Tweaking for the New Year

I'm assessing what's working and not working for us right now.  I'm also thinking about what I'd like to explore.  (I usually get overambitious.)

1. I want to start going to a daily Mass at least once a week.  I've really gotten out of the habit lately.   Mostly because Becky tends to sleep late, be grumpy when she awakes, and needs her momma there in the a.m.  The boys started off in September going to the 9:00 a.m Mass almost every morning but entropy set in after a while.  So my plan is to have one morning when I can go to mass and the older kids are responsible for putting breakfast on the table for me.  We'll probably just do cheeses, fruit and rolls.  Something easy.  They have never shown much interest in cooking and I, I am sad to say, haven't taught them much.

2.  I'd like a little bit more order in our breakfast read alouds.  I've been reading Charlotte Mason blogs and websites and I'm feeling a bit of her influence.  I think on Mondays and Wednesdays we'll do Bible History and Fridays I'd like to get back in the habit of reading Sunday's scripture readings to the kids.  Also, we'll read saints stories as they are appropriate.  Tuesdays will be Latin/Art class, so we don't do the regular read alouds.  Thursday I think I'll continue reading the Mathematicians are People Too.  After we are done with that, I'm tempted to read the Vision book on St. Philip Neri.  He is associated with the city of Rome and Hannah will be living in Rome all semester.  And I know very little about him so I'm anxious to read it to the kids and see what we can learn.  Of course if it doesn't grab them, I guess I'll come up with something else.

3.  I'll continue reading The Story of the Romans by Guerber.  Sean, my I-don't-like-history son, is starting to warm up to it.

4.  I think there will be a lot of study of all things Roman because of Hannah's semester there, so I have a lot of resources/ideas going on in my head.  I'm going to ask Hannah to send us a post card a week, so we can start a collection and learn about the city of Rome and its history that way.

5.  I'd like to add in poetry memorization to our morning repertoire.  My kids usually like memorizing but we've gotten away from it.  So I want to encourage that again.  I printed out some Charlotte Mason PNEU schedules.  She talks about 4th graders memorizing 400 lines of poetry.  Well, I don't know if we can make that goal but I do think it would be nice to memorize some favorite poems and maybe Psalm 23.  Also, the PNEU had the 4th graders memorizing Henry V's speech.  I think that might be a fun thing to do, read about Henry V, watch the movie and then try to memorize either 'into the breach' or St. Crispian's Day.  That's pretty ambitious.  The handwork for that year for the Charlotte Mason children was making a whole scene from the battle by sewing little tents and making clay figures of soldiers and knights.  Sounds cool!  I'm dreaming big here!  I'd also like to get in a little Latin memorization, like a prayer.

6. Sean might start taking music lessons again.  He's interested in maybe the clarinet and someday playing in a band.  We'll see.

7.  Sean doesn't want to return to art class.  He didn't really care for the teacher (that's usual!).  Becky is going to continue though.  But Sean is already complaining of boredom at times and I'm thinking during the dull winter months it might be nice to have some other structural thing to do, so I'm considering signing him up for Bravewriter.  He seems mildly open to it.  We'll have to talk about it.  Again, we'll see.

8.  I also want to start doing the Outdoor Hour Challenge.  I know January is probably a bad time to do this, but I figure we could try for once a week and some some kind of nature study.  Sean isn't into this but I'm hoping to drag him along.  Becky has started noticing all the birds' nests in the bare winter trees and keeps remarking on them.  We've also noticed a couple of great horned owls in the last two weeks!  And we can also see hawks and falcons as we drive along the roads.  So she's gotten fairly interested in birds.  I got her a birds' nest guide for Christmas.  I think we should start filling our bird feeders again.  I hope to do the Great American Bird Count this February, if the kids are interested.

9.  I am hoping to get a P.E./running class started at a local sports complex that works with homeschoolers.  Ideally that will happen on Friday afternoons at about the same time as our spring/fall tennis classes usually are held.

10.  I got the book Science Experiments You Can Eat.  It looks fun.  I was hoping to try that out to see if the kids would be interested.

I sort of wanted things to be more rhythmic so that there is a nice flow to the days.  I was thinking Monday or Wednesday could be either Outdoor Challenge or drawing days, depending on the weather and other things.  Tuesday would be Latin/Art/Bravewriter, Thursday could be Science day and Friday-P.E.  That's my dream plan.  Of course we'd have to factor in 4H, American Heritage Girls, Monthly Meetings (homeschool group), History/Lit for Josh on Wednesday afternoons, Vision therapy, CLC for Josh, Josh's Biology and Algebra/Geometry tutoring and possible music lessons.