Under the Artic Chill

I didn't blog much in December.  Hubby was home on leave for 17 days, which was wonderful.  He's back in CA now enjoying the 60 degree temps.  Today we're at a -20 air temp and -50 degree wind chill.  He called this morning to see how we faired the night, pretty good.  I managed to get up every hour until 3am to feed the fireplace.  The girls slept downstairs.  This old farmhouse is pretty drafty and the upstairs is about 5-7 degrees colder than downstairs.  TL had the space heater in his room.  I'm keeping the furnace set at 65 or it never shuts off.  This summer, I plan on removing all the trim from the windows and sealing them better.  I have some other ideas as to how to keep the drafts down to a minimum.

Today was our first day back to school.  We accomplished math, reading, spelling, grammar, vocabulary, and geography.  I never plan a full day when returning to school after three weeks off.  My kids are also upset because their public school friends have the day off due to the cold, so the short day works out well.  My son can soon get online and play xbox with his buddy, so he's happy.

This week marks the end of our second quarter.  I will have the kids grades all posted and ready to give them on Friday afternoon.  I have new plans for our next term.

For literature, I plan on printing questions off and having the kids answer some aloud, some written, and do some essay writing.  Up until now, we've only do discussions, but I want to increase their writing skills so we're stepping this up.

I also plan on printing off the teen's sheets for biology, history, and literature and putting them in a bound book.  He is the most disorganized kid I know.  He takes the sheets out of his notebook, never returns them, and then cannot find them.  Quite frankly, I'm tired of him having to take up school time to find items.  It drives my OCD crazy.  So in order to save my own sanity, I will print and bind....he can't lose them then.  The girls don't have a problem with this so its find.  Maybe they have inherited my OCD? 

I'm excited for the second half of the year.  One of my goals with getting everything printed and ready is to be better organized and prepared myself.  I will be starting my master's degree probably in March and I need to have homeschooling ready to go and under control. 

Have a wonderful week and stay safe and warm!