Keeping it interesting

This is our third year of homeschool. The first year we did K-12 through a local virtual charter academy. The boys hated it. Well let me take that back. They loved the field trips and so did I. And Colin really enjoyed Art. So the following year we went part time. Austin also went back to Public school on a trial basis. That brings us to this year. We have gone it alone and that has created more work for me and stress. I would love to say I have kept their interest but alas I think we have gotten a bit of a burnout. So how does one go about not getting burnout on their homeschool curriculum? I think the answer lies somewhere in keeping the kids interest alive while not having mom work overtime to do just that. I mean lets be real if Mom ain't happy no one is happy, right? Lol I am kidding to some extent cause that line is actually fairly accurate isn't it?

I have all boys and I am well a girl so our interests are well different. I don't understand some of theirs and well they certainly don't understand some of mine. I loved doing lapbooks for several reasons. It went across the curriculum so I felt that I wasn't missing anything all the while studying something the boys had picked out. I also ended up with quite a few lapbooks that showed that hey we did do something. I even shared them recently with a friend, I hope she liked them. I can also say that out of everything we did last year (school year) what we studied for our lapbooks is what the boys remember most. Unfortunately my boys also seem to be getting older and more advanced and they feel that they have outgrown this wonderful way of teaching. I tried to accommodate them this past semester and I really miss those lapbooks. Conner still wants to do them but he is also the only who I think figured out that there isn't all that much writting on his part. I want to bring them back. I will have to see if I can talk them in to it. If not how do I go about doing unit studies other than boring writing in a notebook? It has been suggested I do notebooking but I have not done this yet so I need help in that department. If I could just see one, better yet get my hot little hands on one to see and explore that would be ideal.

We have started reading books again and the boys are truly liking being read to. they have a literature notebook and for every chapter I read they have to write three things about it. I put a little list on the sidebar to show what we are reading and for me to remember what we have read. We just finished "The call of the wild" and they got to watch the movie after. We are now starting the first book in the "Chronicles of Narnia" series, "The magician's nephew". Now I would like to take those books and put together a vocabulary/spelling list for the week. I think it is important to learn new words and to crack open an actual dictionary.

I have been dabbling with the idea of doing a cooking day every other week. First it is an essential skill in life that a future wife will certainly appreciate. Second there is so much learning involved. From learning to measure and the math around it to learning what julienned is. Or even what a utensil is called other than a flipper. LOL. I know some hs families do this with younger children but I think it would still be incredibly valuable. I mean with smaller kids there is only so much we can have them do. I am so curious to know who else does this and considers it school with middle school kids. I have a son who says he is going to have a restaurant business so wouldn't it be great if I could teach him as much as possible so when he gets older he can skip a few college classes because well he knows that already.

Austin also loves Gems and Minerals although this past year at ps has dwindled that love which is one of the reasons I pulled him right back out. I hate seeing that spark gone. We go to rock shows but have yet managed to go rock hounding. I am going to look into this as well for every other week to have a sort of nature day. We could start a nature notebook. A while back we went on a field trip to a enviormental nature park and the kids were to sit quietly for 5 min and on their paper they had an "x" in the middle to represent themselves and they were to write down all the animals they heard and mark it on their paper as to what direction it was in in reference to themselves. Did that make sense? Anyway Conner and Colin enjoyed this immensely and we could do this as well during those trips.

All this is mulling in my head as I have my coffee and try to make our homeschool more fun. There is no reason we need to be bored and I get such satisfaction from seeing that little spark and excitement in my kids, don't you? How do you keep your homeschool interesting?

Vanessa