Weekly Wrap Up: Preparing for School

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In my life this week …  Despite needing a few days to recover from an over busy weekend, it was a good week.  There wasn’t much gardening to do, nor much preserving, though we dried some lovage and are planning to freeze some basil in oil today.   (I use both the dried lovage and the frozen basil in soups.)  Actually, I felt kind of lost without garden work, although I’m almost dreading the busy tomato season and the fall raspberries.

 
In our homeschool this week … We’re busy making plans and preparing.  My desk and the floor around it are so crowded with piles of books!  The children are busy clearing and organizing their rooms, storage space, and desks. 

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

• We went to the orthodontist twice, once to remove Miss 13’s braces and once to get her retainer put in.  And we have only one more payment to make! 
• Mr.16 and Miss 13 worked for the neighbors.  All the yard work they’ve done at home has trained them well.
• We visited a church carnival put on in a nearby community. It was sobering to realize that many of the youth who performed or served were homeschooled.  What would this society be like without homeschooled youth?
• On top of that, we visited friends; chatted with a researcher who was dismayed that the creek is too dry for her to do her annual minnow tally; and sent a lot of letters to people we can’t see right now.

Some of the things I’m thankful for this week are …

• Relaxing outdoors with friends and family.
• A new laptop, to speed up everyday activities, such as managing our homeschool and blogging, and to allow me to do a bit of science as well.
• Seeing the baby goldfinches.
• Pancakes. Yum!
• Apples fresh from our own trees.
• The search feature on my blog.  When I need to look up a resource for school planning, I can just search on my blog. I smile every time I do this.
• Thriving at College, a book I’m reviewing.  If every Christian student read and applied this book, the world would be so different in a decade!  Highly recommended.

What’s working/not working for us … Going out so much is fun, but not good for getting things done.  During the school year we’ll really minimize going out during the week.  Between groceries on Thursday and occasionally Bible studies on Wednesday, life will be full enough for me.  The children will have catechism one evening, as well as two classes of judo.  That will be enough regular weekday activities for us all.  

 
Homeschool questions/thoughts I have … 

Miss 11 is comfortable with the parts of speech, punctuation, and usage so we’ll skip the formal grammar book for now and only use it in the spring for diagramming.  In the meantime, we’ll do a Daily Gram page each day. This will save her a lot of busy work.

I’ve decided exactly how to implement SpellQuizzer this year.  The Little Misses will be whizzing through the AVKO lists and then, if there’s time, they’ll review grade-specific lists.  I’m so thankful that these lists are already included in Spell Quizzer!  Mr. 16 and Miss 13 will begin by reviewing troublesome words and spelling bee lists.   After that I’ll probably input more SAT words for Mr. 16 and input the Christian Liberty Press spelling lists (grade 6-8—quite advanced words) for Miss 13.  I’ve made check-off charts and have everything all ready to go for each child to spend 10 minutes a day on spelling/vocabulary.  One more subject ready to go!

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

Busy Bee in Bindweed

This post is linked to The Homeschool Mother’s Journal  and to Weekly Wrap Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.