A successful week #6

This week was a bit of an experiment. Since I'm still not content with our daily schedules I decided to pretty much through caution to the wind this week.

Monday was an official "unschool" day. We got up and had pancakes for breakfast. After cleaning up we went swimming for half an hour. We came back, had some lunch and then we all curled up on the bed for an afternoon of reading time. We read Sea Clocks: the Story of Longitude by Louise Bordon, The Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller, Math Curse by Jon Scieszka, a few chapters of When Mammoths Walked the Earth by Caroline Arnold, 10 chapters of Haunted Waters, and a few pages out of Mad as a Wet Hen and Other Funny Idioms by Marvin Terban. Then after dinner we went for a bike ride to the library and took another swim before we called it a night.

Tuesday, I started to feel a little guilty about having so much fun on Monday, so we did a little more book work. We got up a little earlier and had breakfast. We did our Bible reading and then I decided to head out to the pool for a little swim. We did laps! So that's PE for the day. I had the kids do all their workbooks in math, english, vocab and spelling, word of the day, reading comp. We also did our puzzle from Arithme-tickle, and read from Mad as a Wet Hen, Haunted Waters, When Mammoths Walked the Earth, and A Family of Poems. We also read a selection from Great Composers by Piero Ventura. We're still studying Germany in our cultural studies so we read a folktale called The Elves and the Shoemaker as well as a book called King Ludwig's Castle by Lisa Trumbauer, which I found to be very interesting. Did you know the Magic Kingdom's castle is inspired by one of King Ludwig's castles? Anyway, by the end of the day, I felt totally worn out. There has to be a happy medium in there somewhere!

Wednesday and Thursday we took off because DH is home those days. Wednesdays he takes the kids out for the day. This week we got up and had omelets for breakfast. They headed out to the waterpark and I stayed home and worked on sewing projects all day. Thursday we had pancakes for breakfast. DH decided to play and made the kids shaped cakes, like sponge bob and mickey. Then he made his own "leaning tower of pisa". It was so tall he had to stick a chopstick through it to keep it upright while eating it! We spent Thursday shopping for a new couch to put in the cargo trailer. We want to set up the cargo trailer as a kind of living room space. Right now all our equipment is in a temperature controlled storage so we have some space to play with. The kids use it for a play area, but soon mommy will be moving in!

Today, Friday, I thought about trying to get as much done as possible but still have a relaxed day. Still need to do some tweaking for the week to get everything in, but I think I may have found our groove! Now that the weather is cooling off we're getting out a little more.

We got up today, had some cereal and headed out for a bike ride. We rode 5 miles! (there and back) We have this wonderful trail system of converted railroads. We went the opposite way today and headed out into the wild. Along the way we stopped at a butterfly garden and enjoyed the little creatures, as well as a little blurb about how butterflies morph from caterpillars. We also were able to identify some orb webs. We need to look up the other kinds - I couldn't remember! We made it down to the next station on the trail and took a little break to enjoy the moss-draped cypress trees and just enjoy the quietness of the area before heading home. On the way back we stopped to check out a truely huge grasshopper. A local told us they were a nuisance but we thought it pretty cool. It was a little warm as we got close to home, so when we got back we grabbed a quick bite and then headed to the pool to cool off. Then we came back to the RV and got to work. I had them do their workbooks in math and spelling today. Then we just did our readings. Bible, Life in Mesopotamia, Haunted Waters, A Family of Poems, Mad as a Wet Hen, Arithme-tickle, and a selection called "The Devil with Three Golden Hairs" from a book called Mightier than the Sword: World Folktales for Strong Boys. This particular selection originated in Germany.

The funny thing is - now that I'm sorta figuring this schedule out, DH is about to take a job in a new dept. at the company which will change his days off to FRI, SAT, SUN! Which is nice in and of itself, but now I'll have to squish the school days together. It was kind of nice having time off in the middle of the week!

My goals for this weekend: 1) get the family membership for the Science Center and spend some time there. The observatory is open on Fri. and Sat. nights so hopefully we'll go tonight! :D 2) figure out how to schedule next week!

Hope you all have a great weekend