Checking In, and Gearing Up

After a full year of school combined with all of my planning for next year, I was so ready for time off. I was so ready, I didn't even blog the entire month of June. Between finishing the school year and preparing to enter a new phase of our homeschool, I was nearly drained of any and all energy concerning school. I read the WTM boards, most of the time, but I haven't been very social online in weeks.

We've had a busy, full summer so far. EG has been to several camps, and has one week of science camp remaining. FB had two weeks of mini-camp at the Y, too, though he's excited that next year, as a rising first grader, he can attend far more camps. We went to the Great Smoky Mountains one weekend, celebrated Independence Day, and took a trip to the zoo, not to mention trips to the water park. One of those trips involved burns to the bottoms of my feet, complete with blisters, but let's not talk too much about that.

For my part, I've been reading quite a bit, as well as working on finalizing memory work for the year. I realized belatedly that I was going to have to be more deliberate than "do more memory work in 2010-2011." I have a good deal of the work laid out, and Living Memory should be here in a week or so, which will help me fill in the remaining blanks. I'm even getting PC in on the action. She turns two in November, so it's not out of the realm of possibility for her to have memorized her full name and some nursery rhymes by the end of the school year.

I spent today getting our calendars and planning materials. While I'll have my usual binder of spreadsheet-plans for each subject, I wanted a separate plan book for myself that would give me the layout of each week. I found one at the local school supply store that has room for eight subjects and happily lists the days of the week down the side rather than across the top (my preference). I'll keep my detailed plans for MCT LA in there, all of FB's plans, and whatever other plans for EG that I feel I need to have in front of me. I also received EG's planner from amazon today. Two years ago, I introduced the assignment book, and it's worked well for two years. Increasingly, though, her assignments are either simple (Lesson X in Life of Fred, Exercise 2.2 in Latin Prep, etc.), or far too detailed to list in the book other than "see page," such as for history, music appreciation, and art appreciation. Last year, I purchased a planner for her, so she could keep track of non-academic endeavors. Having two books, though, didn't work out well, and in the end, she didn't keep up with the planner at all. So, this year, we're going to try integrating the two. I purchased her the Aspire planner from Action Publishing. I like that it encourages goal setting and a daily slot for assignments and other activities. When a subject has a quick entry, the information will go in that slot for the day - "Lesson 10 in LoF Adv Alg." If it's history, it will say "see history page." I'll be responsible for adding in her assignments, she'll be responsible for marking them complete. We'll work together, at least this first year, to add other commitments and activities. I'm hopeful this will work - and if it doesn't, I have one of our standby assignment books on hand, just in case.

I realized a few days ago, though, that I'm ready for the new school year to begin. As nice as the break has been, all of us need the structure. FB has started asking when it will be time for school start again, because he misses his friends at Master's Academy. Even though I had hoped we would have been moved and settled into our new house by the time that we began this 2010-2011 school year, I'm nevertheless ready to start it anyway. (Hopefully things will fall into place on that front!)

And now I need to find another way to avoid going to the freezer to get the meat I need in order to cook dinner. I'd be fine if I hadn't seen a mouse scurry across my carport into my freezer-containing utility room last week. I knew, intellectually, that it was likely small animals found their way into the utility room, but I was unconcerned, since utility room ≠ my house. Knowing there is a mouse around, though, makes me trepidatious about entering said utility room. Ugh!