Weekly Wrap-Up: Solving Problems

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In my life this week… Snow, warmer weather, and freezing rain outside and warm fires, good food, and lots of work inside.  Some good days, some sick days.

In our homeschool this week …  We were busy, just keeping on going.  Some days, in fact, I felt like a top, spinning from one child to another, and from one subject to another.  But we’ve learned a lot and identified a few problems.

One big issue was that French Three Years was taking much too much of Mr. 17’s time.  We discussed doing only half of the book, but when I looked at it more closely and glanced through the next book, I realized that he could just skip all the even questions in the exercises.  Yes, he will miss a little bit of learning this way, but not nearly as much as he would completing only half of the book.  What a relief that was to everyone.

Another big issue, much larger than I realized, is that everyone’s struggles, where they have struggles, is due to not having memorized something they should have.  Things like past participles in French, multiplication tables, grammar terms, trigonometric identities, names, and places.  We used to do a lot of memorization, but somehow that slipped out of our lives and now we’re reaping the consequences.  Therefore I’m putting together a memorization binder so I’ll have all these topics at my finger tips and be able to drill everyone on what they need to know.

We have not been very organized about learning to write.  One of the best features of Tree of Life’s What’s the Big Idea? is their detailed lesson plan for working through Format Writing.  I love it so much that my older children are finally using Format Writing properly too.  Although it takes extra work from me to set it up for them and to do all the marking, writing well is worth all the effort.

Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share… If something doesn’t work, ask God to help you figure out what needs to be done.

Some of my favorite things this week were…

• Walking beside Miss 10 as she skied to the library, and then coming back in the dark.  She was so excited!
• A ‘restaurant’ breakfast put on but the Little Misses.
• Replacing the Little Misses’ desk with a table.  They are happier and can work better.
• Spending time with the children.  These are truly the happy golden years.
• Watching old slide shows my son had made; I do want to finish the one about 2012 that I was working on.

Questions/thoughts I have…  There’s so much to do!  I’m trying to focus only on what really needs to be done, but making those decisions gets tiring.

Things I’ve been working on…

• Homeschooling and marking.
• Preparing for Mr. 17’s university application.
• Keeping up with the home and all the little tasks like mending, cleaning out the deep fryer, and eating through our freezer.
• Encouraging those, including myself, with fevers, headaches, tummy aches, fatigue, and other issues.
• Studying with and for my teens:  relearning pre-calculus and advanced French and learning logic.
• Typing up lesson plans for Jensens’ Format Writing using the What’s the Big Idea curriculum.
• Reviewing some neat books and curriculum.
• Remembering to walk, eat well, and relax adequately.
• Trying to collect the best pictures of 2012 in order to make a movie of them.

We’re watching…We finished Wartime Farm from the BBC and are now watching Victorian Farm. We love these series, and I just realized that we’ve learned a lot from them as well.  Some of the kids are enjoying Sherlock Holmes, also by the BBC.  I think if we lived in the UK I’d be tempted to have a TV, something we have no interest in here.

I’m reading… 1 Samuel, 7 Tipping Points that Changed the World, and 10 Christians Everyone Should Know as well as little bits of many different books.  I’ve read a lot of books over the last month, and most of them are listed on GoodReads, although on my blog I’ve reviewed The Genius of Ancient Man by Don Landis, Courting Cate by Leslie Gould, Taste and See: An Invitation to Read the Bible, and J. R. R. Tolkien: The Making of a Legend by Colin Duriez.

Reading Aloud… With the kids, we’re almost finished Deuteronomy.  The curses at the end of the book are heartbreaking. Since my last Weekly Wrap-Up early in December we finished Hitty, Her First Hundred Years, as well as The Fields of Home by Ralph Moody, and Just David by Eleanor H. Porter.

When my husband is home for meals we’re reading Daniel, but he’s too busy to be home much.

I’m grateful for … Hope. Bathrooms.  Smiles from my dear family.

Quote or link to share… “… set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”  Col 3:1

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