Dispelling Myths a.k.a Weekly Wrap for August 22-26

I know I have given the impression that I am a fairly organized individual. : ) I love to have things mapped out as far into the future as possible and having plenty of lists so that I can get there in an orderly fashion.



That pretty much went out the window this week as I was still in re-entry mode from our little jaunt to Chattanooga last week. As you can see from the picture above, there is a lot of white space on my lesson plans for this week. (As in, I took that picture early Thursday morning, and the Thursday column .... it 'tis BLANK.) I do not like operating in that fashion, but God was gracious and we survived the week and have pronounced it good.

Bible: Reading through our Children's Story Bible, we reacquainted ourselves with Noah, Abraham and Sarah. The story of Abraham amazes me every time. His faith to just get up and go and follow God blindly. N1 and I had a good discussion about what "it was credited to him as righteousness" meant. Good stuff for mama and child. : ) Several weeks ago, I finally got around to doing something with the straggling pieces of our timeline from the old house ... this is how that homeschooler decorates her upstairs hallway:



We dug out our cards with the Biblical figures that we have discussed and stuck them up on the wall. (Those pictures down below are where our family fits on the timeline in comparison.)

Math: We seem to still be doing quite a bit of review from Saxon 1 for N1 ... she is still going over basic addition facts that she mastered last year (with the addition of the timed test). As much as I love Saxon, I'm hoping we pick up the pace a bit. N2 and I spent the week working on patterns and doing a little graphing with different colored manipulatives.






Language Arts: We just did a little more of the same in these areas for all girls. N2 and I read and talked about the book Lentil this week. We talked about Ohio, where it is on the map, and what direction (N, S, E & W) it is in relation to us. I also (as we prepare pizza tonight) have plans to do a little taste test with her on bitter, salty, sour and sweet and how it relates to the story. Starting off with McCloskey books has been a great choice for this year. Next week we are going to read Time of Wonder, which is new to me, but I'm sure it won't fail to delight. We actually went back and reread Make Way for Ducklings because we missed Mr. and Mrs. Mallard after reading it so much last week. : )




Social Studies: The girls loved our social studies reading this week. We learned about a few of the main Egyptian gods (Osiris, Ra, etc.) and how the pharaoh was also considered a god by the Egyptian people. We also discussed early forms of writing and communication and which lasted the longest of stone, clay and papyrus. I actually found the timeline piece for both the start of the Egyptian race and the Sumerian people (both discussed this week) and we put those on our timeline in the hall. Very cool to notice was that the first record of the Sumerians came right after the Tower of Babel ... no doubt as languages were garbled and men could not understand each other. I also thought it was interesting that these events (guessed to be around 3500 BC) were still about 1400 years before Abraham and Sarah arrived on the scene. Have I mentioned how much this history major is loving Story of the World this year? : )

Science: We continued reading in our Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day text ... learning some new vocabulary words such as migrate, transient, and field marks as they relate to birds. We also made a chart with terms for different parts of a bird that will help us when we do some bird watching down the road.



I had hoped to come up with a fun activity for today (Friday), but the lack of organization (and inspiration) meant I didn't have anything up my sleeve by this morning. We ended up doing a little school this morning while the boy took a great nap and then I let the girls break out their new watercolors. I didn't give them any plan or instructions, but just let them have at it for today while I did some organizing in the school room. After lunch, and for the first time, I took all four to our neighborhood pool by myself for about an hour. I figured since it was around 1:30 pm, we could get in and out of there before any school kids arrived and it got crowded and it worked out perfectly. We all survived and the baby is currently on his second big nap of the day so I count it a success. : )



I'm really hoping to spend some time this weekend doing a better job at mapping out next week. After Labor Day, all of our extracurricular activities start and I'll need to do a better job managing my time. After reading this post by Elizabeth Foss, a favorite homeschool mom / blogger of mine, I am most convicted of how I am spending my time during the day ... I am getting the basics done, but I can (and should) do better and aim higher. As I thought on that much this week, I am hopefully to spend some time pondering and praying over that as see how God leads.



Hope you all had a wonderful week!