{This and That}

Thanks for all of your kind emails and comments regarding my planning posts--I'm glad they are useful to you!  This week, I'm hoping to post Xavier's school plans, and maybe the week after that, a list of some of my favorite books for the preschool/kindergarten set.

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I took the oldest three to see their first Shakespeare play last week, a local production of Much Ado About Nothing.  We had just read the Lambs' version of the play last spring (for Year 3), so we listened to the Arkangel audio of the full-length version over the last couple months and the kids also learned several passages as part of their memory work.  They were so excited about going and absolutely loved it.


I'm thinking we'll probably read Midsummer Night's Dream next and then The Winter's Tale for Term 3, since I think that will be playing locally this spring.  That is one of my favorite plays, so I'm looking forward to it!

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My husband started working from home again for at least the short-term as of a couple weeks ago, which means we'll be hitting the beach 1-2 times a week as long as the weather holds.  We had this same situation pop up last summer and it was bliss.  I feel really thankful to have the opportunity for more time at my favorite places with my favorite people.

(Both of those photos are completely unedited--no color filters or brightening or anything.  So if posting slows down a bit here, it's because I am sitting under a beach umbrella staring out at those beautiful waves and those beautiful kids. ;)  I have to take it when I can get it since I never take the kids to the beach by myself!)

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The challenge with that scenario is getting school done!  Last week, for example, we had one full day at the beach, one morning out for nature study, and one morning out for homeschool park day.  This week, we'll be adding back in our piano and art lessons one morning too, and I think we're aiming for two beach trips.  That makes my "average day chart" look less and less average. ;)

This is why I love working primarily from a weekly checklist rather than a daily schedule.  For the days that we were home, we followed our daily schedule and appreciated the pre-planned rhythm.  For the days that we weren't, we worked off of our weekly checklist before and after the day's outing.

We also did a few things in the car on the hour-long drive to the coast: the week's Minn reading and narration, the narration for This Country of Ours, a bit of Italian, memory work using Evernote on my phone, and an hour of our Year 4 free read on the drive home.

Thanks to the weekly checklist, we still got everything done without feeling like we were behind just because we missed Latin on Monday morning at 9:30am. ;)

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Oh, and one last thing about the beach: I came across this creature on our last outing.  Anyone know what it is?  Just a sea slug?  It was dead and smelled terrible, but I had to hold it to get some photos--all for the love of nature study, you know.

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Some friends and I have been doing nature study together for years, and this year we're attempting a slightly more formal approach now that our kids are a bit older.  We're focusing on trees, and we'll be following a half dozen of our most common native trees over the course of the year.

Usually we have maybe 3-4 families and 10-15 kids, but last week, we had eight families and over 35 kids!  Those picnic tables shown above were packed and we ended up having to journal in shifts--a really fun time. :)