Monday Musings... Blogging Blues...

I was just reading a post by a friend, and it got me thinking. Am I a total flake? I know we jump all over the place with what we're using/studying/learning about. And looking over my own blog for the year, yes, I feel flaky.

I think I need to change things up a bit here... no more "I think we're going to try this, or use that" posts. And for a while, I don't think I'll bother with end of the week reports, which have been a drag to write lately anyhow, since they seem so mundane and somewhat repetitive. Instead I think I'll focus on what we are doing, what we are accomplishing... the things we're having fun with, and of course, the occasional struggle.

So, that said, here are some highlights from yesterday's homeschooling!

I bumped The Girl up another book in the Explode the Code series, even though we are nowhere near done with the last one. Why? Because at this point, it was all review, and she needs to keep moving forward. More than that, she is ready to move forward, so we are, at long, looooong last, tackling long vowel sounds. Phew!

Image courtesy of City Talk morning paper

We loved reading about the similarities in chimpanzees and humans in The Early Human World. The Girl says this is her "favorite history book ever!" and The Boy loves many things about it: it explains the roots of words like anthropology, paleontology, and much more; the sidebar bits about people like Jane Goodall and Charles Darwin; and he says he is "learning a lot!"


We also had fun with Life of Fred, both Apples and Fractions. The Boy only missed 4 out of 16 words in his spelling pre-test, and then he wrote some very silly sentences for nouns in Writing Skills.

And some other highlights from the day:

image courtesy of cookinggodsway.com

The Girl helped me make some delicious whole-grain blueberry-banana muffins for today's breakfast. She is getting very confident with measuring! M said they are so good that they don't even need butter, and from him, that's a huge compliment, considering he would butter everything if he could... which reminds me of a Simpsons clip...

image courtesy of google images

  "You butter that bacon, boy!" (as ordered by Homer Simpson)

We also spent a good hour or so working out in the front yard, deadheading all the plants now that fall is really here, prepping for the winter. We need to start picking our olives soon too - there are many ripe ones already! We're going to use a regular Greek brining technique for half, and do a dry salt cure with the rest. The Girl picked all the last of the French lavender for sachets, and The Boy hauled the wheelbarrow full of chopped-down plants back and forth to the compost heap.

I also made roasted eggplant for soup (and plan to finish making the soup today), and got a chicken bone broth going in the crockpot for tonight's chicken-barley-veggie soup. Definitely soup/stew/chili season here!

image courtesy of allseasoncyclists

The Boy is designing a scooter for himself, with a little input from M. They have plans afoot to head off to the recycle station at the county dump for parts. They're also working on rebuilding a bike that someone gave us, as The Boy (now 5' 3 1/2"!!!) has outgrown his old bicycle.

So all in all, it was a good and productive day. Hoping for a few more of those this week!