Weekly Wrap-Up - Lisa's Logbook Revised

Thought I'd try a new meme format. I was getting bored with the old one. As you may have already noticed, I haven't posted it in quite a while.

In our home education this week... the focus was National Novel Writing Month aka NaNoWriMo! The goal is to write a novel (50,000 words) in a month (November). All the kids are participating for the 3rd time, except David who has one additional year under his belt. As of Friday, their word counts were David - 8300, Emily - 11,000, James - 5060, and Suzy - 516. James and Suzy are participating in the Young Writer's Program, so we set custom goals for them. I am at 7200, thus both my teens are ahead of me for once! Yes, I have been busy, but I've also been procrastinating! (Case in point: this blog entry. Ahem.)

What's working for us: the monthly lesson plan sheets we have been using for years now. I've included an old picture of these. If there is interest, I can write more about how I put those together each month.

One place we visited:
Great Harvest Bread Company - a small franchised bakery that uses whole grains and has a great business philosophy - check them out! Our group sampled the tasty bread, viewed the oven, mixer, grain grinder, and work areas, then got hands-on making dog biscuits. My two youngest kids attended and they enjoyed it a lot!

I'm reading: The Letters of Jane Austen in preparation for my book club. And I'm actually reading it! I just finished my listening to Drums of Autumn, the 4th book in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series (my 3rd time reading that book). I'm also listening to Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. Wow, it's long!

What the kids are reading: David is reading The Slumber of Christianity by Ted Dekker. Emily is reading a biography of Jane Austen. David and Emily are both reading Homeward Bound by James Fenimore Cooper; this is for their American Lit class at co-op. James just finished 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. 

My favorite thing this week: SCONES from Great Harvest Bread Company! A close second was participating in our karate testing and (hopefully) doing well!

Favorite Resource this Week: a free Android app for my phone that lets the kids practice their US Geography. U.S. Map Puzzle 

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share… Take the ACT early in your junior year. (...or the SAT, as the case may be. Here in Michigan, it's almost always the ACT.)

Questions I have:
How do I distill everything I still want David to learn into his last six months of homeschooling? He is in the home stretch and I am panicking!

A quote to share…
“It’s not enough to be busy, so are the ants. The question is, what are we busy about?“ – Henry David Thoreau

I am inspired by… National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) - I think more, I get creative (well, as creative as a left-brained practical person can get), I consider the future, I find like-minded friends, and I see my children writing and liking it!

I'm grateful for: Quiet time alone in the morning - it took a lot of years to achieve!

Coming up next week: working on memorizing the NE region of the US, Co-op on Friday, and I get a FREE massage!

Note: if you're not a homeschooler or if you just want my reports on daily life at the Wagner house, please ask for the link to my personal blog.