In my life this week…
It has been a busy two weeks since the last update. Although we don’t do American Thanksgiving, our Thanksgiving was in October, I took the week off from writing since everyone else was.
We have had our first snow that actually stuck. Unfortunately the temperature was dropping like a stone and resulted in lots of ice on the roads. I did a little bit of vehicular ice dancing. Fortunately it only resulted in me going straight through an intersection I had intended to turn left at. And yes I have snow tires on. The roads have improved greatly with the addition of sand.
The kids have completed their Christmas list. I can’t talk about what they are getting because the older two both read my blog.
The other big task is we finally put up curtains. We have been in this house for 2 years now but it was just one of those things that never got done. The trigger was twofold. First the new schoolroom faces south and with the winter sun I couldn’t see my computer in the morning and the kids couldn’t see theirs in the afternoon. Second is it is getting colder and while we put in new windows, curtains do help keep out the cold. I keep the thermostat set at 65 so every little bit helps.
In our homeschool this week…
My wife’s implementation of Agile in our homeschool has been working. The kids are behind a bit but overall they are getting more done and it will allow me to start preparing portfolios earlier.
We have dropped our current science book. We had found that it was more craft and copy work than science and then we found that at least some of the science was wrong. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The graphic for wave length is outright wrong. It should be from peak to peak. As it is it is roughly 1/2 of the wavelength but really I can’t measure it. I don’t have time to read through and correct and it was already annoying me and Margaret so it is gone.
Philip is well on his way to writing a book report on “I am Malala” He is working on classifying all the animals that I took pictures of at the zoo. I picked 38 out of the pile and made sure that I could identify them and that there was good info on Wikipedia.
Margaret has been working mostly on her book report for “Indian Captive” and working through Student Writing Intensive. She has also done a lot of math. She also did a number of experiment from another book we had. One of them was on refraction.
I’m working on…
I have finished our California posts. I wanted get these done as much for our own memories as well as sharing our trip.
This weekend will be getting the Christmas Tree up after we clean the living room of course. Visiting WritingPadDad I saw that he had a fence around the Christmas tree and I remembered the year that I did that. We also have the last of the Christmas Shopping to do. I should be all done by the end of the weekend.
Every year I find it is later in the year and I am still not in the Christmas spirit. Things are just to busy. This year I have decided that I am going to change that. First is that I find that the Christian Christmas music helps a lot so I have made a play list of some of my favorites. Second it isn’t Christmas until I have made Christmas cookies so that will be next weekend.
I’m cooking…
This week I turned some beef shanks in to a wonderful Beef Stew. It was perfect for the cold weather we are having right now. Our local daytime high today was 8 F and our low tonight is headed to zero. Next weekend is going to be Christmas cookies and I want to post the recipes that I use. One that I have already posted is Chocolate Crinkles. It is also my most commonly pinned recipe.
I’m reading…
I am still reading “I am Malala” and my opinion of it hasn’t changed, it is good. I need to finish it so I can write a proper review of it.
Philip took out of the library Buzz Aldrin’s “Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration” and read it in a week. He quite enjoyed it. It is the first heavy non fiction book that he has read. I wanted to read it but it had to go back to the library. So another time I guess.
He is currently reading “The Hobbit”. We picked it up yesterday and he read a third of it last night. Does anyone in my family have a normal sleep schedule.
As a family we are reading “Bartholomew’s Passage: A Family Story for Advent”. There is a trilogy of these books and they where recommended to me by Fletch over at The Homeschool Post. I ordered all three from my homeschool store but the Bartholomew one came in just in time for advent and I am still waiting for the others. It is set up with a chapter for each day of advent with each taking about 15 minutes. My kids are liking it enough that they asked tonight if we had time to catch up the chapter that we missed. We did so we are all caught up now.
A photo, video, link, or quote to share (silly, serious or both!)…
The wikipedia article mention is here. There are a couple of thing that I had wrong myself. I am not sure who taught them to me originally. For me the flowing glass was one that I sort of believed based on the very old windows in my Grandmother’s house.
Linking up at:
Yay for curtains! I find that with all the moving we’ve done, it has been a good thing to have thermal blackout drapes. We lived in Germany last winter and they blocked out the cold, and this year living on the sunny coast of California, they help block the blinding sun bouncing off of the ocean! Thank you so much for linking up over at The Homeschool Mother’s Journal! Have fun baking and reading those amazing books!
Carlie: I wish they were blackout curtains which I liked in our old house but they are better than nothing. The overriding factor was price. These were cheap.
Sylvia: Most people turn at that intersection so there wasn’t any oncoming traffic and the going straight was a quick decision after realizing that the left wasn’t going to happen. I have relatives in upstate NY; Plattsburgh and Sarnac Lake. I am very thankful for my wife’s help. She just got more involved recently. I have always heavily involved the kids in the planning and decisions. Dropping the book was as much Margaret’s decision as mine and she help pick its replacement.
I’m sure glad that you made it through the intersection without getting hit! I’ve done that before too. Here in upstate NY our winters are pretty cold and and snowy also! I love how you and your wife plan homeschool activities together. I’ve always been the one in total charge of planning our homeschool. Sometimes I wouldn’t mind a little help and fresh perspective! That science book sounds a little weird to me. I’ve been known to dump some books that didn’t work for us too. Those Chocolate Crinkle cookies look delicious and so professional!