Homeschool Edit

I'm linking up with  Andrea  and  Erika  again this week to share a few of my Friday faves. My brain and body are totally fried from our first week of homeschooling so I decided that for my Friday Favorites post this week I would go through my August Amazon purchases and show you my favorite buys. Before I dive into my favorite Amazon purchases of late, I want to say that I'm loving all of our curriculum picks for the year so far.  We're only three days in but (so far, knock on wood) there's not one program that I'm not into. This pencil sharpener is so cute and it works really well.  I wanted to get a manual sharpener because the kids have managed to break every electric one we've ever had.  In just a week they've probably sharpened 3435435 pencils (I kid, I kid...but seriously, they use it a lot ) and it's still going strong. I wanted to get a dictionary for the classroom and, particularly, for Eleanor.  I purchased this one because it looked less

1. School We officially started school this week.  I'm completely exhausted but feeling pretty good about everything so far.  Today's post is going to be all about school because it's basically the only thing I've been able to accomplish all week (well, that and feeding my kids of course). 2. Schedule I decided to ease us into the school year so this week we've only done three half days (three days because I had a work meeting on Monday and we need a beach day on Friday).  We basically did school work (only math and language arts this week) from about 10-2 with many breaks...more than we'll hopefully have to take once we really buckle down.  Like I said, it's going pretty well so far.  I'm feeling good about our curriculum and about our ability to make it through the year.   That said, I've already made changes to our schedule because I think trying to cover all of our main subjects everyday is just unreasonable with how young my kids are and with h

I'm linking up with  Andrea  and  Erika  again this week to share a few of my Friday faves. We're starting our homeschool year next week (our official start day is going to be Tuesday as I have a work meeting on Monday that's going to take me out of the house).  I finally finished our homeschool room (check out my full blog post here ) and I'm so pleased with how it turned out.  We wanted to set it up on the cheap and we accomplished that goal while also making it super functional and cozy. I also put together a general schedule for our homeschool days.  This schedule is subject to change as we get started and learn what works and what doesn't work but I'm so happy that it's done. Having it finished is making me so excited for the school year to start. I have a few things left to get for the homeschool room and one of them is a pencil sharpener.  It's probably more functional to get an electric one like this but how cute is this black manual one ?  An

 1. Six My baby boy turned six on Monday.  We got him the insane Lego set that I wrote about a few week ago and he built the entire thing, by himself, in about a day and a half.  Insane.  Even though he had been asking for this set for a few months, the price and size almost convinced us not buy it for him.  After watching him put it together and play with it though, I'll never doubt his Lego ability (or Lego love) again.   2. Beach We went to the beach for Georgie's birthday and it was great.  I realized while we were there that this is probably our last week with multiple beach days.  I'm planning on starting school next week and while we might go for a couple of hours here and there, we won't be going as often as we're going now.  I'll miss the beach but I'm so ready for us to get back into a steady routine. 3. Starting School Speaking of starting school next week, I organized all of the curriculum last weekend, created a rough plan for the first couple

Smoothies are a summer staple at our house.  Really though, they're an always staple.  I love having a smoothie after a run and my kids are almost always eager to share with me.  During the hotter months though, we make a lot of breakfast smoothies because they're so much more refreshing when it's 95 degrees at 9 a.m. than pancakes or eggs.  Here are a few of my go to smoothies: Tropical Smoothie (a.k.a. Dragon Smoothie) I don't know why we started calling this smoothie the Dragon Smoothie  (maybe because it's green like a dragon?)  but we did and the name stuck.    1 or 2 bananas (this depends on size and how many kids will be sharing this with me) 1 cup (approximately...I don't actually measure anything other than with my eyeballs) frozen or fresh greens (spinach, kale, a mix, whatever you have on hand) 1 cup (approximately again) frozen pineapple 1 scoop chocolate Orgain Organic Protein Powder (I only use one scoop for this recipe because two tends to overwh

