New Year, New Ideas

 Wow, our Christmas break was so fantastic!  It was low key, relaxing, and I did a lot of thinking and planning (two of my favorite things to do!).




Our schedule is going to be quite different now.  Here's how it'll go:

Monday - 3 R's in the morning, playgroup in the afternoon
Tuesday - 3 R's in the morning, Elise will have Doodle Bugs in the afternoon (nature study, art, etc).  Millie will use that time to work on school, play with friends, or do projects I have set up for her.
Wednesday - 3 R's and science
Thursday - 3 R's and history
Friday - 3 R's and 1.5 hour kids choice learning activity, and 1.5 hours moms choice learning activity.

Of course, we'll be flexible if things come up, but I find I work better if I have a schedule.  I think my stress from the first half of the school year came from not having one.  No worries though, I have every day planned out from now until the end of the school year :)  It makes me happy.

Friday is a big change for us, and the part I'm most excited about!  I asked the girls a few days ago what they'd like to learn about.  Millie said art, and Elise said brains.  After doing a little planning, I put together our Friday day of exploratory fun!

We started out with art.  I went to this site, which I found on Pinterest.  We did One Point Perspective drawings.  It was so fun, they turned out great! Here they are:

Millie age 9

Elise age 5

After that, we watched a video about brains, and then Elise made a model of a brain out of play-doh.

During "moms choice" time, I had Millie work on her jewelry badge for Girl Scouts.  She watched a video to learn about jewelers tools, and a video about an artist that overcame obstacles in her life to do what she dreamed of doing (making jewelry for a living). Then she made a hair clip out of mini orgami, and made beads out of polymer clay to put on a bracelet.  She'll do a couple more projects before earning her first badge!

Christmas break was super refreshing and badly needed, but I'm so glad to be back at school with a new plan!