Mother’s Journal ~ May 25, 2012

In my life this week…

What a week! It’s been ALL. OVER. the place! This past weekend we did some yard work, that believe it or not, was actually quite nice! Princess and I had picked up some flowers and bird feeders on our date night so we potted the flowers, cleaned out the other old flower pots and discovered that one of my baby oak trees from several years ago is STILL ALIVE! Saturday evening we spent with my inlaws and Sunday evening was spent watching the solar eclipse – what we got to see before the sun set. We had a good family-oriented weekend.

Princesses' Flower Pot: Salvia (back), Purple Coleus (far left), Pink Polka Dot Plant (far right), Fuchsia (middle), Petunia (front left), Begonia (front middle), Setcreasea Purple (front right).,
Our last remaining baby oak tree, about 6-8 inches tall (it'll go into the ground this autumn..)

This week has brought a variety of work and play, another trip to the dentist for me (to put on my permanent crown,) an afternoon with my mom and grandma, and plans made for our first big canning day this Saturday.

In our homeschool this week…

This week didn’t go nearly as well as last week did. I wasn’t 100% on top of my game, and I felt like I had to fight for it to keep us going. Perhaps we are ALL feeling the call of the summer break! (But we’re not through til the end of June!)
However, we have 6 more lessons left in our history book – we’ll be done in a week or two! And then I have a few fun things planned for reviewing what we’ve learned this year. We also only have one more chapter left in our bible worldview book as well. Another week or two. So very soon our “load” with lighten and that will free us up to knock out our remaining science and language arts workbooks. We’re getting close to the end of the year!!

Other fun things from school this week: our butterfly pupa “hatched.” (What do you call it when the butterfly emerges?) We discovered a new kind of caterpillar and eggs on our tree. The girls spent an afternoon helping my mother in law prep her dining room walls for painting (they’ll go back and help her paint, too–real life experiences, right?!) I started hammering out our curriculum list for next year. And I read Jimmie’s “Designing Your Language Arts Curriculum” book and THEN discovered a gold mine of things I ALREADY have on computer to teach them language arts next year. Several of them were items I’d downloaded during Scholastic’s last Dollar Days sale and then forgotten about!! (I like free and frugal!) I’ll be getting a list up for those, soon, but in the mean time, I’m feeling very encouraged about language arts next year.

New caterpillars on our tree!
And eggs and a teensy weensy caterpillar, too!

My favorite thing this week was…

Hard to pick one!
Watching the eclipse?
Spending time with my mom and grandma?
Tuesday’s Notebooking Publisher party?

What’s working/not working for us…

Not taking a break… it’s not working. I just realized that it’s been a while since we took a week off and I’m sure that has something to do with our “antsy” feeling. I’ve decided that today (Friday) and Monday are going to be Days Off for a long holiday weekend!

Questions/Thoughts I Have:

I strolled around the wildflowers this week and took a picture of a few that I’d like to identify:

Some wildflower/weeds I want to identify. I know, it looks like a thistle right? But the leaves are wrong, so maybe it's not?
Other wildflowers to identify. I'm pretty sure I've been told the name of these before.
More wildflowers to identify. We have these little red & yellow things EVERYWHERE!

Things I’m working on…

  • Paperwork & filing. (YUCK.) But it needs to be done, it feels good to get it done.
  • Finishing up the decluttering and organizing of the school bookcases.
  • Going through files of e-books & pdfs to see what I have that I can use for next year.
  • Finishing touches on the blog. I’ve added our Curriculum Page back in and made a few other tweaks to pages.

I’m reading…

  • I’m still reading in Isaiah — I’m not sure what chapter I’m on…
  • I found my book I had misplaced, the one we’re reading in our ladies’ group at church, One Simple Act. Caught back up on that one.
  • We’re going through the Francis Chan series “BASIC” in our Sunday morning adult class. Each week we have a handout to read through before class the next week.
  • This week I read Jimmie’s “Designing Your Language Arts Curriculum” and now I’m in the middle of her “Notebooking Success” ebook.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

A little bit of linky love for you:

HSMJ wideIHN Mothers Journal, May 18, 2012

Homeschool Mother’s Journal is hosted by the iHomeschool Network, check it out!

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

3 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Tabitha (a.k.a. Penny)
Tabitha (a.k.a. Penny)
June 5, 2012 8:37 am

Thank you for the link, precious!

I wish we had flowers and caterpillars around here. {SIGH} Nothing but dry, crunchy grass lately.

Tric H
Tric H
July 19, 2012 2:04 pm

Your little wildflowers red/orange with yellow tips are Indian Blankets. Here’s a wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaillardia_pulchella. I have a question about that oak seedling. I have several in pots ready to go in the ground and mine, too, have curved, extended root crowns that rise well above the soil line. In fact, several of mine still have the acorn shell hanging off the trunk at just the place where this root crown starts. In other words, it is dangling in mid-air. I’m wondering if the tree should be planted so that this root crown is level or just above the ground.… Read more »

Amber
Amber
July 19, 2012 3:24 pm
Reply to  Tric H

Thank you!
I really don’t know the answer to your question, unfortunately. I dug up a small number of seedlings from my mom’s yard and planted them in pots a couple of years ago, it was an experiment and I didn’t really know what I was doing, I was just giving it a try!

3
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x