First Week Back to Books 2019-2020

Every year I try to celebrate our first week "Back to Books" with special treats.  We technically school year round, but take a few months off from set curriculum.  There's just always so much going on with 4H, that it's hard to keep up.  I was literally struggling to get into the mood to start this year.  The summer was exhausting.  And I haven't recovered from everything we had to do.  As the kids get older, there are so many more things that I need to keep track of and make sure they are progressing toward adulthood.  Even though Joey has graduated, there are still meetings and areas we have to continue to work on.

This year, I started with a special menu and surprise of some new school supplies

Breakfast:  coffee cake topped with cinnamon doughnuts.  A true diabetic nightmare.  I made as small of a cake as possible.

Lunch was chicken bacon ranch quesadillas w/ fruit and milk.  I was in a hurry because of our sunflower field trip and taking my mom to the dr.  But I planned a special dinner....

Dinner - School pizza on trays

I'm having a hard time....We have another senior...another senior?!?!!

I took the girl's pictures at the sunflower patch with their grade signs.

That morning, I took the girls and a few of their friends to a local sunflower patch.  Sunflowers are my favorite flower.  But I wasn't even prepared for how beautiful this was!!

They got to cut their own mason jar vases full.

Their vases resting while they went to take more pictures and run in the sunflower patch.

When we got home, we had to run grandma to the dr.  But when we got home, Caty stopped at the library for her reading certificate from the summer reading program.  It turns out that Caty was the top reader of all 3 library branches for our system!!!  She reported 140 hours, but I know it was much more than that.

For geography this week, we are visiting Alabama.  We love Aerial America, so we watched the episode on Alabama.  Then we found a series called State Plate on Amazon.  This cooking show focuses on each state in the union.  We enjoyed it.  The next day we re-created the recipes we saw.

Some other books we used this week.

 Alabama Gulf coast seafood dip.

Fried Green Tomatoes

Alabama White BBQ Sauce

I invented my own fried green tomato salad....this was so yummy.  The tartness of the tomatoes made me feel like I was eating an Olive Garden salad.  SOOOO GOOD!!!

Brayden and I went rounds about his schoolwork, on the very first day.  I told him I would pull all the power plugs on his consoles if he didn't get his work done.  It's going to be a long senior year trying to finish what he needs to complete.

Lydia had two softball games this week.  I got to do the scoreboard one game.  This is fun and a great way to keep me focused on the game.

On Wednesday we were supposed to go to a local quarry to swim.  When I planned the trip, the website showed them open.  My friend that was going with us discovered the hours change on Tuesday.  So frustrating that they chose to close during the week and only open on weekends.  So we had an impromptu beach party at the house.  The kids played and swam for hours.  We had lunch.  My friend and I worked on planning for school....lol.  It was quiet and it worked for us!!!

Caty working on her math.  We had a two steps back scenario with her, and she is working hard on her multiplication again.

Lydia had a couple zoo shifts this week.  So that meant some van-schooling starting already.  Audiobooks to the rescue!!  Their history book is on audio.  We did a lot of discussions about the topics.

 Caty and I were working at the kitchen island one morning while Joe was having a meeting in the living room.  We do not have a set place, we can school almost wherever if we have internet.

One of Caty's books this year is Kitchen science.  She gets to do 1-2 recipes a week.  I am kind of letting her choose at the moment.  This week she chose the Pretzels...shocker there.  They are one of her favorites.

These were a hit!

Two games this week!  Busy softball week!  But we have such a short season.

We had a friend staying with us and so we took her to Cedar Point.  I think the kids are finally done with Cedar Point for a year!

Lydia had to work the next morning, so Joe and I took advantage of her short shift.  We had a mom-dad date at Dave & Busters while waiting for her!

Then we took the kids to the batting cages and ride in go karts!  It was a fun time.

We survived our first week "Back to Books".  Now to find our new groove.  You all know how that is.  It takes a few weeks to find what is going to work for schedules.  Our co-op starts in another week and Caty's Japanese classes and fall sports start also.  We will definitely be kept on our toes.

Hope everyone had a great first week!!

Linking up with other homeschool families at Homeschool Coffee Break!