Preparing for School

Here are a couple things that have kept me busy recently. Actually, ever since school got out in June I have been busy printing state pages of all 50 states in order to comb bind them and make state notebooks for the older 4 children. Completing these notebooks will be an ongoing project for the next two years as we study history chronologically using Tapestry of Grace. But I knew it would ultimately be so much easier to print all the pages and comb bind them ONE time rather than having to add pages throughout the next two years.

I purchased this set of state notebooking pages, downloaded them, and began the slow process of printing 4 copies of 6 pages for each of the 50 states. If you're doing the math, that adds up to 1200 pages!! And if you have an inkjet printer, you know how s-l-o-w they are! After several weeks, one and a half black ink printer cartridges, and 2.5 reams of paper, I am DONE!!!! I literally did a happy dance when I printed off my last Hawaii page! Here is the stack of pages, a full 3 inches high.



A new fun thing for this coming year is that daughter G and I will be participating in a virtual co-op online, for history discussions once a week. Four times out of the year I will be the designated teacher for the week, leading the discussion, and the other weeks another mom will be the teacher. There are 12 middle school aged children all across the country involved in this history discussion, and G is very excited about it! She will need to complete her weekly reading and write out answers to thinking and accountability questions in preparation for this discussion, and I think it will be good practice for her to be accountable to someone else. We each had to buy a headset with microphone and that was it. Here I am, participating in my first "mom's discussion" online. It was neat to hear all the different ladies' voices and feel like we were just chatting in someone's living room! We learned how to use the whiteboard feature and some other pretty cool things too.

I have also read through our Latin and *think* that I am ready to begin. G is very excited to learn Latin as well, which makes me happy! So the school prep is happening slowly and surely. In about 36 hours we will be leaving for a week of vacation, during which time I plan to read, sleep, swim, cook for my family, play with my kids, enjoy my hubby, read my Bible, pray, reflect, journal, and come home refreshed. Think it'll happen??!