Native American Unit: day 5 and weekly recap

Well, there are no pictures. I couldn't find my camera ... bummer. But I have it now! Okay so this was a good day. Emma finished her first "grown up" book. She had been reading it all week it was about 75 pages, with no pictures, solid print. She was SOOOOO proud of herself!!!! Brian and I read alot, and she sees me reading a whole lot, so she has decided that reading is a grown up thing that she can do with us, that her brother and sister can't do yet. It was really nice all week when I was snuggled up for "quiet time" reading with the younger two tucked in for a movie, she would bring her book in and sit in my lap while we both read. I really liked that she was choosing reading over TV time.

This week went really well despite the fact that we weren't feeling quite as awesome as normal. We didn't complete my whole lesson plan, but I am satisfied with what we did. The thing that is the most satisfying to me is that we HAD FUN! It was lighthearted and everyone was very excited when we would get started to know what kind of interesting things we were going to do that day. We all had fun while we were learning. I think we might try to make up some of the work over the weekend since it was some of the fun stuff that got the shaft. I like a nice, tidy, completely cleared lesson plan. But even if we don't, I am really pleased with how much we got accomplished and with how the week progressed. It felt like there was alot of balance to the week. We were able to get all our school work done, and the house was reasonably tidy, dinner was on the table every day and I managed to get some time to myself even. I have to chalk this up not really to my superior skills, but to the tools I have been recently using...

• laptop: okay this was awesome. Our computer is in another room, having the laptop right out there where we are doing school means that I was able to do whatever I needed to do online while the kids were busy with work, but I was still there to answer questions. I spent most of the time looking for recipes, doing my shopping lists, ordering more books from the library, tweaking my lesson plan etc. If we had a question about something we read, I could google it right there, it was very helpful.
• the crockpot: AWwwwwwwweSOME!! yeah, I couldn't make it without my crockpot. A good portion of our meals came out of the crockpot this week and it just made everything run so smoothly. I was able to throw everything in the crockpot at about 10 or 11 and then it was magically ready to eat at 5pm. Which left me free to do chores, or cleanup, walk the dogs, whatever I needed to do without being chained to the kitchen.