Jan 2-5

Trying to log things more than once a week. Tedious but necessary.

I've looked into a few homeschool tracking systems but they never seem to fit. We don't have "classes" and I don't really give assignments and we don't test other than math - and I don't have to track that, we hav a book we progress through. So this will have to do.

When I bought the kids' new desk blotters (the kind with the montly calendar page) I bought myself one too. $3.49 seemed a good price for a calendar I can't lose in a pile of papers. Each night, or few nights, I will write out what we need to do each day. I'd love to get the whole month filled in with at least the basics that we need to do each day. I spend too much daily time preparing and walking around saying "hm, where is that book?" "Hm, what should we do today?"

We are easing into the new year. Focusing on math, so far. And cleaning the house after the holidays, which are not quite over yet. Also focusing on attitudes as I see the same old resistance to work that we had before vacation. (Solution: no more vacations?)

We are continuing in the Bible, reading a Psalm a day, and a chapter (or part of one) of Isaiah. Now some may disagree with this but I skipped over some of the bleaker parts of Isaiah to get to some of the promises. Yes, yes, I know we must read the judgements and the woes but how many can a child hear before he or she tunes out? I don't preach a gospel that is all good news with none of the bad. But too much bad is not so great for the kiddies, I think.

On to question 32 of the Shorter Catechism. I didn't do the full review of 1-31 but J mostly has it and E won't yet, so we will press on and Fridays we will do a review with Daddy at night.

Trying to read the Christian Almanac every day.

On MUS Beta now. We did lesson 1 in 2 days, and lesson 2 we are blasting through today - it's just number sequence, easy. Good practice, though, as we are not as fluent with our numbers as we ought to be.

Got back into the Spectrum test prep books y'day. Moving along with cursive, though E seems to have hit a wall with the "J." We will move on, perhaps to "L" ("K" has got to be tough too) and then come back. J is doing fine.

All thank you cards done.

The Little Pilgrim's Progess reading is going great. The kids love it and it's so good for me to read the "real thing." My only problem is taking the time to sit down and read several chapters at a time and get the questions and verses ready. Yesterday they read 5 chapters. Today I am not ready with anything. But we have some errands to run today, a lot to do, so I will take time tomorrow to get a bunch done. Last night we read the story about John Bunyan in Trial and Triumph.

Next week we will add history and science back into the mix. Odd that we have taken such a break from our best "subjects."

J started reading The Ravenmaster's Secret which is one I read aloud a few years ago. He is loving it. E is reading The Bobbsey Twins Mystery at Snow Lodge which was an old favorite of mine. Yesterday I told them to read for 30 minutes and they eagerly got their books and read over their assigned time. And J read more last night and this morning.

I am not reading anything. Well, the Pilgrim's Progress and I am getting caught up on the TableTalk for my daily Bible reading. Craving some GOOD fiction. Saw a sequel to Women of the Silk at Powell's the other day and almost bought it (hey, it was on sale) but decided that we already have too many books to pack up and the library's likely to have it anyway. So, maybe next week.