The busier we are, the harder it is to find time to sit down and journal, of course -- but the more I want to capture these rich days, to remember and reassure myself when we're having weeks full of drudgery or doubt.

I'm enjoying working my way through the posts here on various homeschool curricula and how different families approach the question of using a curriculum. I have plans to get together with a few homeschooling moms soon, to talk about resources for next year, but I wish I could extend the conversation to my whole homeschooling network. Everybody's so spread out, though, both geographically and philosophically. I'm hoping to write more about my thoughts for next year, but that's not going to happen today.

We spent last week at my parents' in the North Country. There was kayaking, boating, swimming, ice cream, cooking, breakfast in the tree house, rollerskating, mini-golf, a visit to the Herkimer Diamond Mine (breaking rocks in the hot sun, visiting the museum, admiring the rocks we collected -- which include calcite and stromatolite), organic mexican food, naps, reading, campfires, s'mores, campfire singing...

We took the week off from playing school. It made both of us so enthusiastic about getting back to "school" that I think we'll take another week off later in the summer.

We're continuing with the Usborne Encyclopedia of World History -- we're reading about dinosaurs right now, just finished learning about the first fish and first reptiles -- and the Intellego Weather Unit (still doing nature studies, weather observation, reading about weather vs. climate and getting an overview of what creates weather). We're making slow progress with Coffee Break Espanol, and will be looking for a Spanish conversation buddy in another couple weeks.

We're continuing to work our way through the Native American stories in our Sacred Myths book, and we finished the cultural geography exploration in Oak Meadow. We're just getting started with a broader map/geography study, using _The Book of Where_ and _Map Mania_.

Sarah's expressed a desire to "catch up" in math, so we're putting some of the exploratory math projects to the side and focusing more on drills and basics for a little while. Starting soon, though, we'll be doing the projects in The Good Time Math Event Book, and she and Joe will be continuing with multiplication and division games.

She and I haven't been doing much independent work, so she hasn't been doing much copy work. I'm noticing that her improvements at spelling have stalled a bit, so we may restart copy work next week. (she was continuing to improve even without the copy work, so this might just be a normal plateau -- I'm not concerned, it's just serving as a reminder that I want to include copywork at least a couple days a week.)

Our summer reading

This is a place holder at the moment for the books we each read this summer.

Sarah:
Dragonrider by Cornelia Funke
Lightning Thief


Elizabeth:
A very short introduction to Prehistory
How Democratic is the American Constitution?

I'm having a... not a hard day, but an uncertain day. Are we doing the right thing, making the right choices, is this homeschooling approach working, are our daily routines the right ones for all of us... I'm trying to just breathe through it, and remind myself that Sarah's having a great time, she's learning a lot, and anything else there's plenty of time to address.

This weekend Sarah had a fabulous time at Pokemon League on Saturday, and a fun sleepover at my MIL's house. She finished reading Dragonrider by Cornelia Funke (one of her favorite birthday gifts), and got started reading The Lightning Thief.

This morning we continued with Oak Meadow's Native American creation stories, reading a Lakota story and then finding a few sites online to read more about the Lakota and Dakota. We read more in Usborne, learning about the warm, shallow seas of 510-390 million years ago, and the appearance of the first vertebrates, coral, and fish. We did another spanish lesson, and we'll be doing some nature study this evening.

No science experiments this afternoon -- the day got started late, and then we spent a lot of time planning the pop-up restaurant Sarah wants to invite her friends to, next month.

Last week we continued studying weather, looking at weather vs. climate and continuing to keep our weather journal. We also read a few more of the Native American stories in Sacred Myths, read a Cherokee story in Oak Meadow's social studies lessons, learned a little more about the Cherokee nation, read about the beginnings of life on earth and the creatures of the Cambrian period, played around with the Head of the Class site, and did more Spanish lessons.

We also made pickles for my dad for father's day, saw him and my sister and visited West Point, went bowling, and spent time at our volunteer gig, helping to set up for their annual fundraiser.

Our days aren't going as easily as I'd like -- between my weekly dental visits, our car troubles, and various social engagements, our weeks are a little too chaotic -- but I'm hoping things will settle down starting this week.

I have no idea what we did yesterday -- it's starting to seem as if Tuesdays just aren't our day for managing to fit in any playing school. We did get to our weekly volunteer gig, and Joe picked Sarah up to take her to Pokemon League, where they had an awesome time.

Today we did Oak Meadow Social Studies lesson 15, talking about a few Native American nations (Cherokee, Hopi, Lakota), about the geography and climate in which they lived before the Europeans came, and the sorts of homes they built. We looked at a map of the US and located where each Nation lived. We also read a few pages in Usborne about the Big Bang, the formation of the earth, and the shifting continents.

We did the next lesson on Coffee Break Spanish, did some math review, and watched a few more biology programs (one on birds, one on how animals observe in the wild).

This weekend was the rocket launch for the rocket building class Sarah attended a few weeks ago. The launch was awesome, everyone had a great time, and Sarah's excited about getting even further into model rockets as a hobby.

The apple spice cake Sarah made last week came out *perfect*, and it was a big hit with my grandparents, when we visited them to celebrate their 65th anniversary and Sarah's 10th birthday.

Today we're back with our social studies, Spanish, and Nature Study. We did lesson 13 from Oak Meadow, reading a story set in Ancient Kush, finding it on a map, then finding the area on a map of the world. We discussed maps, a little, figuring out what different notations mean. I can see how much Sarah's research skills are already improving, as she uses the index and maps with ease. We also read a couple more pages of the Usborne World History Encyclopedia, about fossils and evolution.

We're at lesson 3 in Coffee Break Spanish (we skipped last Friday). I think in 2 more weeks we're going to arrange to practice with a Spanish-speaking friend of ours.

For Nature Study we're just doing some more observation, looking and wondering and asking questions.

A couple months ago Sarah and I had a talk about what she might want to do with her life, what she wants her education to be preparing her for. I worry sometimes that I'm taking advantage of her laidback, cooperative nature when I design our days and lives -- that maybe she's not getting to do things she really wants to do, because she's not as demanding as some kids. She said she'd like to be prepared to go to college, just in case, but her dreams are to be a musician or a pastry chef. (Okay, technically she said she'd like to be a rockstar or a pastry chef, but I persuaded her that the best first step to being a rockstar is being a musician, and taking it from there.)

Pretty cool dreams, and easy enough to get started with. We got her a guitar for her birthday (well, we got her an IOU -- we still have to take her to the store to try a couple out, and then borrow a friend's ukelele to see which feels the best in her hands), we're getting ready to start hosting regular singing gatherings, and we've started working our way through a few of my cookbooks. So far she's made triple-chip cookies, which were by all accounts delicious (they've got milk, so I couldn't sample them), and helped me make a few different things.

Today she's making apple spice cake, a dessert staple in our house, to take to my grandparents' to celebrate her birthday and their 65th anniversary, while I make pasta salad to bring for lunch. I can look forward and see years of working companionably with her in the kitchen -- and then singing together companionably after dinner. What a good life we've got.