Monday Morning Coffee Break

Okay, I don't really drink coffee. It's always sweet tea or Coke, but coffee just sounded better in the title. ;-) I thought I would post a few thoughts before we get started for the day after a week off, then, I can compare notes at the end of the day and see if my thoughts for the day were realistic or not.


It's still quiet in the house, as the kids are still sleeping. I got monkey bread put together last night, so it's all ready to be popped in the oven for a fresh, hot breakfast when every gets up. I am hopeful that today will go well. Josh wasn't feeling well yesterday, but he laid around in bed all day and seemed to be feeling better by the time everyone else was ready for bed. So, I'm hopeful that he'll feel much better today.

Thanks to a week off and some time to plan, I've got lots of stuff on tap for this week. I've got everything ready for two craft projects (plus a couple of small, fun ones for Nim), I've got all my copying done and I updated Nim's learning center, which has been a bit bare lately. I decided to give it a little Halloween theme since Halloween is Friday. The theme will also give us a chance to talk about patterns. How many patterns do you see?

Oh, in case you're wondering, I had mentioned doing the corresponding number of items for the number of the week, but now that we're up to six, that's getting to be a bit much, as I knew it would. However, I still have six total items. Also, the hand is five fingers, for the letter F.

I have also been given an opportunity to try out Time4Learning for four weeks, so we'll start that today. I was able to sign up all four kids, so I'll be able to see what a variety of grade levels look like, which should give me a nice overall view of what Time4Learning has to offer.

I've also pulled out my Times Tales materials and will be using that with Josh and Megan this week. I have the Phonics Pathways and Abeka books for reading, along with some fun-looking workbook pages (or at least different, since they aren't Scaredy Cat Reading) to reinforce reading concepts.

I admit that I'm really ready to be finished with Ancient Rome, but we've still got a few weeks to go both in Story of the World and Brianna's lessons. I'd just skip it since, if I'm bored with it, it's almost a certainty that the kids are, but I don't want to start the Middle Ages this close to the end of this half of our school year, so we'll plug along. We are, at least, studying some new people -- including Caesar and Cleopatra, so maybe that will renew everyone's interest.

In science, we'll be learning about bees and wasps, which are very interesting. Everyone always seems to enjoy studying insects. We'll also be picking Latin back up, which, believe it or not, the kids have been asking about.

I was really feeling burned out before our break, so I'm hoping to just keep things light, fun and more hands-on without compromising progress. As silly as it sounds, the thing I'm most concerned about this week is finding time to help everyone get set up and started on Time4Learning and still get our regular work done. My two options are to A) let the kids use my laptop so that I can be doing other things and still be available to help or B) let them work on the desktop without me there to supervise.

I'm not liking either option. I'll probably go with the first one, though. Shhh...don't tell Brian. ;-)

I guess this kind of wound up being the Weekly Wrap-Up Prequel. If you haven't joined us for the Weekly Wrap-Up yet, there's still time.

What's got you excited about school this week?

photo by cripic