However, I’ve realized that it’s hard to function as wife, mom, and homeschooling mom without some sort of rhythm. So, we do have a routine. I have some mile-markers along the way (the times you see listed), but they aren’t do-or-die moments. 

This is what I have posted on our fridge:

Breakfast
Breakfast isn’t just breakfast. We also take the opportunity to review our memory work– Bible and poetry. This is a good start to our day, and it ensures that memory work is being worked on.

Morning Chores
I am a pretty random kind of gal. Morning chores consist of whatever needs done to keep our house decent and free from social service visits (just kidding . . . almost). Elijah might vacuum or fold a load of towels (or both). Simon might straighten the entry way, mop the dining room, or clean off the breakfast table. You never know. We all work hard, and we all work together.

Study Time
I am striving for TIME instead of content this year (after listening to Oliver DeMille). However, there are a few things I do insist on daily for Elijah: Primary Language Lessons, RS Math (game or lesson), and Explorer’s Bible Study. Elijah is responsible to fill the rest of his study time. Each week (sometimes each day!) looks a little different for him. 

Simon also does some school each day, but he spends the bulk of his "study" time creating masterpieces and building Lego towers and ships.

Lunch & Read Aloud
I serve lunch and start reading as soon as I’m done eating. I’m trying to get in 90 minutes of read aloud (or audio book) each day.  The boys can build, color, do puzzles, or knit (Elijah’s new thing!) while I read.

Free Play
The boys can do what they want at this point: go outside, play upstairs in their room, make a tent, free reading, etc., but they are responsible for filling their time with something profitable.

Clean Sweep
This is another time of teamwork cleaning. Everyone works on 1-2 chores that need to be done to bring the house back into some kind of order.  After clean sweep, I work on dinner and the boys can have some media time if they want (or they can go back outside or they can play upstairs). 

That’s how it goes for us so far. We like it. Instead of lesson plans, I journal what we accomplish each day. I love the freedom we all are experiencing so far this year, and I am amazed at actually how full the journal is by the end of the week! 

We started this week off with breakfast pizza (something we’ve never tried before). Elijah was also trying out new smiles when I took pictures Monday morning. Not sure what this one is!

Don’t be deceived by the name of this study. Pizza Party is about SO much more than pizza! We learned a ton about Italy. We also were introduced to five famous Italians: Marco Polo, Vivaldi, Leonardo da Vinci, Michaelangelo, and Galileo. I have a feeling that Elijah might be turning his focus & energy to learning about Galileo over the next few weeks. He was very curious about this Italian astronomer. 

I made an easy tic-tac-toe board for the boys (the link was in the study). So cute and it added a little extra fun for them. 

On Tuesday we had a peanut butter and jelly pizza for lunch (Elijah’s request). If you attempt this, make sure you make the crusts high on the sides. Put the toppings on AFTER you bake it.  

The boys LOVE this pizza ’cause it’s like a warm PB&J sandwich made with super fresh bread. YUM– even if it is ugly and messy!

On Day 4 we did a Yeast Experiment. 

We also made personal pizzas for dinner on Thursday. Simon helped out by chopping up the bacon.

Elijah got to sample some of the new toppings he wanted to try (bacon, sausage, and ham).

Simon put EVERY topping on his pizza!

And, of course, by the final day of our study, Elijah had a notebook to put together. We use spiral bound Bare Books.

Pages 1-2

Pages 3-4

Pages 5-6

Pages 7-8

Pages 9-10

Simon didn’t make a lapbook this time, but I printed an extra copy of the "Pizza Adjectives" pizza and cut it out so Simon could decorate his own paper pizza. That is one HUGE ring of green pepper!

He also had fun helping cook and with our Tuzzles Pizza Fraction Puzzle. 

I think we’ve found our groove with Download N Go! We won’t be doing these studies all the time, but they are nice to use when the topic fits Elijah’s current interest. They are also great for sparking NEW interests! We hope to use Crazy Cartoons, Davy Crockett, Rockin’ Robots, Kite Capers, Crunchy Cookies, Magnificent Moon, and Hoppin’ Popcorn sometime this year.

A few notes about DNG
It took me one hour to plan our week (from start to finish) including printing pages, deciding on recipes & making a shopping list (pizza ingredients, felt for pizza tic-tac-toe), pulling books off my shelves, etc. It doesn’t have to take this long, but I looked through the extra links in the study.

