School Ramblings {August 19, 2016}

Pictures were taken by Scott during a nature walk last Sunday at our typical place. The above mushroom was found under our backyard pine tree. There were many of those this year.
 
We are in full swing of the new school year. Our friends in public school are back at it too so summer break is officially over. We are enjoying a 4 day school break due to a fishing trip.

What's in the Afternoon Basket? A favorite book has been The children's Plutarch-Tales of the Greeks by F.J. Gould. We have tried Plutarch in the past but either we didn't understand the translation or we didn't like the writing style. This book reads easily and is delightful. All three of us are finding it entertaining and narrations and discussions are readily taking place. We've finally conquered Plutarch!

Caleb's Favored Book~ I'm not sure which one he is enjoying at the moment, but when asked if we needed to drop a book (because it's not all getting done) he decided that he didn't want to drop any of them even though he feels like his schedule is too full. I'm taking that as a very good sign!

What's this? (improvement needed)~ I think we are all needing to work on giving our full attention to school work during school time. This has a lot to do with starting back early and summer break going on all around us. That should not be a problem anymore. I had some discussions yesterday about learning to ignore distractions in the house and keep at task. Sometimes we think a 5 minute distraction isn't a big deal, but they add up and then you realize your way behind and your work hasn't been that great either.

We've got this! (improvement made)~ We actually got through Afternoon Basket every day this week! I did some rearranging and some how it all fit together beautifully. I did drop one book, moved Shakespeare to the morning, and moved another book to their independent reading time. I also got Little House in the Big Woods on CD. These were all good changes.

Looking ahead (teacher duties)~ I worked on another schedule edit last night and it came out beautifully. I just needed to change independent work before Afternoon Basket in our afternoon schedule. I also needed to take out science, that Caleb and I were working together on first thing in the morning, and move it to later. I'm not sure who thought that was wise to do, lol!

I'm also working on adding things to French to make it worth a high school credit. I need to watch some DVDs from the library to see if it work for "French culture".

I started putting together two blog post on the books we are using this year/term but I have not been able to finish it. That's on the plan this weekend and I should have those published next week.   

Clicking Around~
Summons to the Sacred: On Palestrina "Kyrie" from Circe Institute-excellent article that would count for high school music study.

Why I Sabbath from Plumfield and Paideia-We have been working on doing something similiar. I was able to connect with Sara online to ask her a few questions and it was helpful in figuring out solutions to our problems with Sabbath.

Mason's Streams of Science from Sabbath Mood Homeschool-Her visuals were very helpful! I'm looking forward to next's weeks post. This is how we do science.