Weekly Wrap-up: Week 20 - 13 Inches, 90 Days, 26 Candles

PILING UP AND NO WHERE TO GO

Yet MORE snow fell over the week. :sigh: Winter 2015 is shaping up to be one of our coldest, snowiest seasons ever. How many days until spring? 

Snow is AWESOME for some things though! It's the perfect time to wrap up in cozy blankets and read, crochet or watch movies, to bake banana bread to go with hot cocoa, to simmer beef stew in the crockpot for dinner, and take a long nap. Quiet days at home! (And sometimes I NEED those days...)

Cuppa Cocoa

QUICK MUNCHIES
There are just some nights were NONE of us are up for cooking dinner.  Sometimes you just need something super quick-and-easy. Cati and I whipped up quesadillas on Wednesday and served them with chunky salsa and baby carrots. Everyone loved them! And there was little effort or time involved in prep!

Ingredients: Light Whole Wheat Wraps (6), 2 c shredded Mexican blend cheeses, 1 # boneless chicken breast, sliced into thin pieces and sprinkled with taco seasonings, salsa

Directions: Place 3 wraps onto cookie sheets. Sprinkle with cheeses. Add chicken. Top was remaining 3 wraps. Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees or until cheese is melted and wraps are just a tad crisp. Serve with salsa.

How about dessert? I found a recipe on Pinterest for chocolate-dipped cherries and thought it would be super fun for us to make. (No, not healthy, but it IS dessert...) But I'm a lazy cook so I took the easy way out...and didn't follow the recipe tweaked the recipe. Both Sam and Cati helped with these yummy creations.

Ingredients: 2 jars Maraschino cherries with stems, 1/3 bag milk or dark chocolate chips, 1-2 T milk (optional), jimmies (optional)

Directions: Drain cherries and place on paper towel to dry. Melt 1/3 bag of chocolate chips slowly in microwave, stirring every 20 seconds or so. Add milk to thin a bit if needed. Dip cherries into the melted chocolate then sprinkle with jimmies. Place on waxed paper. Chocolate will harden after a few minutes.

(And if there's any chocolate left, don't waste it! We smeared the leftovers onto banana slices and froze them. A favorite treat around here!)

LEARNING CONTINUES

Although public school kids are off for February break this week, the younger Mountain kiddos were homeschooling. Somewhat. (Jake worked on finishing up his bedroom redo.) We've taken off a number of days "just because" so our school year is bound to go into June if we don't "buckle down" and get our days in. (Maine homeschoolers are required to complete 175 days of school.)  We definitely like to enjoy as many days possible of summer vacation. So, we did a bit of schooling this week...

Stripe, our cat with a 'dude, likes Saxon too! She joined Cati one morning for Algebra...

It'd been awhile since I read from Story of the World (Vol. 1) so I made a point of getting to it this week. We keep a history timeline on the wall in the diningroom/schoolroom and label maps to go along with our reading. It's our 2nd time through this series, but it'll only reinforce our learning. (Truth be told, I'm ready to study American History. I enjoy it so much more!)

Our wall timeline the first go 'round. We're using the same cards this time too.

BACK TO THE BEGINNING
Years ago I pulled our library card from the local library. Just 4 miles away, it was frustrating to borrow items from another library further away, but a library volunteer mistook another patron for me and allowed her to borrow under my name. Unfortunately, this patron wasn't timely about returning those items for which I became responsible for. Now that that volunteer is no longer volunteering, I signed up for another card and we're enjoying a "new" selection of books and movies.

Downtown. Yes, DOWNTOWN. LOL Our library, Rec Center and Post Office in WARMER, LESS SNOWIER times.

BIRTHDAY BOYS

Not that we didn't enjoy some "off" times this week. My boys celebrated birthdays! All my kids are in DOUBLE DIGITS now. :sigh: Where does the time go? Sam turned 10 and Jake turned 16. (Would you believe that they were due on the same exact day 6 years apart?) We celebrated with a red velvet cake topped with chocolate frosting and Heath, M&M and Kit Kat pieces. And on Valentine's Day, between their birthdays, we went to our local ice cream parlor for FREE ice cream sundaes with Thomas and his kids.

Flashback to younger years! Jake, age 11, and Sam, age 5, at the lake. Look at all that hair!

As always, special thanks to the these bloggers:

Don't forget to read my other blog posts this week:

Friday Four Fill-in Fun: Week 200
Six Word Saturday: What Hits the Spot
Wednesday Hodgepodge: The Government Edition

Happy Homeschooling!

