Weekly Wrap-up: It's arrived!

EVERYDAY LIFE

Spring arrived this week! Ah-maz-ing! With warmer days, the snow melted fast creating a new 'pond' right where our driveway used to be...and I found out that Sam's rubber boots no longer fit by the dripping wet, winter boots lined up in the foyer. (What 9-year-old can resist a big ol' puddle to wade in.) But I'll take it! There's nothing quite like opening windows, even briefly, to let fresh air flow through the house after being shut up for months.

Even 'the girls' got to stretch those wings. Olive and Opal, the ducks, went swimming in the frigid brook, and Ony, Speckles, Musty, Sassy, Lil' Rhodie, Rhodie, Ava, Nutmeg, Butterfly, and Amber found the only patch of visible brown grass to scratch up. They rewarded us with finally laying eggs again.

But oh my! the road is a muddy mess. I'm going to need an alignment!

Total Bag Count: 14

MENU
✿ Hamburgers & Pasta and Veggie Salad ✿
✿ Scrambled Eggs, Hickory Smoked Bacon, Fresh Pineapple & Biscuits ✿
✿ Spaghetti with Ground Chicken Meat Sauce & Steamed Green Beans✿
✿ Marinated Beef Strips with Broccoli & Baked Fries ✿
✿ Boston Cream Pie Ice Box Cake ✿

SCHOOL SNIPPETS
Sam does "van school" while Cati is at Jazz and Concert Band and her clarinet lessons. I keep most of his work in a binder, slipping Easy Grammar inside and his current reading book. (I keep pencils and a hand sharpener in the van.) Do you ever do school-on-the-road?

Cati wrote Name Poems and Word Patterns poems this week. She's getting close to finishing up her study of basic 'formula' poetry. (I'd share the unit with you, but it's something I have from my student teaching in 1998 and it was OLD then.) She's also only 12 lessons away from finishing up Saxon 76.

In U.S. History we watched NROC on WWI and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR and The New Deal. We skipped art study this week and spent more time outside...and began to 'spring clean'.

At STEM school, Jake switched his Physics research topic from 4D to antimatter, continued to build a steam-powered power plant, focusing on the turbines, commuted projectiles for Math to get a ball into a basket without practicing, and "learned the things he hasn't" in Astronomy. (I'm not sure what that means!)

BOOKS
Mom- Seeing A Large Cat by Elizabeth Peters
Cati - The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Sam - Invisible Stanley by Jeff Brown 

PEOPLE & PLACES
✿ Jazz and Concert Band & Clarinet Lesson (Cati) ✿
✿ Cub Scouts (Sam & Jake) ✿
✿ Wayback Wednesday at Movie Theatre: Back to the Future (All) ✿
✿ Boy Scout Camping (Jake) ✿

FAVORITES

I got a chuckle out of this Lego Pain Scale from Facebook. Those of you with Lego enthusiatists will understand all too well.

ON THE 'NET

How to Have a Perfectly Clean House
50 Best Unschooling/Self-directed Learning Posts in 2013

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

Weekly Wrap-up: Dreaming of Spring

EVERYDAY LIFE

But I'm ready to start planning our garden and buying our seeds. I've been pondering creating another raised bed from concrete blocks. The kids have BIG gardening ambitions, but the 24x16 garden last year was a flop when we got busy with summer; we could only keep up with the 12x6 raised bed. Square Foot Gardening is much more reasonable (and enjoyable) for us.

Photo Credit

I've been knitting up dish cloths all week. They're quick, useful things! (Find instructions here.) I love the earthy colors I chose to knit them up in. I'm still pondering what to create next, but I might try a reusable mesh bag for groceries or library trips or the lake this summer. It requires CROCHETING and I haven't attempted that. You Tube!

Total Bag Count: 6

I'm about 14 bags behind on the Declutter Challenge. In my defense, I did start a year ago throwing out and donating unused items, and it's really just too cold to tackle the garage which REALLY needs a purge-and-organize.

Photo Credit

MENU
✿ Scrambled Eggs with Broccoli and Jack Cheese & Blueberry Pancakes with Maple Syrup ✿
✿ Beef Au Jus Sandwiches on Homemade Herbed Bread & Steamed Carrots and Peaches ✿
✿ Cheese Pizza & Fresh Strawberries ✿
✿ Chicken Cordon Bleu & Herbed Biscuits and Peas ✿

SCHOOL SNIPPETS
Sam has discovered that reading isn't so bad! He's rereading the Flat Stanley series, but I'm just pleased as punch that he seems to be ENJOYING it! He's moving along in Horizons Math 2, working on his understanding of place value, time and regrouping.  We started body systems in Life Science this week.

Cati is reluctantly continuing her Daily Grams. She's finding the whole thing monotonous and boring so I'm tempted to drop it, but she doesn't want to BEGIN anything else. It's too early in the year to discontinue a whole subject! She's already completed her year of Life Science and is almost there with Saxon Math 76. 

They watched vidoes on the 1870-1900s in American History, learning about economic changes and social upheaval during the 'Gilded Age' and Teddy Rooveselt, and solved some mysteries in Art Fraud Detective: Spot the Difference, Solve the Crime!, studying paintings by Pieter de Hooch, Hendrick ter Brugghen and Marinus van Reymerswaele.

In STEM school, Jake printed out his finished 3D plans for a steam-powered 'power plant' (to run a Lego train set), solved quadratic equations, learned quantum physics, and continued his (mostly) winning streak in Chess.

BOOKS
Mom - The Aviator's Wife by Melanie Benjamin & Seeing a Large Cat by Elizabeth Peters
Cati - The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
Sam - Flat Stanley & Invisible Stanley by Jeff Brown

PEOPLE & PLACES
✿ Concert Band & Clarinet Lesson (Cati) ✿ 
✿ Boy, Girl & Cub Scouts (All) ✿  
✿  Garage & Dunkin Donuts ✿ 

FAVORITES
I have this big, old TV in my bedroom. Would you believe that with the proper connections the XBOX will connect to it and play my "Big Bang Theory" DVDs? The kiddos aren't thrilled with my 'borrowing' the XBOX though.

Photo Credit

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