Chopsticks, Geocaching, Smithsonian Exhibit. Our week in review

This was an unusual week for us.  By us, I mean me.

Husband just had a birthday last week.  His birthday wish was a fishing trip, so I took time off from work while he went fishing.  Or as we called it "teacher development days".

I had great plans for the two days I'd be home with the kids.  We would get up early, have a big breakfast, get our school work done.  You know, it all sounded possible and great.  In theory.  What I didn't anticipate was that I would be the one dragging herself out of bed at 8:30am.  Ooops. I guess my body was trying to tell me it is ok to sleep passed my normal 5am wake up time.

On day one, there was lots of whining because, instead of going outside to explore, they had to do English.  Oh the horror!  Are they always this whiny? Husband says yes.  I just don't know how he handles it daily, because, after 30 minutes, I had enough of the complaining.  I think we are going to get a timer and see how that works.  None of these assignments they are working on should take longer than 30 minutes.

But we did manage to do a lot of things in the two days we were home alone.  

Spent time watching my karate kid do his thing in class.  He is a natural.  I'm convinced he has some Korean blood in him (probably from my father's side of the family) because he has taken to Han Mu Do as a fish to water!
 
I made some fried rice one night and the kids decided they wanted to learn how to use chopsticks.  So they pulled them out and gave it a try.  I tried to tell them it would be easier to learn if they had something like veggies or meat to grab rather than rice but they wanted to try.  After a few minutes; everyone went back to the western utensils.  

We also started geocaching.  Until recently, I hadn't heard about it.  I asked the kids if they wanted to give it a try, and off we went.  I do think we need to involve dad in our adventures, because some of the caches may be in areas this city girl is hesitant to explore (ie any area where a snake may be). 

After piano lessons, we went to the Smithsonian Traveling exhibit The way we worked.  It was very informative, and the kids were surprised to learn, once upon a time, kids their age actually had jobs! Talk about realizing how spoiled they truly are. 

I finally realized that creating my own homeschool planner probably wasn't going to work for me.  As much as I wanted to do it, I wasn't really sure where to start, not to mention all that printing!  So I order the Simple Plan by Mardel.  I'm excited to start using it and have one location to keep up with all the kids are doing.

I also started working on their "workboxes".  I didn't read the book.  I found several ideas on Pinterest and decided to try and implement my own version.  We really don't have room for individual boxes for each kid; so I just bought a big box with folders for each subject.  I'm sure there will be tweaking involved to get them working for us, but isn't that what homeschooling is about? Adjusting and changing to suit our needs?



Planning and choosing curriculum is quite challenging.  I thought laying it all out for my husband was the hardest part of homeschooling.  I now realize, after staying home for a couple of days, how difficult it can be to implement it.  

So, hats off to my husband, who stays home and tries to get the kids motivated every day to learn and do their work.  Thank you!