Scouting needs to get underway.

Since we moved our boys have not been involved in Scouting. That has been six weeks now and I really don't want them to get too used to not being involved. My younger son got his Bear early and is now in Webelos. He has yet to go so I am anxious for him to get started. My other son will turn 12 in just a few weeks and needs to be in with the 11 year old Scouts for just a while before he goes into Young Men's. I just want the transition to be smooth for him.

With homeschooling I find that Scouts is a great time for the boys to go be with their peers and learn things from other adults. I love to be involved as much as possible but I really love for the kids to make new friends and have as many opportunities to be with other groups as possible.

Finding inspiration and resources

Aren't all parents, homeschoolers, moms in general and other people all looking for more inspiration to keep plugging away at their daily jobs? I know that I am. I can always use new ideas, resources, and tools to make me a better mother and a better homeschool parent. It's a rare day when you find all of those put together and have the luxury of it being applied with my religion in mind.

Homeschool Helps (Help for the New and Veteran LDS Homeschooler) is a great resource for homeschool parents. It truly has something for everyone and I love it that it is for new and seasoned homeschool families.

Answering vampire questions

Today wasn't my finest moment as a homeschool mother. I think the most information my children got into their heads was at dinner where they all picked my brain for the facts on vampires in the Twilight books. Not my favorite topics.

I don't want the subject of vampires to be completely off limits to my kids but I don't really want to encourage it either. It feels like if I tell them that vampires are off limits, they will just want to read more books about them or see movies about them. On the other hand, I don't want them to think that it is something worthy of their time and focus because by all means, they are horrible fictional creatures no matter what. Drinking blood just doesn't work for me.

Morning devotionals.

Last year (I think I blogged about this before) we did a morning routine where we had some scriptures study, discussion and prayer before we started on our other curriculum. I would like to implement something like that starting next week. One thought that I had is that I have four children which means that they are in four different Primary classes. Perhaps I could use the lesson that they had on Sunday at church as a starting point. This way it allows us to be more involved in their Primary learning as well as reinforcing what they learned. I have most of the Primary manuals as I find them priceless for Family Home Evening lessons. With five days in a school week I thought that we could cover each lesson that was taught on Sunday and then do something different on Fridays. As soon as I get more organized I can post more on what we do.