Weekly Wrap-up: One Step at a Time

Cabin Fever. :sigh:

With winter lingering on, I couldn't wait to get outside anymore. I downloaded this awesome app for my Smartphone called Runkeeper. It uses GPS to map where and distance, and includes pace and an estimation of how many calories burned. I logged in 6.08 miles of walking the last 1 1/2 weeks. Considering I had to deal with an achy leg due to neurological testing, icy roads, and messy weather, I'm happy with that. I even dragged the kids and dogs along! Seeing those miles add up is a great incentive!

Have you read The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin? Awesome!

School Snippets

• Jake is building a steam-powered 'power plant' that will run a Lego train, gave a presentation in Social Studies, and is studying Mars for another oral and computer presentation
• Cati and Sam studied Quinten Massys and Raphael in Art Fraud Detectives: Spot the Differences, Solve the Crime!
• Both went swimming (in a heated pool)
• Cati played clarinet in a band concert
• Cati read The Fellowship of the Ring, and Sam read The Magic Finger and started Flat Stanley (again)
• Cati wrote terse verses for poetry and worked on her collection of inspirational sayings 
• Sam spend HOURS building and redesigning a Lego boat, then added a Technics motor and made it RC, and tested it in the bathtub for speed and maneuverability 
• Sam worked on time (minutes), fact families, place value, and word problems  

Cati and I finished our 2nd knitted scarves. What do you think?

She started another scarf, peach and cream striped this time, and I'm going to make some dishclothes. I'm using this You Tube video tutorial for the dishclothes. Again, for beginners.

I've joined a decluttering challenge called "40 Bags in 40 Days" here. She has some useful printables if you're up for some simplifying. I'm not sure I'll get to 40 bags as I've been doing this for a year, but there's always stuff that can go, right? TBC (Total Bag Count): 3

Instead of buying pre-packaged bars for my oldest son's school snacks, I made Jordan Marsh Muffins this week. You can find the recipe here at Cooks.com. I made blueberry, raspberry and strawberry muffins from berries we or my Mom picked last season and froze, and omitted the sprinkle of sugar on top. Perfect for snacking!

Photo Credit

As always, special thanks to these weekly wrap-ups:

 

A Peek at Our Week: A Not-So-Off Week

In My Life This Week

Every Columbus Day weekend a friend of mine, R__, has a Women's Weekend, and for the first time I joined in. We ate meals at restaurants, window shopped for hours, people watched and chatted, played board games, and had lots of giggles. Over the years, I think I have forgotten how fun it can be to get out with girlfriends! How grateful I am that R__ treated me to every thing we did AND her husband graciously watched my kids so I could get out!

Things I Worked On

❦ Roasted and Pureed One Gallon of Pumpkin ❦ Raked Leaves ❦ Began Winterizing Coop/Run ❦ Cleaned and Vacuumed Van ❦

What We're Cooking

Pumpkin! We harvested 8 pumpkins from our garden this year and a friend gave us a few more. After each of the kids chose one to carve or paint, I baked and pureed the rest, roasting the seeds.

High School Happenings
So, I asked Jake what he did this week and this is what he replied, "Same stuff." There you go! This week's summary from a teenager! LOL

Homeschool Happenings

We had an off week. No school on Monday. For ease, I follow Jake's charter school schedule. When he's not in school, we're not in homeschool. We took yesterday off (for the most part) to kayak. The mild fall weather continues and we're taking advantage of it! (Last year the kayaks were stored the 3rd week of September because it was too cold to go out...)  But some school DID happen!

I was beginning to wonder if Cati and Sam were going to move ahead again in Spelling Power. After WEEKS of playing the Spelling Game, struggling through the same 10-15 words, I'm happy to report that we are once again moving forward. Phew!

