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Weekly Wrap Up: Preparing for School

We gardened and swam, ate apples, visited a thrift shop, and simply enjoyed life…and then the girls decided they wanted to start school next Monday.  Really?  Suddenly there was a deadline and things got busy, fast.

In our homeschool

So we are writing up weekly to do lists for term 1.  Miss 15 decided to do her own since I was dragging my feet a bit, and I’m working on the other two.  Miss 10’s schedule is relatively easy, but the grey areas in Miss 13’s planning list (see our curriculum plans) need to be resolved, quickly, if I want to be finish her list on time.

In our garden

We have almost caught up on the weeding and are mulching the areas of the garden where the garlic, onions, and cucumbers were.  Some of the soil needs a lot of work.

We are eating herbs, beans, raspberries, apples, salad greens, chard, New Zealand spinach, onions, garlic, carrots, cucumbers, and the first tomato.   Some year I want out tomatoes not to be so late, but our garden is in a bit of a valley and we do get cooler temperatures, especially at night.  And we discovered a group of wild plum trees.

What’s blooming in our flower beds? Hollyhocks, red poppies, pink double poppies, purple coneflower, black-eyed Susans, day lilies, sedum, and yarrow of all colors.

The wild cucumber flowers still fill the air with their sweet perfume.  Everywhere we go, trees and bushes are draped with the light green vines.  Nearby we saw a clearing full of golden rod and lithrum, the trees all around covered with wild cucumber—a mysterious world where heroes, dragons, and princesses should be.

 In the kitchen… Apple crumble.  Bread.  Crepes and pancakes.  Cooked greens and raw greens, beans, carrots and apples.   Lots of ground beef.

Some of my favorite things were

  • Going to the apple tree for snacks, several times a day.
  • Chatting in the herb garden while we work.
  • Knowing I will be reviewing KidCoder Visual Basic next year with Miss 13.

Questions/thoughts I have…   I was so happy just doing house and mom stuff this summer!  When school starts up, I will try to keep that joy even though life will get much busier.

Fitness… My steps averaged well over 10,000 a day, and I tried to be active most of the time, now that I no longer need to sit down to rest so often.  Eating all the fresh garden produce makes me feel so good!  But I do need to make yoghurt again.  I’m also slowly starting on an exercise program again.

Things I’ve been working on

  • Cleaning up the yard and garden.
  • Eating from the orchard and garden.
  • Swimming with the kids.
  • Scheduling school work for the first term.
  • Catching up on reviews I need to write.
  • Sorting through clothes for next winter.
  • Planning field trips for our Canadian History course.

We’re watching and playing

Sense and Sensibility (Miss 13 and Miss 15), Settlers of Catan, Apples to Apples, Blokus, Dutch Blitz.  

I’m reading… Psalms (almost finished).  I finished Whispers on the Dock (wonderful!), and Captivating and am still reading Mathematics: Is God Silent?, The Discoverers, Standing on the Promises, The Spiritual Danger of Doing Good, and The Passionate Mom.  Next week it’s time to dive into Omnibus and Canadian history books, so I want to finish as many of these as possible now.

Reading Aloud… The children and I are reading Nehemiah, and when my husband is home for meals we read Acts.

I’m grateful for …. Time off from school.  Warm weather.  Apples.

Quote or link to share….    “It’s my job to love and respect Billy; it’s God’s job to make him good. God called you not to make your husband good, but to make him happy.” ~Ruth Bell Graham.  See Deep Roots at Home for more such quotes about marriage.

This post is linked to Kris’s Weekly Wrap Up .

7 Comments

  1. Nita says:

    Great week and love that your 15yr old is a take charge kinda girl.

    1. Annie Kate says:

      Yes, so do I! 🙂

  2. Kyle says:

    Don’t drag your feet for too long I did that last year and we didn’t start until OCtober and I paid for it with a truncated summer. 😉 Have a wonderful week! 🙂 Kyle

    1. Annie Kate says:

      Starting late makes the whole year stressful as well as truncating the summer. I’m actually glad the girls are eager to start earlier than we had planned. I hope you will get to start on time this year as well!

  3. JoAnn says:

    Sounds like a great week. We are starting school this Monday the 26th. I know of a couple of things I need to work on before then, but I think it will run smooth. Well I hope it does. 🙂

    1. Annie Kate says:

      I’ll be thinking of you on Monday morning when we begin too. 🙂 I’m almost ready now, and that will just have to be enough, because we don’t do any school stuff on Sunday (and always taking Sundays off is so liberating!!).

      Wishing you a great year!

  4. Stef Layton says:

    pass the apple crumble please!!

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