Year 3/Week 2: Seriously?

Just looking at today's title, I couldn't believe we are actually homeschooling into Year 3 - who would have thought?!?! Many things have changed over the years, including the frequency of my blogs, but it's a great way to start the year, so here goes (many pardons to all my Facebook buddies who have already seen these in real time)...

Week 2, you say? What happened to Week 1? Well, let me show you....

This was our classroom during the first week of school.

I guess I also need to let you know that we started our school year AFTER Labor Day, as well. And AFTER my birthday, the day after Labor Day...and even though we started as late as 9/3/14, we still didn't start a full schedule because we were still in the middle of  THIS: repainting a good portion of our first floor (which we had been putting off for years...and, obviously, until the end of this summer.) We had a fun first week, though! After our traditional first day picture and annual "field trip" to Dunkin Donuts...

First day of Homeschool 2014-2015

we had an easy day of grocery shopping and then reading happily after finding Minecraft novels at BJs...

Third year of homeschool and finally found books they really LIKE to read!

Finding these books was a real Godsend to me since the boys have humored me by reading books I've assigned or helped them choose at the library, but they LOVED these. Finally! I may still have to assign reading time, but they won't complain..:)

Our second day of school was fun and busy. We headed up to Mt. Airy first to Talbot Run Equestrian Center for a homeschool Intro to Horseback Riding lesson. It was the first time the boys were ever on a horse, and they had a fantastic time. Danny giggled the whole time and Ben looked like he was born to ride...they are already bugging me when we are going next! Since it's an expensive hobby, we'll probably only be able to go once a month or so, but looking forward to giving them these great opportunities in whatever years we have left at Varga School.

 Danny and Ben sitting like champs

We finished our Thursday classes with a "math/spelling bee" on the car ride further north to our band lesson in Hampstead. Love our Encore Academy instructor and bandmates..it's a great perk and break for all of us each week. Our first week ended with a relaxing day on Friday while Dad took over the boys and watched over their reading assignment and took them for haircuts while I fled to the library to study for my Medical Coding class. After we were all done, we headed to Rockburn Park for a fun class through Howard County Parks and Rec, Introduction to Geocaching. We had a great time, found a few practice caches and got our smartphones set up to do more in the future. Loved it!

So, we were lucky that our first week really didn't require the classroom. We kicked tail finishing the painting over the weekend so that today (Monday), we were ready for REAL classes like this:

Ben and Danny doing their Math lesson in our new setup

Besides  not having things hung on the walls yet, we did pretty good and covered our first "full" day of subjects with math (Teaching Textbooks on DVD w/workbook again), English (Essentials in Writing on DVD w/workbook), instrument practice, reading and P.E. I'll be adding in History, Science, Art and other electives as we get further into the semester. I am just SO relieved to have my first floor back in working order for the first time in FOREVER, that everything seems so much easier now. Once I get all the subjects up and running, I'll be able to tackle re-carpeting the basement from the Spring Flood of '14 and all the crazy that will entail. But that's for another time. For now, we are just enjoying the normal!!

Til next breather - MHM