Accomplishments
The Serpent's Shadow (C) & The Knight Before Dawn (S)
Easy Grammar - Preposition Test, Verb/Verb Phrases (C)
Daily Grams - Days 21-22 (C) & Days 26-31 (S)
Spelling Power - List 20 (C) & List 9 (S)
Poetry Unit - Diamante (C)
Greek Word Roots - pyro, photos, para, phone, graph
Saxon - Review 38/39, Test 8 (C) &  Math-U-See - 11C-F (S)
Life Science - Earth Changes, Bacteria and Viruses (C) & Plants, Reptiles and Amphibians (S)
Phys. Ed. - Bike Riding, Walking, Kayaking

People and Places

❦ Mom's Weekend Out (Mom) ❦ Library (C/S) ❦ Boy Scouts (J) ❦ Concert Band (C) ❦ Boy Scouts Camping (J) ❦ Kayaking ❦ 

Something to Share

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A Peak at Our Week: A Job Well Done

In My Life This Week

::sniffle:: ::sneeze:: Cold? Seasonal allergies? Not so sure, but I AM sure that I'm going through an awful lot of tissues. It's not slowing down this Mama though!

This week I focused on WORK ETHICS with the kids. I'll admit that I'm not the most consistent with discipline, but there are some things that need to be learned and learned well. Oftentimes I find myself redoing chores that the kids are responsible for because they're poorly done. Do you find sometimes that it's just easier to do it yourself? It doesn't instill GOOD WORK ETHICS in kids though. We had some LONG, LONG days of redoing chores to completion - *I'm* exhausted! - but I think they get it. I hope!

Things I Worked On

✶ Cleaned Baby Pine Trees Out of the Rain Gutter ✶ Replaced Broken Light Bulbs ✶ Dug up Potatoes ✶ Tried to Fix the Motion Sensor Lights ✶ Words with Friends ✶

We're Cooking

MORE apple crisp? I tweaked totally changed up the Barefoot Contessa recipe found here because it seemed like way too much work for apple crisp. All those ingredients! Lemon AND orange zest? And way too much sugar! Our recipe only has 2/3 c and we didn't miss the other 1 1/3 c!

Apple Crisp

Slice, core and peel apples to fill a non-stick sprayed 13x9 baking dish

Combine (with hands):

1 c flour

1/3 c white sugar

1/3 c packed brown sugar

1 1/2 c quick oats

1 softened stick of butter

dash or two of cinnamon

another dash of nutmeg

Sprinkle on top of the apples and gently pat down. Cook at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes or until apples are soft and bubbly. Serve warm or cold.

Oops! I forgot to take a photo.

High School Happenings
What went on at the STEM school? Measured acceleration of an object due to gravity using formulas. Learned to chart information in different ways. Spoke and wrote Chinese. (I'm thinking he should JUST write Chinese characters because it's MUCH neater than his English penmanship.) Pendulums. Designed an on-line portfolio blog logo. Worked on a photojournalism project. Played Tic Tac Ten. Worked on interviewing someone important in the community (which he recorded on his cell phone).

Homechool Happenings
Cati learned about Punnett Squares in Life Science this week, and dominant and recessive alleles, and phenotypes and genotypes.  Do you remember those squares with upper- and lowercase letter combinations to explain why someone has brown or blue eyes? (If the rolling of her eyes are any indication, Genetics and Heredity aren't her favorite parts of Life Science.) Using blue and white dice, she completed a multi-step Skill Lab over the course of the week to learn about allele combinations, creating her own Punnett Squares.

Sam didn't complete this lab with her. His focus was on Biomes, particularly the tundra and desert. Some concepts he just isn't ready for.

But he did create a castle on Minecraft. I finished reading aloud the Knights and Castles research guide that goes with The Knight at Dawn Magic Tree House book. (It's amazing how much reading gets accomplished sitting in the van during Cati's band practices.) He finds the Middle Ages interesting, and that interest makes for some meaningful learning. 

Next week he's working on a VIDEO PROJECT over Knights and Castles that I hope to share with you. Cross your fingers that I can figure out how to record it with Cati's camera!

I'm not sure if I will continue the NROC U.S. History with the kids. There's nothing specifically wrong with it, but I don't feel Cati and Sam are gaining enough knowledge from the lessons. Perhaps we'll switch to "America: The Story of Us" and "How the States Got Their Shapes" for a while. We need some "life" in our history!

