Staying on Track

The hardest thing about homeschooling, to me anyway, is consistently staying the course. We started school on Monday and we've already taken one day off. My husband's days off are Thursdays and Fridays. Usually he still goes to the office in the mornings, which gives us time to finish our schoolwork so we can be free by lunchtime when he comes home. But on Friday he took the entire day off. Of course, one of the perks of homeschooling is being able to do schoolwork whenever. But it's not fun to do schoolwork in the evening after a busy day. I hope to make up the work we missed on Friday over the weekend so we can start next week without feeling like we are behind.

Days off with Dad aren't necessarily wasted school-time though. We visited Lake Pleasant, a man-made lake north of Phoenix. A great opportunity for a nature study! Now, if only I had thought to bring their nature notebook... We got to the visitor center just in time to watch the park ranger feed the two desert tortoises living there.


Inside the center was a Western Diamondback rattlesnake and a Gila monster. The kids asked all kinds of questions about the tortoises and scorpions and whatever else they could think of. The park ranger patiently answered all their questions.