Trying to get back to normal.

We had so much going on last week that this week it almost feels like we've come back from a vacation. We only did half days of school all last week. Then we had the field trip. We took Tuesday off to recover (really only Mom needed this!). So yesterday was the first full day of school for a while. It was the first day we have done our unit in a long time. I'm really not enjoying this unit study on the Eastern Hemisphere as much as I enjoyed the Western Hemisphere one. I think it's me. I am skipping over some of the activities this time because they just sound like too much effort, whereas last year we were doing all of the activities. That makes a huge difference.

I just have waxing and waning in my enthusiasm and that seems to be normal. I have to find ways to cope with it. I try to find my weaknesses as a teacher and figure out ways that these won't become weaknesses in the kids. Math, for example. I'm thinking of getting something with video or computer lessons next year. Netflix even has some math lessons on DVD. I don't know how good they are but it's worth looking into. Everyone raves about Teaching Textbooks but they are pricy, so I may look for them at the homeschool book swap in May.

Since I tend to sometimes procrastinate about doing science experiments and sometimes art lessons because of the mess and effort, we're going to have some science days at the park with the group this summer and a friend of one of the moms has volunteered to teach art to our group so that will be really nice.

Even though this year has been kind of busy, kind of crazy and sometimes I've completely lost my momentum, the kids are learning a lot. When I'm busy trying to catch up on work or something, they start unschooling themselves. For example, yesterday, the boys were discussing something they saw on Mythbusters with my 9 year old using the word "nucleation" correctly in a sentence (I had to look it up) and reading a book on science experiments trying to find one to challenge the Mythbusters. They found one and we sent it in. (I'll let you know if they ever put it on the show.) The point is, these 2 brothers, ages 9 and 15, were doing a lot of research for this, working together and enjoying each other's company. It was another one of those cool things that tend to happen more frequently when you are homeschooling.