in San Francisco for awhile.  So we did.  Actually we got lost in the Presidio!  We saw lots of things we’d like to go back and see again – if we can ever find them again! LOL  It was lots of fun.  On the way home we ate some fast food hit the grocery store for the next day’s activities.  So far, so good.  Thursday was my birthday and we were heading to Dillon Beach with my family and my mom for a picnic.

However, Wednesday night after getting home I started to get sick … and then I was sick.  Sigh.  I didn’t want to cancel but after I missed my birthday breakfast out – my favorite thing to do on my birthday – I realized it was not happening.  I was up most of the night before so I slept most of my birthday.  Eric and Brett took the boys to the movie to “get them out of my hair” but that only added to my pity party!  🙁

So, now it’s 2 or 3 days later – and I’m still not back to normal.  However, I did shower, blowdry my hair and worked today.  So, there’s improvement!  And, I got some smashing gifts!

  • Two shirts from my sister
  • $$ from my inlaws, my mom and my dad and s-mom (used theirs to buy knitting books!! – no idea what I’ll do with the rest)
  • Firefly on DVD from my brother
  • Plant from hubby
  • Shirt and charms for my Crocs from my friend

And, hey – next year has GOT to be better….right?!?!

I can’t believe it’s been a week since I updated this blog! Well, I guess I can – I only shoot for weekly updates anyway. And, I installed a new spam catcher for the comments – so I no longer need to log in daily to delete 25 spam comments! Yeah!!

So what was new this week?

  • We decided not to proceed with home ownership – not even sure if I talked about that here – due to the high costs. Maybe in a few years – if we can save more money – we will consider it again. But the day we decided to stay put – our landlords told us they were not going to raise our rent as earlier expected until next Winter! That was a nice surprise.
  • J1 seems to be doing very well at camp. I have not heard from him – but have gotten reports twice from another mom who’s hubby is there. It’s nice to hear good things about your children – especially when you are not there. Can’t wait to see him today and hear his version of camp. Probably “It was good and bad.” Which is his reply to everything lately! LOL
  • J3’s tooth is still wiggling! No plans for extraction yet!
  • J2 had this week off – no seatwork for school – which is a break for me too. But Monday we’ll start up again. It was just the break I needed.
  • There has been knitting this week – in fact quite a bit of it since I was not feeling well earlier in the week. Knit on the Boxers, the Lace Diagonal Scarf and joined a new KAL that starts in August. Check out my knit blog “Knitnmom” for more info!

There’s also been work this week…helping my mom paint her living room….visits from my brother….and a trip to Lake Tahoe! So, it’s been busy – maybe that’s why I didn’t post! LOL