Weekly Wrap-Up: In Which We Become Unplugged

Homeschool:   We had quite a slow start on Monday - I let everyone sleep in because of late night Sunday. Later than usual because both boys had to be at the rink for both hockey games. Once everyone was up though, Landon got started on Saxon Math 8/7, and Kennady started Grade 4 math. I worked on getting all the assignment lists updated and printed out for Spencer, and making sure all the grades were entered so I could make report cards. Our Language Arts/English books for NEXT year arrived in mail! That was exciting for me, but the kids were somewhat less enthusiastic. ;-) Wednesday and Thursday were both snow days for public schools, which didn't really affect our schoolwork at home, but did mean that the much-anticipated start of co-op had to be delayed until next week. Kennady was distraught. We did get some science done this week, and while studying Chinese arts and culture, we did some sketching and papercutting. I still want to try Chinese calligraphy and landscape painting, but that will require me to find paint and paintbrushes, so that will wait for next week.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="learning about conservation of mass"][/caption]



[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="320" caption="hmmmm... I think you can see why this experiment appealed to Landon..."][/caption]



[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="Kennady's sketch - Chinese pagoda"][/caption]

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="240" caption="Landon's sketch - dragon and pagoda"][/caption]



[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="320" caption="Chinese papercuts"][/caption]



In Other News: We realized last Sunday that we needed a new battery for our truck - that's why the boys were both at hockey with their dad until late Sunday. We were sharing the van until we had a new battery AND that new battery was actually IN the truck That took until Thursday! We finally started choir on Tuesday - the theme for the spring concert is Oscar-winning movie music. Wednesday's snow day meant no church activities in the evening, but I was able to keep the appointment at the vet's with the cat to - he certainly is expensive for a "free" cat! After dinner our power went out - due to thunder-snow! We played games by lantern light, and everyone went to bed early. We're considering having a voluntary 'power outage evening' once every week or two so we can practice being unplugged. The snow continued on Thursday, and again on Friday, but thankfully didn't cause any problems for my trip to pick up Harrison.

On the Bookshelf:

• The Scribe by Francine Rivers


• Quitting Church by Julia Duin


• Miniatures and Morals: The Christian Novels of Jane Austen by Peter Leithart - this book (purchased from my birthday money!) arrived along with the schoolbooks on Monday and I couldn't resist getting started.  You gotta love a book in which the title of the first chapter is "Real Men Read Austen"


• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (first of Austen's novels studied in the Leithart book)


• Critique of Criminal Reason by Michael Gregorio

I finished The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory and The Frightened Man by Kenneth Cameron.

Parting Shot: