In our life this week…
Well, after sharing my thoughts about being far behind in our schoolwork, I was surprised by a great learning week. The girls worked very diligently and learned a lot.
And we also did other things: skiing, swimming, reading, beading, pie-making, watching the snow whirl by the windows, and sitting by the fire.
In our homeschool …
Miss 16 finished reading Dante’s Divine Comedy, the Dorothy Sayers translation. She enjoyed it so much that it is now on my list of books to read eventually. She has also been doing artwork while listening to audiobooks and has gone through many pages in How to Read a Book. Since she’s writing paragraph by paragraph summaries of that book, I got to reread those sections, too. I do so love it!
Miss 13 has done an enormous amount of church history and Bible this week, and she’s mastered the difficult art of converting a writing topic into a thesis statement. That is probably one of the most important things she’ll learn this year.
Miss 11 was very diligent and studied hard. Fractions are getting easier and easier, and so are grammar and spelling. For nature study, she drew a picture of a bittern from a bird book…and she learned about color blending using pencil crayons. That was a very productive hour! She also made many colorful origami boxes to store her beads.
Once again, we had a Friday poetry presentation session. Miss 16 read another poem from The Lord of the Rings, Miss 11 hurried through “Neither a borrower nor a lender be,” and Miss 13 presented a funny poem by Hillaire Belloc that is now hanging on our fridge:
The Vulture
The Vulture eats between his meals,
And that’s the reason why
He very, very rarely feels
As well as you or I.
His eye is dull, his head is bald,
His neck is growing thinner.
Oh, what a lesson for us all
To only eat at dinner.
In our gluten free kitchen… Apple pancakes. Pear pie. Dutch meat pie. Banana cream pie. (After all, this is pi week.) Homemade spring rolls with purple cabbage because that is all we had. Peas, corn, salad, broccoli. Stirfry. Cauliflower with cheese. Bami, a Dutch-Indonesian noodle dish. Breaded chicken. Sausages, bacon, eggs. Scrambled omelets. Porridge. Tuna salad on rice cakes. Lots of grapefruit. Yoghurt.
Some of my favorite things were…
- Skiing with Miss 11
- Swimming in a wave pool with the girls
- Going down the waterslide at the pool
- Watching the girls work so diligently and learn so much
- Reading on the couch with my husband who is too exhausted to work in the evenings
- Hearing and watching water drops dance down the shingles of our roof on a warm day
- Snow
Questions/thoughts I have… When you’re working with a huge amount of stuff, like Miss 11’s thousands of beads which got spilled this week or my history of modern physics project, you consciously have to sit down and contemplate different ways of organizing it all. Then you have to choose one…and you won’t know until you’re at least halfway through if you’ve chosen a good way of doing it.
Fitness… So, for the first time in 6 years I went cross-country skiing! Miss 11 talked me into it, and we went to the library, through some fields and then across a few driveways, up and over their snow hills. Of course, I slipped on a driveway hill and got my first sports injury in many, many years: a slightly twisted ankle. A few years ago I called to inquire about wheelchairs because I could hardly walk…and now I have a sports injury! I’m so thankful that is possible! Of course, after that I took a break from walking, and, being rather bruised, did not do my physio exercises either. It was fun to have a valid excuse.
We also went swimming which, for me, was mostly hanging out in the wave pool, going down the two-story waterslide, and relaxing in the hot tub. It was not very strenuous but not sedentary either, and we all really enjoyed it.
Some of the things I’ve been working on…
- Homeschooling
- Studying the history of modern physics and organizing all the information
I’m reading… Zechariah. I finished Ten Days Without, and started and skimmed a lot of different books, including Madeleine Takes Command which always brings tears of awe to my eyes. Currently I’m reading The Faith of Scientists, The Trouble with Physics, Subtle is the Lord, Superforce, Say Goodbye to Survival Mode, A House for My Name, and The 40 Most Influential Christians.
Reading Aloud… We’re reading Isaiah, Volume 5 of In de Zoete Suikerbol, and Young People’s History of the Church. We finished Henry Hudson.
When my husband is home for meals we read 2 Timothy.
I’m grateful for …. Sleep. All the learning that went on this week. Health.
Quote or link to share…. If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s a hilarious wee video about winter that I completely identify with, especially now that we’re heading into another cold snap. Our whole family loves it. If you have issues with your weather, do check it out. (And if you’re in the US, remember that +1C is the same as 34F.)
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This post is linked to Kris’s Weekly Wrap Up .
Hooray for the good report, and especially the progress you have made physically, despite the injury. We celebrated pi day, too, although I cheated and bought an apple pie. Your pies sound way better!! I hope you have warmer weather soon. We are up and down. Today it is cold. Tomorrow warm. The cats don’t know why I have the windows closed today. 🙂
Sounds like a great week. Swimming and skiing, how fun. Glad your ankle is ok.