Highlights

✶ The Throne of Fire (Riordan) (C) & The Knight at Dawn (Pope Osborne) (S)

✶ Daily Grammar - Prepositions (C)

✶ Easy Grammar - Days 13-16 (C) & Days 13-18 (S)

✶ Poetry Unit Study - Haiku & Tanka (C)

✶ Spelling Power - List 19 (C) & List 9 (S)

✶ Saxon - Lessons 27-29 (C) & Math-U-See - Test 9, Lesson 10A-D  (S)

✶ Life Science - Chapter 3: Genetics/Heredity (C) & Chapter 7: Tundra and Deserts (S)

✶ NROC U.S. History: Lesson 16-17

✶ Extras: Biking, Hiking, Kayaking, Cooking Meals, Animal Care

People and Places

✶ Drive-in Movies (C/S) ✶ Boy Scout Camping & Kayaking (J) ✶ Girl Scout Bake Sale (C/Mom) ✶ Cub Scout Popcorn Sale (S/Mom) ✶ Jazz & Concert Band (C) ✶ Cub/Boy Scouts (J/S) ✶ Open House (J/Mom) ✶ T__ Lake ✶

Our Favorite Thing

Wonderful warm weather! So, we loaded up the kayaks, packed up a lunch and headed to the lake for some paddling. It won't be long before paddles are replaced with shovels!

We saw a pair of Great Blue Herons up-close. The herons kept flying over our heads as we paddled through the shallow inlets. I didn't have my dSLR with me. As the family member voted most likely to flip a kayak, the camera is safer on-shore. :wink: But this photo I snagged on-line.

Please note copywrite. Photo by Coleta Air & Space Museum

Something to Share

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A Peak at Our Week: The One that Begun

Welcome Year 10!

In Our Homeschool This Week

On Wednesday, Jake woke up early (for him), nibbled a quick breakfast, grabbed his backpack and bagged lunch, and for the FIRST TIME EVER set off for public school with a friend. Not your TRADITIONAL public school, but a hands-on STEM charter high school without grades. And then Cati, Sam and I started our new year, right at the diningroom table.

So, How Did the Day Go?

6:15-7:30am Getting a Move On, Sort of

Jake and I got up and got moving at a snail's pace. I'd never consider us MORNING PEOPLE. Staying up late doesn't make the early hours appealing, but we'll adjust...eventually. I woke Cati and Sam before driving Jake 7 miles to meet up with a friend driving him to the school (which isn't nearby). 

7:30-9:00am Language Arts Block

I'm trying out a BLOCK SCHEDULE this year. Something new. Yeah, always tweaking. The kids started their new reading books, Bridge to Terabithia (Paterson) and Dinosaurs Before Dark (Pope Osborne), filled out a Who Am I worksheet (for their portfolios), started Grammar, and took their :groan: Spelling Power placement tests.

9:10-10:00am Math Block

I snagged a couple of Mind Bender books for FREE earlier this summer. Have you seen them? They're wonderful critical thinking puzzles. Anyway, we started Math with a "Bender Warm-up" and then plunged right into our text books, Saxon and Math-U-See.

10:00-10:25am Science Block...and a Shower

We're focusing on Life Science with notebooking and experiments this year. Cati is working out of a middle school Prentice Hall textbook and on-line website, and Sam will be doing Mr. Q's Life Science on-line free here. Cati took a shower and got dressed then did a few minutes of independent Science reading while Sam and I worked together on-line.

10:25-12:00n Band and Nibbles
We hopped into the van and headed off to the public middle school for Cati's first band practice. But while there, Sam and I got hungry so we drove to Subway, then back to the school for a picnic lunch on the grass. Cati ate her sandwich on the ride home, while reading her Language Arts book.

12:00-12:30pm Science Block Continued
We finished up our Science, notebooking information on the scientific method, and biotic and abiotic things.

12:30-1:15pm History Block, but Running out of Learning "Steam"

Looking for something video-based for U.S. History this year, I decided on the National Repository of Online Courses (NROC). Definitely for older students, we'll focus on just the videos and record people and events on our wall map from here, adding in Netflix documentaries and "America: Story of Us" videos (History Channel). It's a perfect, less focused way to end our school mornings.

1:15-4:30pm Free Time, Mostly
After chores, tidying up the livingroom - Ugh! Legos! - and catching up dishes, the kids biked and played with a friend that was in the neighborhood. And MAMA had some Facebook and Words with Friends time before vacuuming and sweeping and folding laundry and pondering what to make for dinner.

