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Week Two of Homeschooling Completed

This week was so much fun!  Almost everything worked out as planned, and nothing felt too overwhelming.

Monday was probably the hardest day.  Our local library system went down for a whole week while they implemented a new catalog.  This was very difficult for me since I think I log into my library account from home a couple of times a day.  It meant that I couldn't make holds for books I want, and the books I had on hold were not going to come in while the system was down.  This caused some problems for our "sharing" books.  Since most of them weren't available by Monday (still learning my lesson on that one from last week), I had to actually go through the catalog and pick books off the shelves.  When my kids are older, this won't be a big problem.  However, my one-year old did NOT want to stay in the stroller and decided to make some, well let's say "not library appropriate" noises.  When I took him out, he either wanted to pull all the books off the shelves or take off running toward the exit.  Thankfully, my preschooler was behaving.  All this to say, I LOVE the hold system at the library and will be very thankful for when it comes back.  It was, in the end, a success.  We made it home from the library with books in our bag and a little boy excited to read them.

Our baking day on Tuesday went well too.  There was some poor planning on mama's part since the friendship bread takes TEN DAYS to make.  Whoops!  Instead, we made some awesome zucchini bread which was all gone by Friday.  We practiced our sharing by taking some over to the neighbors.

We enjoyed our trip to the indoor playground on Wednesday.  I hope that we will be able to go back and visit again soon.

Picking my son up from preschool on Thursday went a lot better this week.  He ate the food I brought him all the way home and was very pleasant when we got to the house.  He even told us that he enjoyed playing with the trains and with friends at preschool which is more than we got out of him last week.  I still didn't get a chance to talk to his teacher, but I'm not sure that it is necessary.

On Friday morning, we did our little craft project with the poster chalk.  He seemed to enjoy drawing until I started doing it along with him.  Once I started my own little drawing, he only wanted to direct me with what I should draw.  He no longer responded to encouragement to draw more.  So, that project lasted a whole of five minutes.  Hey, at least we tried!

That morning, my one-year old was super fussy (come on teeth, come in!), so we decided to make an outing to the Frye Art Museum.  They only had one exhibit open, which was more than enough for our motley crew. Noah did really well.  He was quiet and relatively respectful.  However, we did have one mishap, so I think we are going to forgo public art museums for a while.  The ever-friendly Olympic Sculpture Park in Downtown Seattle will probably see a lot of us.  Maybe we'll visit some student art exhibits at local colleges and universities.

Our Successes This Week
  • Watching my son apparently wanting to share with others.  This is something I probably wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't our theme for the week, but it gave me a greater appreciation for the person he is becoming.  When I give him some fruit, he will often give some slices to his brother.  If he wants some sort of treat, I ask him to give some to little brother first, and he does so willingly.
  • Having lunch on the way home for preschool.  Happy preschooler, happy mama!
What Could Have Gone Better
  • Still need to put books on hold earlier.  I think I've got this one down now though.  Now, if only I could access my library account, hmmm.....
  • My preschooler didn't nap for four straight days this week.  Good thing he still has quiet time.  Mama needs it!
What I've Learned
  • This week has been very busy with lesson planning.  Ever since I realized that I need to put holds on books earlier, I've discovered that I need to know what I'm going to be doing for at least the next couple of weeks.  I've since made a chart that has every week of the semester with the following things on it.  This has made life a lot easier, and I don't have to scramble to come up with what we are going to do at the beginning of any given week.
    • Topic - Weekly
    • Craft (Baking and Art) - Weekly
    • Field Trip - Weekly
    • Artist - Monthly
    • Composer - Monthly
    • Memory Verse - Monthly
Well, that's about it.  Next week's topic is Serving/Helping.

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