So – Since Jon has only 4 days left of his workbook – I spend time last night looking up all of the recommendations for 2nd grade workbooks.  I’m not a workbook fan, but Jon really enjoys doing them. After a couple of hours of rummaging around on different sites – I came to Love to – Love To Learn and read an article by Dianne Hopkins.  She talked of making a vision quest.  I’ve done similar things before – but decided to write it down.  I already use a 3 ring binder to keep track of what we do – but I have not used it as much as I should to keep me focused.   I started by asking the boys to write down what things they wanted to learn, learn about, learn to do, read about, etc.  I really shouldn’t have been as surprised as I was that they had a ready list.   Top on Jon’s list was animals – particularly birds.  His bed is next to a window that is fully covered by an apple tree.  He has spent the entire fall and winter watching the birds come and frolic in the tree.  He is also the first to notice visitors to the chicken coop.   Nathan wants to learn to cook more meals by himself, and he wants to learn the Drums.  Rhythm is more of what he was talking bout, he wants to be able to clap and move to the beat he says. 

I made my 8 paneled paper as she suggested and started writing.  It was hard at first. Staring at a blank page – but then it started flowing.  I also read some encouraging verses on doorposts.net .  I think that each family as goals and values for their boys – everyone’s page will most likely look different. The "how to" has the most variances!

I want to work on Narration with both boys, so I think we will spend the first week of January going over our bird books, reading and writing, narrating and drawing.  I’ll let you know how it goes.  Its good to have a focus again.