You know, after awhile, it gets hard to remember what I've blogged about versus what I've Tweeted about. If you're not following me on Twitter yet, maybe you should because my memory only lasts about 140 characters worth. If you are following me on Twitter, you may already be thinking that I need to get checked for early signs of dementia based on the fact that I repeat things, but don't seem to realize that I'm repeating myself.
Brian and I were supposed to have a weekend date last week, but we got a call early Saturday morning. Megan was sick and running a fever, so the grandparents were bringing her home. After two days of non-relenting fever, no appetite and generally feeling rotten, we began our week with a trip to the doctor: strep throat.
I confess that both Megan and I were relieved with the strep throat diagnosis, though. Megan was relieved because, if the throat swab came back negative, they were going to have to draw blood (she has a deep-rooted phobia of needles thanks to dehydration and an incompetent nurse when she was a baby). I was relieved because I had given in to the hype and looked up the symptoms for swine flu. She had nearly all of them.
As if that wasn't a bad enough way to start our week, Google decided to hold my blog hostage for more than 24 hours, staring sometime last Sunday. I couldn't post! I mean, seriously, can you say blogger's worst nightmare?? Yes, I realize how sad that is. I'm thinking of starting a support group for blog addiction, but, c'mon. It was Homeschool Showcase day and I couldn't post!
The bright spot in my Monday was that my number came up in the fabulous Darcy's design queue. Have you grabbed my new button yet?
I love it! I think Darcy did a fabulous job, as usual. You can grab the code from my sidebar, if you want the button for your blog.
Another highlight to the early part of the week was starting a fantastic new contest for a family of homeschool shirts, sponsored by Homeschool Boutique. You can win a homeschool shirt for every member of your family (up to five shirts)!
In school news, since it is officially July, I have forced my mind to start thinking about next year. It's Brianna's 8th grade year, so I'm planning to use that as a "practice year" for high school. I've been going through the Upper Level Homechooling course to help me figure out how to best handle the high school years. I also picked up a book that came highly recommended in a homeschooling high school seminar I went to a year or so ago. It's called Reading Lists for College-Bound Students and it has wonderful lists of books that most colleges expect incoming freshmen to have read. The lists are sorted in several different ways -- by college (if your child is hoping to attend a particular school), by genre, and by author's birthplace (which is really nice for trying to design an American Lit or British Lit course), just to name a few.
I think figuring out her literature and composition courses for next year is my biggest challenge for next year. Math is simple. We're using Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra. Grammar is simple. We'll continue with Easy Grammar and Daily Grams. History and science she'll continue with Josh and Megan, for this year, with Story of the World and the Christian Kids Explore series (beefed up a bit for Brianna, with additional reading).
My general idea right now is the design an 8th grade "lit and composition" class, that will include various books from the reading lists book that (hopefully!) go with something we're doing in history or science and composition using Wordsmith, which looks really impressive, so far. Speaking of reading and literature, have you seen those new No Fear Shakespeare books? They're awesome! That have the original Shakespeare on the left page and a modern translation on the right. We are so going to be using those when we read Shakespeare!
As for Josh and Megan, I sat down on Thursday and made my list of all the things they'll be using this year. I do a buying co-op with a friend, so I was making lists of titles, price and ISBN numbers so that I'll be prepared. I'm very pleased with how our homeschool budget is shaping up this year. Including school supplies and non-essentials, it should be around $200 per child (not including music class and other memberships). How much do you average per year, per child?
Tonight Megan has a friend over, Brian has come down with the same symptoms Megan had last weekend(which is another excellent reason, besides the unseasonably mild July day, for being out on the screened in porch with my laptop) and we have no exciting plans for the holiday weekend, other than cooking out at my dad's house on Sunday.
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