I don’t print every page (that would be 112 pages!). What you see in Elijah’s notebook is everything I printed (about 25 pages this time). We do most of the worksheet pages orally (Elijah narrates answers to me) instead of printing them. 


You can read more about how I get ready for DNG in my Sunny Seashells post.

I borrowed this book from a friend. Elijah wanted to lapbook it, so we decided to create a simple story study to go with it.

This lapbook includes: Bible Verses about Contentment accordion, A Circular Story wheel, Fairy Tale Detective mini-book, Contentment matchbook, I Am Thankful For list, flap book with questions, a book review (on the back) and a venn diagram comparing this story to "The Fisherman and His Wife" 

This book is an excellent starting point for discussions about needs/wants, contentment, complaining, and greed.

I will upload this lapbook to Homeschool Share in October so others can use it too!

If you think you’d like to try DNG, now is the perfect time for you to jump in because Expedition Mexico is being offered for FREE until August 27th.

Pick up your FREE copy HERE and tell ALL your friends!

This was our second time enjoying this rich topic. We briefly touched on it when we studied the rain forest. This time was better because we devoted an entire week to chocolate. Yum.

This is our third Download N Go experience, and I must confess– I heart Download N Go.  Try it, and you will probably heart it too!  The days are planned for you. You don’t have to work the lessons into a plan. You don’t have to go looking for supplemental material. You don’t have to check the links. You don’t have to hunt down fun videos on YouTube or conjure up a supplemental book list.  You don’t have to create a lapbook from scratch, and you don’t have to think of fun project ideas. It’s all right there ready for download!

So, with all that done for me, what DO I do in order to pull off a successful experience with DNG?  

1. I open the ebook, scan through it, and decide what to print. I print the activity pages, the lapbook, and a few other pages. Instead of using the worksheets, Elijah narrates to me each day.

2. I make a supply list and buy a few things when I do my weekly grocery shopping. You don’t HAVE to do this, but I do. I like to do some cooking or a memorable project with my kids as part of the unit. 

3. I grab some books off my shelves. You don’t need extra books, but I hoard books, so we use them. 

Once I have those three things done, I start the unit. 

We began with chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, a family favorite. 

We learned about one chocolatier each day. To make this relevant, I purchased chocolate products that matched up with the chocolatiers of the day. 

On Monday the boys split a Hershey Bar. On Tuesday they devoured some Wonka chocolate (Nestle company). On Wednesday they chomped the Cadbury Milk Bar. On Thursday they shared the Ghirardelli Milk Chocolate and Toffee Bar. On Friday we gobbled up some treats made by Lindt. Nobody makes truffles like Lindt! I think the boys are official chocolate snobs. They know the difference between good chocolate and great chocolate! 

Throughout the week, Elijah worked through the activity pages and lapbook. Elijah is working hard here on the lay-out of his notebook.

Here is the final product–a great record of what he learned! 

Page 1- chocolatiers and their products

Page 2- more chocolatiers and their products

Page 3- vocabulary and graph 
*the "What’s in a A Chocolate Bar" is just a small simple fold we made. You can do this too! Just fold a piece of paper in half. 

Page 4
*the Chocolate Candy Bar activity was from Homeschool Share

Page 5- all about cacao (and yes, we know how to pronounce it!)
*again, the two tiny yellow books we made ourselves; we wanted to include this information from the unit in the lapbook without doing the worksheet pages

Page 6 -timeline

Page 7- drawing of a cacao tree, where cacao grows

Page 8- rain forest layers, chocolate treats pop-up, word find
*the green flap book includes the layers of the rain forest; this activity is found in the DNG, but Elijah made it into a flap book 

Page 9- learning about Brazil
*we added four Brazil mini books from Homeschool Share, but this is not necessary

Page 10- more about Brazil and cacoa beans as money

The boys decided that chocolate ice cream topped with homemade hot fudge would be the best way to end our week. This stuff is good. Really good. Make it at your own risk.

My little chef starts the sauce.

Stirring and being goofy!

Elijah takes over with the blender.

Good enough to eat!

If you want to enjoy Chocolate Challenge, it will be released on August 1st. We got a sneak peek since I’m friends with the lapbook designer.  

He spent four days watching videos about LEGOs, completing building challenges and creating a Lap-N-Note ™.

Putting the lapbook together.

Completed Lap-N-Note ™ Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Elijah’s coolest creation of the week–