Too Much On My Mind...

It's been a little while since I last posted.  It's not that I don't have anything to say, in fact it's quite the opposite.  I've been meaning to post about Katherine's schooling since we've been at this for 6 weeks now.  Last week, I just wanted to post about how I was sad that I don't get to talk to my Dad anymore (because it was his birthday last Monday), but what good does it do to whine about it?  You can't make someone love you, so I'll just suck it up and deal...  well, grieve quietly not in front of the blog world. 
We have been very busy with school.  I've been struggling to find a balance between not enough school in a day and way too much.  I asked my homeschool mom's group a couple weeks ago how many hours a day their 4-5th graders spend on school and was shocked to hear an average of 4 hours.  Gee - the 8-9 that Katherine is spending is too much???  I think I've only been giving her about 6 hours worth of work but she S T R E T C H E S it into 9.  But, I've reduced her workload even more so that her first year of homeschooling will be a pleasant one as we both figure this thing out. 

Right now, we are learning about North America.  We spent a couple weeks learning about the US and now we are on our second week learning about Mexico.  We are working on learning some basic Spanish words, reading about the geography and history of the country and are even reading about a missionary, Cameron Townsend.  By the way, a couple months ago, Katherine's dream was to become a famous moviestar but she started saying a couple weeks ago that she might want to become a missionary instead.  SAY WHAT?  Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised.  The fact that her worldview is expanding is incredible and proof that for now, this is the right plan for her.  Tomorrow we are going to make homemade tortillas for lunch and we'll probably go to a Mexican restaurant on Saturday to conclude our 2 week study of Mexico and Central America.  Next week we begin a 2 week study of Canada, then Brazil, then on to Europe!  And, she gets to stamp her "passport" as she travels into each country with a sticker of that country's flag. 

I have been extremely impressed with My Father's World Exploring Countries & Cultures and am fairly certain we will move on to Creation to the Greeks in the fall.  I haven't seen anything else that provides this much structure and great lesson plans to me while utilizing great books in a Charlotte Mason/classical education approach.  Nathan and I are going to a HUGE book fair in 3 weeks, so I hope that we'll settle on our 5th grade curriculum then.  Katherine is still really struggling in math and I'm considering switching to Teaching Textbooks since it might appeal more to her learning style.  We'll see.

Well, next week should be a fun, educational vacation.  We are taking a trip to tour the state capitol in Austin then heading to visit my in-laws for a few days.  We'll all be visiting the Alamo and the riverwalk.  The Capitol and Alamo are particularly interesting right now because Katherine was studying Texas history in public school this year.