The Homeschool Mother's Journal: The One That Starts Bi-Weekly Wraps

In My Life This Week

I decided to start doing these wrap-ups every other week until fall. It's SUMMER, right? Although I do LOVE these, I also love spending LONG days at the lake with the kids, picnicking, kayaking, swimming, reading. So, that's where you'll find us. :wink:

On this day at the lake, Cati found a friend to hang out with...and to cover a BROTHER up with sand. And Sam used his slip-ons as BOATS. Imagination!

And Grandpa and Nannie Lobster drove down for a visit and got right to work on some household repairs. I'm not very handy with a saw or drill. They fixed up our broken kitchen drawers and painted.

Things I Worked On

The entry closet! Although you REALLY can't see a HUGE difference, I removed 2 STUFFED trash bags of, well, trash, and another 2 of donates, and then organized everything. There's NOTHING on the top shelf now. Wonder what I'll store there? 

My boys have A LOT of hair. Serious hair. Giving them summer "buzzes" are a PROCESS. Sam finds the vibrations from the trimmer uncomfortable, painful even, due to his sensory challenges. The mention of a hair cut, well, sends him into a "tizzy". But we got through it! Phew! Can you feel the LOVE from my boys in these before-and-afters? :wink:

Homeschool Happenings

Sam spent COPIOUS amounts of time building with Legos. Whole afternoons just spent creating, quietly, intently. His spatial skills AMAZE me! (Click on the link below to see my post on his camper.)

We signed up for the summer reading program at the library. Woot! For the first time they have an ADULT program too, and I can't wait!

We watched "Parental Control", "RV" and "Life of Pi" from Netflix. Are we the only ones that don't like "Life of Pi"?

With the help of Nannie Lobster, Cati painted her room. Out with the pink, in with the yellow! She's growing up. :sniff: :sniff: She learned to spackle and repair walls, "cut in" with paint, and use a paint roller (without dripping it all over the floor). I'm going to surprise her with a new comforter set when she comes back from visiting family.

We went strawberry picking. 30 pounds of strawberries! That night we had strawberry shortcake for dinner. :wink:

And Cati had her softball championship game. They lost 10-11, but it was a GREAT game. Considering the other team beat ours by a lot ALL season, the girls didn't make it easy for them in the final. Poor Cate got hit by the ball though.

I suppose all this isn't very "school like", huh? :wink: But most CERTAINLY some valuable life skills.

Helpful Homeschool Hints

FREE! World's Greatest Artists Volume 1 PDF download from Confessions of a Homeschooler
FREE! Fascinating Science e-Book from I Can Teach My Child (requires e-mail subscription)

Places We Went, People We Saw

• Boy Scout Court of Honor Banquet (All) • Doctor/Lab (Me) • Softball (All) • Friends - S__ with E__ and N__, S with A__ and J__, and D__ • Grandpa and Nannie Lobster (All) • Boy Scout Yard Sale Fundraiser (J) • Lake (All) • Strawberry Picking (All) •

Something to Share

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As ALWAYS, linking up to these WONDERFUL blogs:

Another Week Closer to Another Year Completed: April 21 - 27

April's almost over?! Really?! Wow! Has it flown by for you too?

White Pine went camping with the Boy Scouts this weekend. He packed up his LL Bean backpack with the essentials - socks, a change of clothing, a pillow, first aid kit, bug spray, sun screen...and a GALLON of Gatorade and enough Beef Jerky to smell up the whole kit'n kaboodle! He has SUCH a GREAT time camping with his buddies! And I'm glad he can share his STINKY jerky somewhere ELSE! ((wink))

Balsam Fir has become SURVIVIORMAN! Have you seen the show on Netlfix or Discovery Channel? A man named Les gets "lost" in different environments for 7 days, living off the land and recording his experience. Well, Balsam Fir thinks this is the COOLEST and walks around wearing a backpack and a bandana hat just like Les, pretending to be lost in the woods. And yes, we've gone over the finer points of the show: how Les is trained, has a plan and people coming back for him, that PREVENTION of getting in these situations is ALWAYS BEST, that eating "wild edibles" should not be done, and no, "marking his territory" around the yard is not acceptable to keep wild animals away. ((wink)) I think it's cute though! And why not learn survival information?

Guess what?! We've lived here for just over 6 years now and enjoyed the woods, lakes and mountains, but would you believe that we never knew there was a 16 mile trail system just 5 miles away? ((sigh)) Anyway, we headed out for a 3 hour hike to the river on Thursday.

We planted corn, cucumber and "goblin gourds" in the mini greenhouses to get a jump-start on the growing season. And Balsam Fir is SUPER excited that his peas have started to sprout!

Soak these Soil Cups in Water for a Few Hours

Poke in Seeds

Cover with a Plastic Lid and Voila! Mini Greenhouses!

Breakfast - It's what's for dinner! How can you go wrong with pancakes, right? Well, one of our favorite dinners is applesauce-cinnamon or pumpkin spice pancakes. And it's a "wing it" meal! LOL I put 1/2 a box - Yes! Simple, just-add-water box pancake mix! LOL - in a bowl, and then plop in some natural applesauce or unsweetened pumpkin, spices (like cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger) and a tablespoon? of dark brown sugar and mix. Now, adding the water can be tricky because the apple and pumpkin have some liquid in them. I just "eye ball" the amount of water, stirring, adding more if needed, until I get the right consistency. Ever had peanut butter-and-jelly pancakes? LOL

Pancake Mix, Applesauce and Cinnamon

Pancake Mix, Pumpkin Puree, Dark Brown Sugar, Cinnamon,
Nutmeg, and Ginger

Dinner! Pancakes and Syrup, Scrambled Eggs (from Our Hens'
Eggs of Course), Red Seedless Grapes, and Cantaloupe

Oh, yeah, we did some school work too. ((wink)) Nothing too exciting though, just our regular ol' bookwork. We're DILIGENTLY working through our Language Arts and Mathematics so we can wrap up the school year on May 11th. Can it be done? We'll see! This time of year is hard for us to focus! So many OTHER THINGS seem much more interesting...state parks, wooded trails, gardening, riding bikes and scooters, running through the sprinkler, and...the list goes on. But the date is set: May 19th for PORTFOLIO REVIEWS!

I did start on NEXT YEAR'S curriculum organizing, pulling THIS YEAR'S books off the shelves. I like to put Post-Its on pages with schedules, answer keys, problem sets, etc. to make it easier to find things. The Post-Its are usually gone by mid-year, but by then we know where to find what we need easily. And I started my NEED TO BUY list...composition notebooks, colored pencils, GLUE STICKS, and so on. (Are we the only family that NEVER has enough glue sticks?! LOL) Fortunately, our supply list isn't going to be very long...because the To Buy curriculum list IS! Who's all set for next year?