In my life this week… Well, last week Saturday our teens and I attended the annual homeschool conference. That was the highlight as well as the reason there was no weekly wrap-up last week.
To sum up the past two weeks: we gardened, fed the bees, removed thistles and burdocks from our property, found some nannyberry bushes that had gotten lost in the high swamp grass, rearranged the bookcases, moved many books, had a windstorm that broke the roof, fixed the roof, coughed, endured fevers and headaches, read books, had a small hailstorm, explored the woods, ate lots of good food, pruned our cherry plums, started seedlings, did formal book learning…and discovered that we have bats in our range hood vent!
In our homeschool this week… Miss 14 is teaching Miss 11 history this term. What a blessing for everyone! She’s designing a book-based study and Miss 11’s reading is expanding hugely.
Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share… If you have one child who loves to teach the other ones, your whole family is truly blessed. Miss 14 loves to teach cooking. She’s Miss 9’s recorder teacher, and now she has volunteered to teach Miss 11 history. This is a blessing to all three girls as well as to me, and I’m very thankful for it.
Places we’re going and people we’re seeing… Neighbors, library, judo, woods, Miss 19. Mostly we’ve stayed home because we emphasize garlic when we’re sick and we smell rather strong.
My favorite things these past two weeks were…
- when one of our Manchurian apricot trees blossomed and butterflies flocked to it,
- Miss 11’s broader reading,
- the homeschool conference,
- when the Little Misses made bows and arrows…and a flower-covered quiver made of toilet paper tubes,
- all the kinds of birds we saw, including a wild turkey that marched solemnly across our meadow
We watched…
- Robin Hood — very violent, but definitely good versus evil
- The Importance of Being Earnest—absolutely no physical violence, but with different negative elements, if you stop laughing long enough to think about it.
Questions/thoughts I have… What will we do this summer? Probably continue with French, Dutch, music, and math. But that’s still a long, long time away.
Things I’m working on…
- Going through the Little Misses’ clothing boxes for the summer.
- Catching up with the homeschooling records (why do I always get behind?).
- Trying to understand some of the huge amount of research available at the CCRI website.
- Gardening and starting seedlings, researching cloning of trees and shrubs, combatting fire blight in our orchard.
- Determining what this year’s chicken project will be: meat birds, layers, either, or both?
I’m reading… 2 Corinthians. I finished The Happiness Project, Pastured Poultry Profits, and As One Devil to Another. I’ve started The Discovery and am still ignoring The Dip and Mindsight. Also, I’m reading research about families at the huge CCRI website.
With the kids, I’m reading 1 Corinthians, Summer Days with the Moodys, Sebastian Bach: The Boy from Thuringia, The Story Bible for Older Children, and various books for school. We finished The Railway Children, Wind in the Willows, and Rozemarijntje Gaat Naar School.
When my husband is home for meals, we read Isaiah.
I’m grateful for … A complete lack of boredom!
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This post is linked to The Homeschool Mother’s Journal and to Weekly Wrap Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.
Oh my, that sounds like quite a week. Bats! Ugh. I do not like bats. It sounds like everything else is going well, and that you got a lot done.