Both the months of August and September has seemed to escape me, and I have no idea where they went. We have been very busy these last two months. We still managed to get a lot of school done and have a few victories to show despite how busy we were these last two months.
August was full of trips and birthdays for us. We started the month by Hubby and I taking a belated anniversary trip to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. We enjoyed visiting an alligator park, the Pirate Voyage show, Wine Tasting and some shopping and sight seeing along the way.
Later in August both Hubby and I celebrated our birthdays as well.
While Hubby and I were away Bahgum (Hubby’s Mom) came to stay with the girls and they had plenty of adventures of their own. They went to the NASCAR museum in Charlotte, North Carolina had their nails done, went to a water park and then celebrated Bahgum’s birthday at the Biltmore Mansion in Asheville, North Carolina.
In September we went to the Discovery Place Science Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina after church one Sunday. We then left South Carolina during Hurricane Florence and returned to Wisconsin for a brief trip there. We were not in the direct path of the hurricane, but Hubby’s job shut down during the storm for safety reasons, so we decided to make the trip home rather than coop ourselves up during the rain.
While we were home in Wisconsin we watched a volleyball game, had Friday Lunch with family and the girls had a date with their cousins at the local pumpkin patch.
When we returned to South Carolina Mouse Celebrated her 8th Birthday. The night before we celebrated with Daddy-O at Olive Garden. The next day on her actual birthday we went shopping during the day and ate at Texas Rodeo House (AKA Texas Road House), before ending our evening at the soccer field.
Both girls have started soccer here with the local YMCA and have kept this Momma Bear Busy with three nights a week of practice. They will practice for the rest of September and the month of October they will start playing some games as well.
I have also distracted myself with a lot of planning and prepping for next year. I’m trying to stream line my planning pages and binder system to be able to work our year in quarters instead of chunking things together randomly. I’ve also been looking and planning out a few extra things for our other curriculums as well, because I have to create or plan a few things to do with these as well, and my logic is if I start now, I hopefully won’t have as much planning to do once the year starts next year. It has kept me busy and distracted during my free time these least few months
We have kept up with school as best as we could during these last two months but have a had a lot of short or interrupted weeks.
Together we finished “A Wrinkle in Time” and then we were able to watch the movie. The girls were a little disappointed the Aunt Beast did not play as big of a roll in the movie as she had in the book.
We have started to study Macedonia and Alexander the Great in history and we were able to tie in “Magic Tree House: Stallion by Starlight” as a reader this last week or so for Mouse. We have been learning about different aspects of plants for science. We have discussed what makes up a plant, deciduous and ever green trees, monocots and dicots and have begun exploring roots this week as well. We are happily anticipating fall here so that we can study some of the leaves around us as they fall of the trees completing a leaf project for school.
We continued our theme of Honesty through August and September for bible. This seems to be working for us well and I have been busy developing coloring sheets and activities to tie in our learning for each character trait. Eventually I hope to share what we have been making and have it available to purchase or free to print.
Mouse has trucked right along with All About Reading and we will begin Lesson 20 nest week. She has been averaging about six lesson a month and at this rate we will quite possibly finish AAR Level Three right at the beginning of the year next year.
Independent reading wise she has soared over the last 3 weeks in this area. On her birthday we bought a book called “Princess Pulverizer Quit Bugging Me”. She devoured it with delight. When we bought it we didn’t realize that it was the fourth book, so with her eagerness for the book Daddy-O and I decided to purchase the first three books in the series for her. She has already finished the first book (in two days) and has happily started the second. I signed her up for the Pizza Hut Book it program this year and we agreed that her goal for the month of September would be to read the series. She is almost there to earing her pizza reward.
We have still been stuck with 3-digit column addition. I think we may move on once she test next week again. She shows the proper skill and knowledge and can teach the problems and concept back to me (which is what I look for in mastery). She isn’t quite getting 100% every time, but she is consistent in her knowledge of the subject and I’m confident to move her to the next lesson, since it is a continuation of the same topic anyways.
She also continues to make strides in Spelling, but I’m keeping the pace slow with this still as she gets easily upset with her if she misses a word or two and must repeat them the next day. I have confidence as she has picked up writing for pleasure more that spelling will come easier to her.