In my life this week… We’re moving on with school work, the kids are picking up casual jobs here and there, and the garden is almost planted. It’s almost summer holiday time, and it’s starting to feel like that.
This week we enjoyed a party for the girls. Track and field was a wonderful day of competing, connecting, and acquiring ribbons. We swam and gardened and did almost no housework, because there was just no time…and the house doesn’t look too bad, unless you happen to notice my desk.
When Mr. 17 was needed for a full day’s work somewhere, Miss 14 babysat for him. When she came home from babysitting to find out that the neighbors wanted her for some gardening work, she sent Miss 12. Everyone was happy, especially Miss 12 who came home beaming with some of her first earned money in her hand. Job juggling works for them!
On Tuesday my husband announced he had booked the rest of the month off as vacation. He spent two happy days working on the yard and in the orchard, but by Friday he had to go back to work for some important meetings. We are so happy at our home that we prefer staycations to vacations, but the trouble with staycations is that his work is never far enough away.
In our homeschool this week…
The local schools finish this Friday, and we’re hoping to start our holidays soon as well.
Miss 9 should be finished by Thursday or Friday. She’s doing double the usual amount of work, and that leads to some funny situations. I needed to buy a live trap for chipmunks in the garden, so she came along on the condition that she do math in the car. So we drove, she tried the next page, I explained, she got confused, and finally I pulled over to do some pencil-and-paper explaining. We had to do that twice in a fairly short drive! This is a new concept in homeschooling for us. Smile.
Miss 12 has been enjoying a very happy and productive time off, reading Henty novels, practicing javelin and archery, learning more geography facts from Seterra, and helping out cheerfully with whatever needs doing.
Miss 14 completed English Literature for Boys and Girls after working on it for years. She is diligently doing as much schoolwork as possible this month. Some things need to be completed before she finishes the year (Apologia Biology, literature, and more) but others will continue at a slow pace during the summer to minimize forgetting concepts (math, French, Dutch).
Mr. 17 completed his Apologia Physics and has been working hard on everything else, especially Omnibus, ALEKS, and French.
To his dismay, I did manage to locate two of the hard-to-find books for Omnibus 1 (The Best Things in Life and The Unaborted Socrates, both by Peter Kreeft), so he has more work than he expected. But the learning is worth it, both from the Kreeft books themselves and from the Omnibus discussion of them. Because the volume of reading in this program is so high, I’m very thankful for a trustworthy analysis of the books we read.
Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share… After we finish week 30, I tend to drop things from our school list. The big push is to finish up, and picture study, nature study, and all such goodies tend to get overlooked. Art, being outside, and all the ‘extras’ are a big part of our summer; skipping them for the last 6 weeks of school works for us.
Places we’re going and people we’re seeing… Friends, church, neighbors, library, stores, track and field, the mall.
Some of my favorite things this week were…
- Track and field.
- An afternoon with Miss 19.
- Walking in the river with the kids.
- Almost finishing the garden planting.
- Having friends drop by unexpectedly for an evening.
- Surprising my husband with an early Father’s Day trip to a local winery he did not know existed. We’re not in wine country, so it was a total surprise for him. He loved it.
- Reading and reviewing The Tipping Point .
Questions/thoughts I have… I hate it when events are planned on the same day and we need to choose between them.
Things I’m working on…
- Weeding, planting, and replanting.
- Keeping up with the garden records. It is a pain to do, but these records are so helpful in making decisions from year to year.
- Trying to get the kids to finish up their school year.
- Walking 7000 steps a day.
- Catching up with the Omnibus marking and keeping up with the reading.
I’m reading… 1 John. I completed The Best Things in Life by Kreeft and hope to write about it soon. I’m reading Miraculous Movements by Trousdale, and want to finish two interlibrary loan books quickly: The Unaborted Socrates by Kreeft and From Jerusalem to Irian Jaya by Tucker. Some other books have moved to the back burner.
With the kids, I’m reading Hebrews. We’re stuck on the last chapter of L’Abri by Edith Schaeffer because we’ve just been too busy to read a lot.
When my husband is home for meals, we read Jeremiah.
I’m grateful for … Our beautiful, productive yard.
A quote to share… “Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out.” Robert Collier
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This post is linked to The Homeschool Mother’s Journal and to Weekly Wrap Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.
I had to chuckle at the idea of doing math in the car. My dd has done that so many times! However, I’ve not had the experience of pulling over and explaining things like what you did. Too funny! But it works, doesn’t it?? 🙂
Sorry the staycation didn’t work so well for dh. We haven’t done a vacation for many years, much of it due to the economic crunch.
It sounds like a great week. So glad you are getting so much done, and that the kids have such fun jobs. 🙂
I so love reading your wrap ups. You all get so much done in a week! I hope your husband can avoid more trips into work this month. Enjoy your staycation!