The Homeschool Mother's Journal...Lovin' Summer

In My Life ~

For years I have only had one or two friends that lived near me and shared similar values to mine in parenting. This summer is different. I have made several new friends that homeschool and raise their children in a similar fashion to myself. It has been a very nice experience and an end to a long and sometimes lonely period in my life. It has been a nice time for my children, too. For the first time, they have more play dates than they ever expected.

In Our Homeschool ~

I have almost all of our lesson plans in order for the first few months of school. The excitement is building around here. Our math books arrived and they look good. We are trying Jump Math this year. However, the math looks too simple for Tom Sawyer so I will have to order the next level. We are enjoying the library summer program this year. This week we went to two programs, one on cats and one about Bangladesh. The second was really presented poorly, although the kids liked playing the stick game outside the library building.

My Favorite Thing This Week ~

We had a wonderful time going with friends to a mountain park with both a playground and a stream going through it. We all spent about an hour walking upstream in the creek to a little swimming hole.  The kids did their best to catch three lizards but they got away. While swimming under the water, Little Red Ridinghood came face to face with a school of fish. She got out real fast! LOL...  After playing in the stream, we enjoyed the playground. Tom Sawyer made it all the way across the swinging monkey bars for the first time.

Thoughts I have for this week ~

Tom Sawyer saw his doctor this week, and we talked a lot about how to keep him from losing weight.  He has lost two pounds on his special diet, and he didn't have a lot to spare in the first place. He also has had two extreme breakouts of hives in the last two weeks. We are trying to figure out what else he is allergic to. Right now we are adding grapeseed oil and pumpkin to the ever growing allergy list. He is still covered in hives from the incident three days ago. The doctor says there is a more extensive food test we can do that insurance doesn't pay for. We plan to do that. She also switched him to a stronger digestive enzyme, new multi-vitamin and more vitamin C.

Blessings,
Dawn