Now that we've received our curriculum and I've had a chance to look through it, I did my best to put together an average daily schedule that we can follow.  I want to really emphasize the word average here.  I know that this schedule will change when (and if) we have extracurricular activities, if I have a big work project to get done by a certain time on a certain day, if we're all feeling particularly unmotivated on a given day, or if we just decide we want to spend the morning at the beach.  Also, our spelling program is only a four day program, so that's going to change our Friday schedule a bit.  That said, this is the schedule I really plan on sticking with to get us through the year. Also, while I included times on the schedule, this is really just to use as a guide.  I'm not super motivated to get things done by a certain time.  If we're way ahead of schedule some days, that's fine.  If the kids are struggling with something or lacking motivation

Welcome to our homeschool room.   Come on in, I'll show you around.   Ha.   As I've mentioned before, the room we're using as our homeschool room is actually a separate little bonus room/guest house/shed that's in our backyard.  A few years ago, my husband tore the room down to the studs and rebuilt it.  We originally tried to repurpose it as a playroom but the kids didn't use it as much as we would have liked and it was always a complete, overwhelming mess.  Then, we converted it to a sort of family room/reading room/chill out room.  Again, though, it really wasn't used.  When COVID-19 reared its ugly head we really wanted to make sure every space in and around our home was being used to its maximum potential.  I also started to go a little nutty doing everything (school, work, eating, game playing, puzzle building, etc.) at the dining room table.  And so the homeschool room was born.  (For some before pictures of the room, check out this post .) This is the vi

1. Surf Camp Eleanor went to surf camp this week and driving her to and fro reminded my of our pre-COVID-19 life.  While she had a great time (and sort of learned to surf), I found myself missing our slow and quiet mornings at home, lunchtime board games, and movie nights.  The surf camp monopolized so much of the day that it was hard to fit much else in.  The added time at the beach was great but I'm grateful the week is over and happy that we'll soon be able to get back to normal (ha, "normal"). 2. Alone David had to travel for work on Thursday night, which just happened to be the same night that our power company planned a scheduled outage.  The power went out at about 10 p.m. and I found myself completely alone and plunged into darkness (drama, angst).  Usually when he's gone I stay up way too late watching terrible shows (cough, cough One Tree Hill, cough) and eating terrible food (Reese's, always).  With the power out, however, and David gone and

I'm linking up with  Andrea  and  Erika  again this week to share a few of my Friday faves. I started running last July so this week basically marks my first full year as a runner.  This is a huge accomplishment for me as running is not something I ever thought I could do (or something I would want to do).  I started slow, gearing up for a 5K in November.  Once I had that 5K under my belt I started increasing my weekly mileage.  Before COVID-19 shut everything down I was training for my first half marathon (it was scheduled for this past May but was obviously cancelled).  Since then, my running has decreased a little but I still aim to run at least 15 miles a week.  For any new or aspiring runners reading this post, here are some links to a few of my favorite pieces of running gear. These Nike Pegasus shoes are my absolute favorite running shoes.  I've been wearing some version of them for the entire last year and I have no plans to change any time soon.  Pegs for life.

July was a slow reading month for me.  I read a whopping 1.5 books.  Quality over quantity is my new mantra though.  I started out the year reading a lot of "fast fiction."  You know, the types of books you can get through in a weekend but that you likely won't remember a year from now.  These are usually thrillers for me and I can go through them very quickly.  While I enjoy fast fiction as much as the next person, I've been in the mood lately for more substantial books, books that I don't just read to find out the endings, books that will stay with me and leave me feeling  something. Little Women Whew.  I laughed, I cried...I cried some more.  Reading this as an adult was an entirely different experience than reading it as a tween/teen.  Now having three children of my own, I found myself identifying with Mrs. March more than I ever had before (mostly wondering how she stayed so calm when I'm sure her house was chaotic much of the time).  Overall, I