It’s that time again to look back at what happened last week (and yesterday), and see how things have been going in our homeschool and life in general. As usual, I’m linking up to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers’ Weekly Wrap-Up and Conversion Diary’s Seven Quick Takes.
Unlike the previous week, where we had more formal academic work done, last week was a bit more “unschoolish” for us. Well, we still had a bit of worksheet time for our first grader but it was more of a relaxed week for us on the schoolfront. Monday, as I said in my last week-and-day-that-was post, was a typical day for us, and we started rowing Make Way for Ducklings, as sort of a “connection” to The Story About Ping.
In connection to both books, the highlight of our day was trying to make a 3D paper model of a duck, which we got from a book we bought years ago. The kids had fun and we learned the value of patience and perseverance too as it was quite challenging to put it together. (Yes, I am a craft-challenged homeschool mom, which is why I won’t be sharing photos of that duck! Ha, ha!)
On Tuesday I discovered that it is possible to cook lunch (which was also what we had for dinner), attend to the kids and be interviewed by a potential client (on Facebook, no less ;)) all at the same time. Ha, ha! Of course, I had a little bit of help from again at one time. (Ssshh… don’t judge. 😉 Besides, I promise the kids’ have limited screen time every day!) In the afternoon, Tim had some workbook time again with his Brain Quest Second Grade book and Rysse had a lesson from Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons. We also had read-aloud time again, and I discovered that the kids REALLY LOVE Life of Fred! Now I need to save up for the other books, since we only have the first four titles in the series!
Life of Fred Elementary Series: Apples, Butterflies, Cats, Dogs
On Wednesday, my mom called while she was on her way home from Malolos, where she had been staying to look after my sick grandfather (thank you for praying for his healing; he’s started his cancer treatment already so please do keep those prayers coming!). I guess she missed the kids so she came and picked the two older ones up. They ended up staying overnight at my parents’ place. This is one of the things I love about homeschooling (at least, the way we do it) — the flexibility allows us time for other things, like bonding with other family members. Yes, it may seem like “non-schooling” to some but I’d like to believe that our children learn all the time, even by interacting with extended family.
The kids came home on Thursday afternoon so Thursday morning was just about work and caring for Anne. On Friday, I had to go to a meeting so I brought Anne with me and left the two older kids at my mother-in-law’s place. I showed Tim the workbook pages that I wanted him to do and asked Rysse to review her letters. I had a fruitful meeting with the team I’m working with, and I am excited for the new things coming up for them (us)! I love this shot of Anne from the meeting, heehee!
Caption this! Teehee! :)
Saturday morning found me at Medela House for the launch of ‘ “Seeing Doubles” support group because I was assigned to cover it by my editor at Philstar.com. It was truly inspiring and heartwarming to hear the stories of moms with twins — hats off to you, ladies!
MedelaMom Maricel (also a homeschool mom like me!) opens the support group discussion.
After the launch, we had a family lunch out before heading over to Kindermusik. Incidentally, Teacher Suzette already has a list of summer offerings which you can download here. The kids LOVE their summer classes at Kindermusik! Sadly, they missed last year’s classes because I gave birth, etcetera. They are super excited for this year!
This was taken during the summer of 2012. Gosh, the kids have grown so much since then! *sniff*
On Sunday, we went to Mass as usual, then dropped by Trinoma because Anthony had to check out a certain store. Then we went home, the kids went to my mother-in-law’s place for a while and I tried catching up on folding laundry. Monday (yesterday) we tried to go back to our normal routine: work for me before the kids wake up, breakfast, chores (laundry, cooking lunch, etc.), lunch, clean-up, formal academics time, etc. It was a fruitful day, thank You, Lord! 🙂
But to tell you the truth, I was kind of down on Sunday — maybe due to stress? Hormones? Whatever it was, thank God I’m over it now. Every day is a reason to be thankful. It also helped that little Rysse came up with a silly song for me while I was giving her a bath:
“Don’t cry, Mama (yes, she saw me crying. Why was I crying? I don’t really know, haha!)…
Don’t be stressed…
Don’t cry, Mama…
Don’t be stressed…”
One of the highlights of my week! 😉
Another one was this: One of the mommy models at the Medela launch approached me and said she reads my blog and asked me about homeschooling. Me being the forgetful woman that I am, I don’t remember her name anymore (so so sorry, beautiful mommy!) but I did promise her I’d write a detailed homeschooling FAQs post for her and all the other blog readers/people who email me to ask about homeschooling. She was probably like the fourth person to ask me about how we homeschool, how to start, etc. that week!
Now, let me end this post by asking you a question: If I were to write that long homeschooling post — and I will, I promise — what questions do you want answered? Please let me know in the comments! 🙂 May the rest of your week be uber blessed!
P.S.
I was “elsewhere” again on the Web last week (and yesterday), so I’m inviting you to take a look at where I was:
On CatholicMom.com: My first World View Wednesdays post, featuring the Philippines of course!
On World Moms Blog: How Childbirth Can Change Your Life
On Manila Bulletin: I was interviewed about how to keep the love alive even after you have kids, or something like that. 😉 Read about it here.
On Philstar.com: Focus on the Family: Events for February (I don’t know why the graphic I created for this wasn’t used, so I’ll just share it here, heehee!)
[…] and send the kids off to a good Catholic progressive preschool (ha, ha!). Other days, like during last week, I let the kids go to their grandparents’ place, so “unschooling/non-schooling” […]