Year 3/Week 4: A Return to Normalcy..for us, anyway...

This is our fourth week of homeschool for Year 3 and the first day of fall. So thankful this summer is over...it was a bear! And for the first time in our 5th and 7th grade schooling, we are finally falling in a regular routine and our house is beginning to recover. Once the painting was done, it took me a full week to restock the schoolroom (not including the space we are losing because the bay window ceiling is still leaking) and de-junkify the front living room. Today we finally got the TV room decluttered and vacuumed and it FINALLY feels ready to face company again. Now, once I get my office and upper hallway cleared of the stuff we loaded out of the basement from the flood...and box up or donate all the stuff in the basement...and move the basement furniture...and get the carpet in the basement replaced..we'll be set :)

The boys are on a regular schedule of a core daily program of math, English, reading, instrument practice, Bible/religion study, and what I call MYH (Move Your Hiney time, which is a daily chart of stretching, strength exercises and cardio they can choose from to complete their 30 minutes daily) and they are falling into step pretty well. We've still had to work at Danny not getting distracted while on the computer for math and English, but I've got to admit, he is really trying hard. Which is nice after last week, where I was SERIOUSLY one step from driving him up and enrolling him in school...public school, church school, ANY school! But we got through that (for now) and we're doing okay.

Our school week includes "add-ins" of history, geography, science, health and art as I can fit them in and find good lessons. Music is still weekly band lessons with Encore Academy and I'm just as excited as the boys that we are moving up to Intermediate Band this year. Woot!

This is our first year not using the Sonlight Instructor's Guide for history, although I did buy a good amount of the Sonlight Readers to use in conjunction with our Story of the World studies this year. I've made the executive decision (which I am still realizing I can do) to limit our studies to Egypt, Greece, Rome and as much of the Middle Ages and Renaissance as we can get to this year. Since this is Danny's last year with me (and it SO is...lol), I want to touch on as much of World History as I can before he goes. I wish we could have made it to the Maryland Renaissance Festival this year, but we got rained out on the only free weekend before baseball started. Serious bummer for Mom/Teacher.

But the reason we are missing the Ren Fest is awesome...the boys are playing baseball for the very first time (which is also most of their cardio for MYH time)...and loving it! I couldn't be more tickled, because this is really hubby's sport and he is right in there helping them practice, getting their equipment and taking them to the batting cages, practices and games. I finally feel like I'm seeing one of the biggest payoffs we'll get from homeschooling - having enough time in our schedule to try different activities including this one, which is a homerun for everyone this time. :)

 Danny's first baseball team warming up before the game...he's #53 :)

Ben at his first practice before he got rained out..complete with game face :)

So, now that the house is fairly under control and the boys have their work finished in good time today, I'm off to list more of my growing pile of "give aways" on my eBay store and do a little studying for my own classes while I'm at it. Yee-haw! Talk to you during my next breather....MLM