Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Planning for School While Getting Ready for the New Year

Wow! I need to take a deep breath and just relax a little.

I have so much I want to get done, and it is just not getting there.

I am still cleaning up after Christmas. It is amazing how much can happen in one day.

I had really been doing a great job of keeping the house up, and it was all destroyed in one day.

It is hard to keep things up though, when you are getting ready for the holidays.

Oh well, I know I will get it back in order, but I just wish I were farther along.

Oh well, I will buck up and just get er done! HA HA HA

So, as far as school goes, we will keep it light for the next couple of weeks as I try to get the house in order for the new year.

We will be focusing mainly on TOS review items until we really get back in the swing of things.

I think what we will do is to have my daughter doing Ten Marks, completing one worksheet a day, and then moving on to Math Facts Now for review.

I am having her do 25 multiplication, and 25 division each day. (She already know all this, as she is in the 8th grade, but we are reviewing this item, and hey, you can always use some good review, right?)

Then my son will do Math Facts Now as well, although he will be doing very basic addition. (He is just starting Kindergarten)

Following that, I think I will have them watch a video from Speekee.

It is funny because I can't get those spanish songs out of my head when I watch the videos! HA

They are loving Dig It! I am going to keep it to once or twice a week for now as we finish up these other review items.

After the new year begins, we are really going to dive into I See Sam, a reading program that we are reviewing.

I love it! We have done a little of it, but we are going to do it daily after we really get back into the swing of things this year.

And for my daughter, we are really going to dig into the Writing program we received from The Institute for Excellence in Writing. 

It is awesome!!!

We will also be listening to Peter and the Wolf from Maestro Classics. 

We have listened to this already once, and my son thought parts of it were kind of scary, but it is pretty cool.

I have never listened to anything like this before. It is a mix of a story and the Philharmonic Orchestra!

I will let you know more about these products as I get my reviews done, but you can check out their websites for now if you would like to.

So, I got our living room and my son's room picked up, and now I have the kitchen, our bedroom and bathroom, and my daughters room.

I still have the study, but it is a disaster ,and has been for a long, long time.

It is full of books, school and crafts supplies, etc.

I will take pictures of that for you. I am sure it will be amusing! HA

Well, I am off to get some of this stuff done. Hopefully I will get it all done this week.

I want to, at minimum, get everything done except for the study. If that is all I have to do next week, that will be great.

I'll keep you updated.

What are you all doing for school until the new year?

4 comments:

Tristan said...

We're enjoying our review items too mostly (not so much on I See Sam - it's just not clicking with us). Other than that this week we've got penguin lapbooks for middle kids, sign language for all, All About Spelling for oldest. Speekee is great, but yes, the songs are stuck in my head too. It's working for the kids though, so I'll live with it. Today was the second day we did Roman Town and they love it. Now I see one child wanting to learn about archeology so I'm off to check our bookshelves to see what we've got to read about it. Have a fun week!

Blossom Barden (NorthLaurel) said...

We are doing absolutely nothing until school resumes :) We school year round so this break is needed and enjoyed :) Unfortunately, the lack of routine does make for a long break... perhaps I will slip in something because some of the reviews are coming up and we've not gotten in to any! Just downloaded Roman Town last night and both kids wanted to play it right then (it was just about bedtime so mom was mean and said no!).
Have a great rest of your break :)

Rodna Allman said...

Tristan, yesterday my son came in the kitchen and said, "Mom, can you do something to get this song out of my head?" HA HA HA he was singing, Habla Espanol, Habla Espanol, HA HA HA

We haven't gotten very far into I See Sam yet, because of the holidays, but from what we have done and all I've read, it seems as if it would be good for us.

It seem very similar to Bob Books, or 100 Easy Lessons.

I think it will be a simple, non complicated program.

I'll let you know how we are still liking at as we progress.

I plan to really dig in next week.

Rodna Allman said...

Blossom, we usually don't do much in these months either, but I do have a lot of review items to do.

I am really happy with the ones I have to do as well, s that really helps.

My kids love Dig It! too. They ask to do it all the time.

Beyond the Stick Figure Art School/ TOS Review

Disclaimer: I received a FREE copy of this product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW in exchange for my honest review. I was not requir...