Has Spring Sprung? : March 10 - 16

In My Life This Week

♪ ♬ Ch-Ch-Changes! ♬ ♪  I'm not sure if it's "cabin fever" or end-of-year burn-out (even with 30 something days left), but after several weeks of less-than-steller Sapling attitudes I made some changes around here. Impatient, negative, challenging attitudes tend to mean 2 things for us: 1) too much flitting from activity-to-activity with little free time or 2) too much unstructured time. Yeah, they do contradict one another, huh? So, I covered my bases creatively! ((wink))

The Great Melt! This POND was Our Driveway! Here are the
Boys Playing in the POND. (Fortunately it was Gone the Next
Morning!) And Yes, Those ARE the Hens in the Background!

When you go shopping do your kids ask for a treat? Candy? Toys? Well, my Balsam Fir asked for NAILS. Yep! And he used a WHOLE POUND of them to make what looks like a Hooverville in the front yard:

The Entryway 

Adding the Roofing WALKWAY to his House. And Yes,
THAT is the HOUSE. ((wink))

Don't you want one for the front yard of YOUR house?! LOL

And after a hard day of building your shelter, well, you need to don your Spiderman costume and vest and go roller skating. ((wink)) (Wonder what the neighbor's think? LOL)

Dog Wondering WHAT is Going on!

Makin' and Bakin' in the Kitchen
Buttermilk biscuits pinned from The Hungry Mouse! They were perfect! We served them with some scrambled eggs and BAKED bacon for Breakfast Night!

SQUARE Buttermilk Biscuits! I Couldn't Find the Round
Cutter. Don't they look GREAT?

Homeschool Happenings

School-at-home is exhausting! Have you ever tried to reproduce public school in your homeschool? I know - you're probably asking WHY? Well, because of  ♪ ♬ Ch-Ch-Changes! ♬ ♪! My relaxed approach wasn't working for the Saplings right now. A tight 8:00am-2:00pm schedule (with breaks for mid-morning outside play and lunch) was just the thing to kick-start those positive attitudes. Now they know just how lucky they are to have RELAXED days!

It was an ACCOMPLISHED week! The Saplings re-focused their energy on their school work, making a SERIOUS dent in their curriculum-to-be-completed this year!

Balsam Fir's Cell

Sugar Maple's Cell

White Pine's Features of the Ocean Floor Notebook Page

Balsam Fir read Put Me in the Zoo on my Kindle Fire. (We're borrowing it from the statewide e-book library. If you have an e-reader, you should check YOUR state for eBooks too!) Sugar Maple is reading Lily's Crossing by Patricia Reilly Giff and White Pine is reading By Heresies Distressed (again) and A Mighty Fortress by David Weber and Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony by Eoin Colfer.

Excellent Extras

❀ Girl Scouts ❀ Cub Scouts ❀ Boy Scouts ❀ Clarinet/Band ❀ Chuck E Cheese ❀

Streamin'

Favorite Resource Hint

Have I shared Macmillian/McGraw-Hill FREE K-6 Language Arts worksheets yet? I can't remember! LOL Anyway, Sugar Maple simply does NOT enjoy Saxon Grammar and Writing, but it's too late in the year to purchase something new so I switched her to M/M-H worksheets. She copies the rules into her Language Arts notebook and then completes the exercises either written or orally with me. Perhaps continuing next year for her?

One of Our Favorite Things

S'mores! After spending part of a BEAUTIFUL afternoon raking the yard and cleaning the coop, we lit the fire pit and made ooey-gooey S'mores - the first of the season! Yum!

Ponderings

Sometimes you just, well, "gotta" make changes! Sometimes you have to DECLUTTER your days and focus on those that are MOST important, erasing the rest off the calendar and enjoy less running around and more staying at home. Yes, sometimes you "gotta"!

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