Thursday, April 3, 2014

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.


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