LNF News becomes The Weekly Barden, Planning for Astronomy, & the Rest of Our Week {Weekly Wrap-Up}

 

Ah, the week gone by. We didn’t have ‘school’ on Monday because we took a field trip instead. We went to an International Car Show. Ooooh, I know, you wish you could have gone. Surprisingly {to me anyway} there weren’t that many concept cars. One in particular was quite amusing: it was filled with plastic! The seats were not complete and the dash was missing. Ah, well, it was a concept car; apparently they’d not figured out the details yet.

I don’t really recall if it was this day or the previous week that Lee voiced her desire to revive The Weekly Barden. Her and Fox have been doing LNF News Current Events here on the blog for a little while {not so disguised writing assignments lol} but I think it wasn’t ‘creative’ enough for either of them. I actually have more involvement with The Weekly Barden, also. You can see the newest edition by clicking the image below, or by looking at “Weekly Barden” Newsletter page here on the blog.

Tuesday was a tough day of going back to school. Next week is no school because we are just tired. We’ve been going {yes, I will whine and complain for a second} straight since January 7. We usually take a week off after every 4-6 weeks. I think we are stretching ourselves this time. 8 weeks. Oh my. LOL.

I was supposed to do grocery shopping on this day but the weather was fairly nasty {and I just didn’t want to}. I did however find the energy, the time, and the courage to venture out in the horrid weather to go to Mom’s Night Out. Yes, priorities. *wink*

Wednesday, was another ‘tough’ school day. Even with begging from both kids to not have school, we did indeed. We are really doing well in terms of getting things done. I’m starting to think about portfolio assessments and what I want to share at the assessment. We’ve not gone this route before and it is a bit more expensive {about $20} but I think it will be more relaxed and someone else will give feedback on how my kiddos are doing. The testing is very easy though- it’s tempting to do that again…

Fox had Young Marines, as usual. And Lee and I did not go to prayer meeting…again. We are going to make a better effort to making it a commitment.

I did get the grocery shopping done on this day –and only spent $27 for the week. Granted we had gone to the warehouse store on Monday and spent an excessive amount of money ‘stocking up’. It’s discouraging how little can be purchased for such a large sum of money! Easy come…easy go?

Thursday wasn’t terribly impressive. I hardly remember it. I did have to have my tires changed over in the morning, and met an individual that hails from Oregon while at the tire shop. It was nice to see someone else from my home state. He said it was nice to hear it pronounced correctly!  

Dinner was probably the best part of the day: Parmesan potato wedges and salmon. Super yummy. I’m not a fan of strong flavor fish. We usually get Talapia for cooking and I love sushi {it doesn’t ‘taste’ like fish}. I just used spices on the fish; nothing special. Here’s the recipe for the Parmesan potato wedges:

Need:

• 6 potatoes, cut into wedges
• 1/3 cup oil
• 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese {fresh would be superb; we used Kraft}
• 1/2 tsp to 1 TBS Italian seasoning
• garlic powder, salt & pepper to taste

Do:

• Preheat oven to 425*F and if needed line a cookie sheet with foil or parchment paper.
• Put potato wedges in a large bowl with a lid {or a gallon ziplock bag}, add all but the salt and pepper.
• Shake! until all coated.
• Place single layer on a cookie sheet and back at 425*F for about 30 minutes.

Delicious!

Friday is here and TGIF! Next week we are taking off which means school planning for me. We still have, oh, about 15 or so weeks left of school, which means we still have to cover the rest of science. We are using CK-12 Earth Science, for high school, but have decided to skip the chapters on human actions {chapters 19-22} and instead go straight to the astronomy. I don’t feel there really is enough in the four chapters of the CK-12 book for this so I’m adding in some things.

I have the book The Stargazer’s Guide to the Night Sky by Dr. Jason Lisle from MasterBooks that I'd received for review almost a year ago. I’m still not quite sure how to use it for this but the kids both think it is a pretty neat book; I’ll add it. And here are a list of websites that I’ve compiled to look at more in-depth dealing with astronomy:

• Tales of a House Husband- a series for astronomy, using the alphabet; it’s to K now.
• Love to Know- this one primarily for the list at the start of what is included in the subject.
• Homeschooling on a Shoestring- has a lot of links (such as Astronomy Picture of the Day).
• Homeschool Central- a few more links to check.
• HSLaunch- lots of astronomy themed downloadble documents.

And I have quite a few more links on my list to check out still. I was also looking for living books to add in but it’s a little more difficult {for me} to know what books are good for this. Booklists: Paula’s Archives, Simply Charlotte Mason, Applie’s Science booklist, Penny Gardner.

And I’ve been making my ‘wish list’ for next year’s books and resources we will need. Thanks to using Ambleside Online, I only need to buy two books for Fox! Altogether though it is look like the cost will be $266.50; not including Fox’s ‘lab’ for science.

For the remainder of our week –Saturday and Sunday –we will probably be keeping a low profile. Tomorrow afternoon we are might be going to go to a Wild Game Dinner where people bring in all kinds of interesting –you guessed it –wild game foods. Then Sunday is back to our usual church schedule; morning service from 9:45am-12:15pm and evening service from 6-7pm.

So that’s been our week –how’s yours been?