What We Did for Homeschool This Summer

Like the creative title?  I think I'm out of energy for the day, and it's only lunchtime.  On the other hand, we successfully had devotional, family scriptures and prayer, chores, and individual scriptures (which somehow requires a whole lot of my time), before lunch.  I know, those are the things we probably should have had done before breakfast, but it felt like a lot today.

We did some homeschooling-type activities this summer, partly because I like it, and partly to make up for the months following giving birth, in which I didn't even pretend to be trying to homeschool.

This is a list of books we read- some were audio books, and some were books just the two oldest read.


The Cricket in Times Square (A)
Little House in the Big Woods (A)
Little House on the Prairie (A)
The Secret Zoo
The Boxcar Children
Surprise Island (Boxcar Children #2)
Ragged Dick
Wind in the Willows
Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
Boys Against Girls
Lincoln's Grave Robbers
The Mummy's Curse (Hardy Boys)
Several Nonfiction books on Egypt, unfortunately chosen at random while at the library.
The Igloo (Nonfiction, about how Eskimo's survived, and how to build Igloos)
Dinosaurs Before Dawn (Magic Treehouse)
The Yellow House Mystery (Boxcar Children #3)


There is no way I could possibly list all the picture books we read, but here are some of our favorites (which we read over and over again throughout the summer), and a few new ones the kids loved:

Curious George
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus
May I See the King?
The House That Jack Built
Christina Katerina and the Great Bear Train
The Jester Has Lost His Jingle
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales
Dear Mrs. LaRue
The First of Octember
Actually, all things Dr. Suess (especially my 5 yr old!)
Amelia Bedelia (Treasury)
If You Take a Mouse to the Movies, etc.
The Family Bedtime Treasury: Tales for Sleepy Times and Sweet Dreams
Tikki Tikki Tembo
I'm Not Cute

We did a unit on Egypt.  Kind of slapped together :(.  Someday I'll do a better one, but, we did it.  All about mummies (yuck), culture, pyramids, religion, and a few random facts.  Then Demetri read the Hardy Boys book to finish it up.

We drew lots of pictures.  Many drawing lessons were courtesy of nice people giving children free lessons on youtube.  Thank you.

We started Khan Academy.  The kids beg to play it.  They have to have all their other work done first.  They just discovered the computer programming lessons on there and will spend as long as I let them.  The best part of it is, I don't really have to teach much math.  If they don't understand something, there is a video to show them how.  This makes me very, very happy!

We wrote letters to family and friends.  Not all of them were sent :(, as I found out the more I cleaned, but we have tried.  We started scripture journals.  We cooked, did boy scouts, lots of library, piano lessons, geography, a couple of field trips (Pearl Harbor anyone?).

So, looking back, even though I worry once in a while that we don't get enough formal schooling in, I think they are doing just fine. Half the time they don't even know that what they are doing counts as "school."  And that's the way I like it.

A Couple of Pictures. Babies grow too fast!

It's not that I'm too busy to blog, but it could well be that I'm too tired :).  The goal at the moment is to post at least once a month.  In this way, I may still end up with some sort of memoir or "journal" when I can't remember my own name anymore.  Sadly, a child dropped the hard drive with my journal on it, which, sadly, was not backed up.  I thought it was, but it wasn't.  A whole year and a half of journal gone just like that.  Pouf!  But, I still have my blog, which has Lorenzo's birth story at least...

I tried to print pictures to send to grandparents today.  That was a waste of ink.  I should know to wait until Shawn comes home.  So, I'll do the next best thing and post some here.

This is Renzo way back in June.

 But I believe this one is July :).  I looked around and saw him with his mouth on the diaper box, and realized that he was kissing the Huggies baby.  He talked to the baby, tried to play with the baby and grab his face.  It was adorable, and hilarious. 

 This is currently my very favorite picture of Xander.  I love this age!

 All my guys (wishing the baby wasn't in the hiking backpack about now) hiking to Manoa Falls.

Someday soon, when Shawn lives here again, we'll go hiking again.  We love to hike, and we love to swim.  So Hawaii is pretty awesome.

This week we're just working on feeling better.  I'm glad they only seem to have mild cases of Hand, Foot, and Mouth.  Still, had to cancel all our plans and appointments for the week, and we have had an I Dream of Jeannie marathon and a Bewitched marathon.  Other than that we've been working on sharing- 2 computers and 3 kids who want to play Khan academy.