Weekly Wrap-up: Days 110-114 - Birthdays, Basketball and SUN!

Over the weekend, S had his final Basketball Skills and Drills and got his participation trophy. He had a GREAT time! (We're SO fortunate to have wonderful community members who volunteer their time and energy for our Recreational Sports program!) C had her Basketball Round Robin. Players on the High School varsity team coached. They said C had talent! She's learned SO much about the game since starting last year! And J had a disappointing loss against one of the better teams in the league, but he played HARD and WELL (and needed a shower afterward - YUCK!).

S with his Trophy and Ball

C with her Trophy

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY SWEET S! He turned 6 on Sunday! And HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WONDERFUL J! He turned 12 on Tuesday!

Have you seen Despicable Me? Such a cute movie! With lots of laughs! Monday afternoon we watched it with a friend. And J, C and I played some games of Sorry!, Guess Who Extra and Rummikub.

A Fun Game of Sorry!

On Tuesday S had another session of "Astronaut Training" at OT to help with his vision processing difficulties (and his SPD). Slowly but surely I've noticed some small improvements with his ability to track words from word-to-word and line-to-line. It's still a struggle some mornings for him to read his Hooked on Phonics: Learn to Read, but he IS learning to read and tries SO hard.

Winter Wednesday! The weather was chilly, but sunny when we headed out to study different kinds of evergreens or conifers. Check out what we did here!

LOTS of bright sunshine on Thursday! J had his Not Math Math where they studied hexaflaxagons. And in the afternoon the kids' friends came over to play games, chase each other, create with homemade modeling dough, and get soaked in the melting snow.C and S went to PJ Storytime at the library, listened to books on snowman and made sand snowmen.

How to Make Flexagons

C's Sand Snowman

Drip! Drip! Another warm...well, for Maine in February...day on Friday. The kids completed their core subject daily assignments and after lunch we painted Georgia O'Keeffe-inspired painting for this month's Artist Study. Check out our paintings and notebook pages here!

 

J's Accomplishments:

Teaching Textbooks Lessons 75-77, Chapter 10 test (95.65%)

Apologia General Science Module 8: Uniformitarianism and Catastrophism (94.11%)

Teacher's Cafe Middle School Grammar - Verb Tenses

Wordly Wise Lessons 18 and 19

Creative Composition - Mystery

DK's History of the World Chapters 16 and 17
Sheppard Software World Geography Games

Dance Mat Typing

J's Stack of Wordly Wise Vocabulary

J's Mod 8 Lap n Note

J's Mod 8 Lap n Note

 C's Accomplishments:

Saxon Math 54 Lessons 63-65, Supplemental Practice

Handwriting Without Tears

History Pockets: Native Americans - Iroquois/Seminole

All About Spelling Step 7 and 8

Apologia Zoology III: Chapter 9 Even-toed Ungulates

Creative Writing - Letter (2)

Daily Grams Day 12-19

Scott Foreman Grammar and Writing Handbook Verbs in Sentences

C's History Pocket: Native Americans

C's History Pocket: Native Americans

C Sewing Her Blanket

S's Accomplishments:
Hooked on Phonics: Learn to Read pp 36-39
Handwriting Without Tears U, W and V
Get Ready for Kindergarten Math pp 86-94, 143-148
Soft School's Addition Games
Kumon Mazes

Blank 100 Grid 31-35

Dover Coloring Book: Cars and Trucks Dot-to-Dot
Magnetic Color Cubes: Mosaics

Health Lapbook (from Homeschool Share)

S's Mini Books: Food Groups and Taking Care of Self

S's Mini-Books: Inside the Body

S's Color-by-Addition Peacock

S's Mini Books: Bomes

On Our Bookshelf This Week:

Meet ______: An American Girl (C's been working through EVERY girl.)

The Apocalypse Troll by David Weber (J)
Germs Make me Sick by Melvin Berger (S)
The Skeleton Inside You by Philip Balestrino (S)
Dem Bones by Bob Barner (S)

Don't forget - the Great Backyard Bird Count starts today! Click on the button on my sidebar to participate! It's quick and easy! And you don't have to participate all weekend. We already entered our numbers for 15 minutes of observing this afternoon: 2 Mourning Doves, 2 Blue Jays, 5 Black-capped Chickadees, and 3 Tufted Titmice.

Black-Capped Chickadee

That's our week! Thanks for reading! Check out other wrap-ups by clicking on the Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers button on my side bar. And join up with the Hip Homeschool Hop!