Friday, February 28, 2014

OOF! What a Week!

This has been one of "those" week's in our homeschool. Yes, lessons were completed but only through sheer force of will on us parents part. These campers are going through some winter cabin fever due to the cold temps being back and just were not interested in doing lessons this week (for the most part).
Some of our binders, textbooks, and workbooks.

Monday we woke up and it was cold cold COLD in our house! The thermostat said it was 55 degrees F! Daddy thought the furnace had simply blown out, due to the high winds the night before, but it turned out to be a $15 part had burned out. While Daddy was figuring this out we were layered in a few layers of clothing, the two electric heaters were brought into the living room, bedroom doors were shut, and the oven got turned on. There was no point in not doing our lessons because we needed something to keep our mind's occupied. About halfway through our lessons the furnace was fixed and the heat was working again. Thank God for those electric heaters though because during our earlier lessons we were pretty comfy.



ECJ still doing those
exercises for Health.
On Tuesday every single camper was in a crabby mood. They drug their feet on their lessons, pouted when they didn't get their way, and generally were simply "off". ECJ was even assigned homework because he didn't complete his lessons on time, even AFTER we'd given him an extra hour to do it! It was one of those days where everyone felt like throwing in the towel. Of course we didn't do that but I knew something the campers didn't know, Noni would be coming out the next day to visit so they'd get the day off of lessons.

Noni came out around noon on Wednesday. The kids had been told around 9:30, after Bible studies, that she was coming out and they'd be excused from lessons for the rest of the day. They promptly asked to watch Netflix and pretty much only visited with Noni part of the time she was here due to being allowed cartoon time during the day. This was fine with Noni as she mainly felt like visiting with the adults though she loves the children dearly.
Moragon hoping someone
drops a cheesy poof.
Thursday and Friday pretty much blurred together. Lessons were completed amongst many grumbles and complaints. Yet it was all completed without too much hastle and headache and was finished on time. ECJ even managed to sneak in doing his homework during this time, and he did it correctly. The only thing of note that really happened is that Thursday evening ECJ let Peanut cut his hair! Daddy had to shave it, ECJ's normal summer cut, to "fix" the problem. I will never cease to wonder what goes through kids heads.



We've tried one new thing this week for Peanut (prek/K), we're having YCJ work with her on her phonics work. This serves as review for YCJ and helps Peanut in the process (it also frees Mommy up for a few minutes each day). Peanut is still happily working on her "new" program for school (review in a few weeks) and listening to anyone who'll read her favorite books to her. Most of her PreK workbooks now only have a few letters left to finish off.
There was a lot of progress, through much protest in some areas, for YCJ (Third grade) this week. She did a lot of work with the dictionary and is finally beginning to understand how she needs to use it. And, possibly most important of all, she's begun reading a small series that she loves that are short chapter books!! She's familiar with the Disney Princesses and these books are about things that didn't happen in the movies. We borrowed these from the library and she's very content with them. She's also progressing nicely with her cursive work.

Other than the incident with ECJ (sixth grade) allowing his baby sister to take a whack at him (literally) with the scissors, it has been a pretty normal week for him. Some lessons were more interesting and challenging than others and obviously he was rather bored with the lesson he was working on Monday. He did decide that Pet Cemetery wasn't a good choice for him to read right now, not good bedtime reading at the very least (that's my copy of the book that lost it's cover in storage last year). He's happily reading one of his Warrior Cat books that seems to keep him entertained enough to where he can nearly narrate the whole book for you.

As for me I've been reading a wide variety of books for the past two weeks. The books on the left are all by the same Christian author and I found each one of them a wonderful read. They were the kind of books that I personally find hard to put down. On the right are two books on Anne Frank and a memoir of one of the ladies who was on Schindler's List during that dark period of our history. I read both of them in less than three days. I haven't shared too many of the books I've been reading lately only because I'm nearly always reading if I'm not doing something else. Reading is part of my every day life and I hardly ever stick to one subject or author for very long. I once dreamed as a child of living in a library.



These are some of the books we'll be reading in the next two weeks as part of History lessons.





Random picture of the week:


Posts you may have missed this week:  
Last Menu Plan for February
Igloos and Birdfeeders
Winter Bucket List Link Up #? (kindly co-hosted by Learning Life with 3 Sons )
5 Meaningful Ways I'll Simplify my Life
What's Working for All of Us (this one is part rant)

Who I'm linking up with this week:      
Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
Faithful Mom of 9
Homegrown Learners
and
Great Peace Academy














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8 comments:

  1. My kids have cut their own and each other's hair before, too. When I first saw the picture, I wonder if your boy was fighting cancer. Glad it's only a bad haircut!

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    1. Thank God it was only a bad haircut! We've had our health battles around this house but at least none of the children have had to deal with having Cancer (though Daddy has been in remission for almost a year now). This isn't the first time there's been a surprise haircut around here but I'd really thought that at 11yo he'd have had more sense than to allow his 5yo sister to attempt to cut his hair lol

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  2. It amazes me what kids think up. I am glad it is nothing serious.
    Blessings, Dawn

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    1. I really should have put a disclaimer by those photos... Thanks for the blessings

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  3. I'm glad the part for the heater only cost $15! I'll bet that was a great relief! Jeremiah purposely wants hair cut like that! He loves a shaved head!

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    1. Yes, the cost was a great relief!! I'm just glad my dear husband was able to figure out how to install it as it was the first time he'd done one of those parts. ECJ likes that hair cut in the summer but for winter he says it's too cold lol

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  4. It's funny my son is a cancer survivor but I saw the photo's as being a self inflicted haircut. I didn't think cancer until I read the other comments. My son just turn 12 and is in grade 6. I am glad the furnace was a cheap repair. When ours went 4 years ago it was a $300 control board. I agree that Pet Cemetery is not for bedtime reading, that book would give me nightmares.

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    1. Our sons are the same age and grade. I'm glad that your son is in good health now. We've had cancer touch our lives many times, thankfully not with the children though. My heart goes out to you. My mother in law's furnace went out the same week ours did and it cost them just under $1000 to fix it! This crazy winter.

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