Homeschool Mother's Journal: In Which We Reach Midterms

In our homeschool this week... we kind of carried school into the weekend (last weekend, that is), by enjoying Belgian waffles on Saturday afternoon, and I'd brought home some cinnamon sugar cookies from Belgium, and a Toblerone bar (in honor of Switzerland) for our evening snacks on Saturday.  I just love when something in school relates to chocolate.

On Monday Kennady and I made an apple cake.  Apple strudels, tarts and cakes are feature desserts in many of the German and neighboring countries we studied, but I wasn't interested in spending time with a strudel, or with coring and chopping apples this week, so I found a lovely shortcut recipe that used apple pie filling and a yellow cake mix!

I freely admit that I took it easy on some of the schoolwork this week, because we had the time-consuming job of cutting out enough cardboard car pieces for all the kids in my co-op class.  And I was busy getting report cards together and starting my mid-year review phone calls too.  However, we did the final test for our Science book, studied Franz Liszt, studied a couple more countries (the Netherlands and Austria), and Kennady did some artwork.  And all three kids worked on the subjects they do on their own as well.

In other news... something really interesting happened last Friday, late in the afternoon.  I had gone to hang out laundry on the line, and when I was almost finished, I happened to glance up towards the back of the yard, and saw a young deer.  I hadn't noticed it when I first went out, and certainly hadn't noticed its arrival, and it didn't seem bothered by me.  I finished with the laundry and since the deer didn't seem in a hurry to go anywhere, I hurried inside to get Kennady and a camera.  We came out and I tried to take as many pictures as possible, even though we kept our distance, the deer did start running and trotting back and forth across the back of our property.  Almost as if it was looking for an escape route but didn't want to jump the wire fences.  At last, it trotted behind the line of trees that separates our property from the neighbor's - there is a space between the end of the tree line, and the fence that marks their livestock pen.  As Kennady and I walked over, wondering if the deer would make a run up their driveway to the road, a young man came out and told us not to worry, that the deer was a pet.  (We weren't worried, for the record.  Just curious!) We spoke to him briefly and he told us they had rescued the deer after it had been hit and injured by a mower and now it was almost ready to "go back to his own life" as he put it.  Interesting!  I didn't know the young man, but I think he is the boyfriend of the young lady that lives next door.  Anyway.  Would have been cool if we could have had contact with the deer, but I don't suppose it's wise for it to be that tame if they are going to release it back into the wild.

My favorite thing this week... this piece of art from Spencer -

What's working/not working for us...  I'm glad that all our curriculum choices seem to be working for us.  I just finished our first semester report cards, and we're not making any mid-term changes.  I changed Kennady's math curriculum earlier in the year, and that's still going okay. 

Questions/thoughts I have...  Although we don't need to make any curriculum changes, I'm trying to figure out if there's anything we can do to make our schedule work more efficiently.  I will be getting up earlier now, and that will probably help me some.  I hope so.

A photo/video/quote or link to share...

On the bookshelf...

• The Begotten by Lisa T. Bergren
• Educating the Whole Hearted Child by Clay Clarkson with Sally Clarkson
• And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander

Finished (and was deeply relieved about it) Tchaikovsky.  Also finished Arthur but haven't had a chance to write about it yet.  I ordered a couple of books by Stephen Lawhead with some of my birthday money and they arrived this week! 

A parting shot...
I gave Kennady the cardboard cars I'd made for class, and she decorated one and made a driver for it.

This post is linked to The Homeschool Chick - see how other homeschoolers have marked the midway point of the school year.