Weekly Wrap Up

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In my life this week…

Games are making a comeback.  We’ve played more chess in the last week than in the last few years.  Miss 13 and my husband played cribbage last night and it’s becoming popular among the kids again, too.  This month we’ve even had the croquinole board out!  After an evening of that, I could hardly use my hand the next day. The Little Misses played Monopoly and Farmopoly.

In our homeschool this week…

Mr. 15 completed Apologia Biology, and Miss 13 finished French is Fun 1.  We’ll head right into Chemistry and French is Fun 2…unless we get deeply involved in the election that will be called today.  In that case, school plans will be adjusted. 

Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…

Right now the oldest four children are at judo.  Every Saturday morning, they have to do their chores before being allowed to enjoy this highlight of the week.  If they don’t finish the chores, they can’t go to judo…except Miss 13 who would never finish her chores on time if that rule applied to her.  Different incentives work for different people, obviously.

Yesterday we went to the IMAX and watched three (!!!) films.  Miss 10 and Miss 13 had received free tickets for participating in a competition, and we didn’t have much time left to use them.  Since the IMAX theatre is in a museum, we also borrowed a museum pass from the library.  So we ended up enjoying over $150 worth of admissions fees for free!  In fact, our only expenses for the day were gas and parking.

My favorite thing this week was…

We finished reading Lone Muskrat by Glen Rounds, an old book about a year in the life of a muskrat, and we highly recommend it.  If you don’t know what a ‘living book’ is, Lone Muskrat is a perfect example.

Our current family read-aloud is Einhard’s Life of Charlemagne from Penguin Classic’s Two Lives of Charlemagne.  Miss 8 hates it, because it is much too difficult for her and because she has not yet read Son of Charlemagne by Barbara Willard.  A few weeks ago we read The Little Duke by Charlotte Yonge in which Charlemagne’s ‘degenerate descendants’ are portrayed in a very unfavorable light, and it is fascinating to recognize family names.  The other half of Two Lives of Charlemagne was written between Charlemagne’s time and The Little Duke’s time, Richard the Little Duke being the grandfather of William the Conqueror.  This second biography is much chattier but I’m not sure if I will read it aloud.   

And Miss 18 and a family friend filled our home with organ, flute, and singing one evening.  A concert at home…what joy!

Even though it’s still cold enough that the chicken’s water freezes in their insulated and slightly heated coop, and the ground is still frozen, our Egyptian top onions are growing.  We ate some on the 24^th, a record for us.
 

What’s working/not working for us…

Jacob’s Geometry was not working for us.  It had taken Mr. 15 until last week to do the first 6 chapters, and he dreaded every moment.  Then I remembered what worked for him, years earlier, when he was faced with Key to Fractions:  I offered him the chance to challenge the course and just write the tests.  Well, this week, he wrote the test for chapters 7-9 and did very well.  So, from now on he’ll be studying three chapters a week and just writing the test, rather than spending an agonizing month per chapter doing the work.

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have…

Now that we’re having an election in Canada, how will that affect our homeschool?  Will we just keep up with the news?  Will the children do a project on it?  Will we volunteer?  This will be Miss 18’s first chance to vote, and that’s exciting enough in itself.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

From Notker the Stammerer’s Charlemagne, written around 884:

There was a certain deacon who followed the habits of the Italians in that he was perpetually trying to resist nature.  He used to take baths, he had his head very closely shaved, he polished his skin, he cleaned his nails….