slowly making our way back

We have had a great break - we have spent time at the library, walked almost every day for five miles or more, we have had picnic breakfast adventures, fed the ducks, taken lots of pictures of beautiful flowers, planted our own flowers, watched even more baby birds hatch, played in the sprinkler, bought a grill and grilled out, made smores over a fire pit, met with friends, played tennis, gone to the park...even in the midst of hard days, we have had lots and lots and lots of beautiful moments.

                                                           Buddy, our beloved chihuahua

To keep it real though, there have been lots and lots of hard, ugly moments too.  I tried to grill chicken out (ruined 25 chicken breasts...yes, really, 25 of them), our house is a mess, we have stacks of library books we have renewed several times because our reading has been seriously lacking this month, and I haven't lost the weight I wanted to lose.  I forgot to put sunscreen on my kids and one of my children is intermittently wheelchair bound and got sunburned on their legs while we walked the other day.  And I have not stuck to my Bible reading plan.  And I did not stick to my bike riding plan either.  *sigh*

gorgeous crepe myrtle

But, for the books we have read - they have been an adventure in themselves.  We are in the middle of the BFG, not our favorite Roald Dahl, but we are going to finish it.  We stumbled on a delightful read called The Adventures of Miss Petiflour, we are in the middle of The Tree in the Trail, and my oldest is finishing up reading the final Gooney Bird Greene book aloud and will next read the In Grandma's Attic series.  I am reading The Daniel Prayer by Anne Graham Lotz, WOW.  Love this book.  

My husband and I just finished watching The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings movies (9 in all) extended edition.  I loved it.  I want to read the Lord of the Rings book next.  

But now it is time to make our way back to school and schedules.  I have a new idea this year, I am not sure how it will go...but...

A few years ago I used standard manilla file folders as a review source for my kids.  I would sit next to them and we would make a file folder for whatever they were learning about - example: cells in Science.  We decorated it, labeled it, filled our little note cards and made little flip 'peek a boo' things that would help them remember vocabulary, drew and colored graphics...you get the idea.  I kept each child's folders together in a little stack so they could grab them when we had a day of doctor visits or when they were feeling bad or had down time - basically, whenever they needed to fill a pocket of time, they could use these folders for that.  That worked for a while, but then it stopped working so we moved on.  

A few weeks ago we were cleaning out our art closet (epic mess!) and they LOVED that we kept their old school work.  I usually just keep a plastic storage tub and have them just pile their work in it as they complete it/after I check it.  Low maintenance and very easy to just put it all in there, but not the most organized idea I have had.  This year I wanted to be more intentional about it.  SO I am going to have them decorate one file folder a week with a paragraph (or more) and any graphics they want to draw/color/cut/paste about one subject (we will rotate between four main ones) they are learning about that week.  I will label the folder with their name, the week number of school we are in, and the dates we did school that week.  Inside of the folder, I will keep all the paperwork from that week.  And I will file them in a file box, so they are easy to pull out and take with us if we need it.  Last year I needed an example of class work for one of my children to show a neuropsychologist and I had to dig through that huge box of work to find what I was looking for.  SO not a fun way to spend an afternoon. *sigh*