4:30-7:00pm Everyone's Day Wraps Up
I picked Jake up at his friend's house at 4:30pm. He was tired, but happy with his first day at B____. Today, the entire school went to a state park (with a BEAUTIFUL light house) and did team-building exercises. Not your typical public school!

I Rewarded By Kids This Week By

Having Chinese take-away to celebrate our first day back to school and going to Zeb's General Store for "penny" (i.e. QUARTER) candy!

7:00-10:00pm TV/Video Game Time and Off to Bed
After a productive, busy day, the kids and I settled down for SCREEN TIME before showers and climbing into bed. 6:15am will come much too soon again!

What about Fine Arts?
Did you notice that our schedule is "stream-lined" this year? and it didn't include fine arts? Oftentimes I over-schedule and over-complicate our day-to-day schooling. I have come to realize the VALUE in SIMPLICITY and allowing the kids more unscheduled learning and exploring time. I'm not ready to go UNSCHOOL though. :wink: Fine Arts will be accomplished on Fridays through a homeschool co-op starting in October. This Mama is concentrating on Core.

Our Favorite Thing This Week

Our FIRST Wellsummer hen egg! The "baby girls" are FINALLY laying! (Just in time too as 3 of our "old girls" are molting and have shut down egg production.) Just for comparison: L. to R. Pekin duck white egg, Ameraucana-Barred Rock hen pink egg and a Welsummer hen tan egg (which will get bigger as she lays more).

People and Places

On Tuesday we hopped into my friend's van with her and her kids and we headed to New Hampshire for some WATERFALL FUN. Diana's Baths is SUCH a cool spot to "hang out" and get wet! But the water is downright CHILLY!

And you know I would take my own photos too, right? LOL

As ALWAYS, linking up to these WONDERFUL blogs:

The Homeschool Mother's Journal: The One with Campin', Swimmin', and Grillin'

In My Life This Week
I tweaked my lower back while swimming. I guess I'm too old to be doing twists-and-turns under water. :wink: Sam won; he completed 3 flips before coming up for air. :sigh: A painful back meant a week of "rest" (i.e. not lifting or bending much, but still driving here-and-there and doing some housework).

In the Kitchen
• BBQ Burgers with Grilled Corn on the Cob and Tossed Green Salad • Low-fat Greek Yogurt Smoothies with Fresh Berries and Toast • Beef and Barley Soup • Egg and Ham Breakfast Sandwiches on Garlic Cheese Bread with Pineapple Slices •

I'm Grateful For

A Coleman tabletop grill my friend A__ gave us! Our OLD grill wasn't working well so it's been WONDERFUL to have a replacement and cook-out again. The kids LOVE BBQ picnics! (And I don't have to cook inside a way-too-hot kitchen.)

Sam's Favorite Thing
Why am I SUCH a softie? :sigh: Meet Winnie, an almost 9-year-old Canadian Toller, who's become Sam's BFF.

Homeschool Happenings
Camp week! Jake and Sam headed to Cub Scout Camp this week where the theme was Knights and Castles. Jake volunteered with the Wolves (2nd graders) and proved VERY valuable to the adult den leader volunteers as he knows his way around the camp like a 2nd home. It's a GREAT experience for him in patience, learning to give clear instructions, teaching, discipline, and being a positive role model for younger boys. And Sam had a blast shooting targets with a bow and arrow or a BB gun, swimming, cooking over a fire, and doing arts and crafts while meeting new friends. For him, camp this year was a HUGE STEP towards independence from the familiar, something that he's uncomfortable with (probably stemming from his SPD). 

And Cati went to her 2nd week of Band Camp. She's LOVING it this year she was able to join the JAZZ BAND and plays snappier music. There are only 2 clarinet players in Jazz so I'm looking forward to her final concert and seeing her music showcased.

Homeschool Helps
FREE! Calendar Binder 26 page printable from Blessed Beyond a Doubt

People and Places

• Rec Lunch and the Lake • Cub Scout Camp • Band Camp •

Something to Share

Phew! It's been SWELTERING in Maine, muggy and hot. (I think I'm ready for Autumn already...) Even the MOOSE need to cool off!

Photo Credit

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