Wrapping Up the Week & How School's Going 02/02-02/08/14

I wonder if I should start this with "I have so many other things that still need to be done!" But here it is, Saturday already and really, the week is getting wrapped up. Tomorrow is the start of next week. There's a few bits of what we did in our week on page 4 of The Weekly Barden but not much. {And that reminds me, I need to update the WB page here on the blog--done!}

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Sunday, we had church and the luncheon that followed. We missed the Sunday school portion but at the moment I can't recall why. The lunch was soup and salad. The morning service was about the "Going" of the Gospel. There were four points: 1) Suffering of the Gospel, 2) Speaking of the Gospel, 3) Seriousness of the Gospel, 4) Service of the Gospel. Our pastor {and probably many other pastors as well} likes to use alliterations. It helps us remember the points, too. The afternoon question/answer was "When something goes wrong, how do we know when it is God testing, or opposition of the devil?" Simply stated, we don't know. But there were some points made that we need to think about while we are going through the difficult time- regardless of the direction the hardship has come from. Some points: God protects, while the devil seeks to destroy; God limits {He only gives us what He knows we can handle}, but the devil does not stop; the hardship is there to alert us; to direct us; to shape us; and to unite us. When all else fails, stick to what you know is 'true'- God is truth. Regardless of the direction it originates from, look to God to get you through it.

Monday I did a silly thing. I attempted to figure out taxes first thing. Well, Mondays are notorious for being bad anyway, so why not!? I finally got our federal e-filed but the state isn't ready {the state isn't ready; not that I'm not ready}. Also, we have RITA that have to be dealt with but I was so frazzled by the time I got the others 'done' that I set them aside until another time. I have to actually call someone to get help. So, with my mindset all out of whack, school for the kids was uh, not as structured. I *know* they did some school {keep tellin' myself that...} but I don't think we had Round table or prayers. I also had an assignment that I didn't get finished on Sunday that was to be turned in. Nothing like putting things off until the last minute, and then finding out you didn't quite do it right in the first place. Turned in the assignment late and with missing information. Earned me a "B". Hopefully lesson learned...

Tuesday, all day I thought about the Science Debate between Bill Nye and Ken Ham. It was at 7pm EST. We got through just over 1/2 of it before calling it a night. I still haven't watched the rest of it. I wrote about it on page 1 of The WB. But before that, our day went quite well. We had Round table- which we seem to be getting the hang of it. We have it wrapping up about an hour after we start. We sang some good hymns this week, too! 

Wednesday we had quite a bit of snow. What's new? It is winter, after all. we shouldn't be surprised. Well, we aren't but are amazed at how many locals are. We didn't make it to prayer meeting or the kids to teen discipleship because the snow didn't get completely shoveled until quite late. My car doesn't play drive well in the snow. No worries that Fox may have missed Young Marines because they cancelled again, due to weather. We {dh and I} are wondering if it is worth continuing on with the program. It is a great program but I must be honest and say that the platoon is not ideal. I feel for those who volunteer with the bunch of kids in that platoon! And you know that bad associations, well, they corrupt. Fox doesn't need that. So we are praying and thinking about where to go from here. In terms of school- another good day, I think lol. 

Thursday- aha! I know what I forgot to include on The WB's weekly wrap-up: our eye appointment in the morning. We had a very short Round table because the appointment was at 11:00 am. All went well with the appointment, with only one of us 'needing' new lenses. Technically, both Lee and I could have gotten new frames and lenses but I didn't want to spend any money unnecessarily so only she got new lenses. After we had the appointment, we walked around the mall {the eye doctor is in the mall} and then went a recently opened candy store near our house. I bought a few bits of candy for the kids and I {and a bit to share with dh}. Lee asked if they were hiring but they are not yet. 

Friday we had tea-time. Well, let me back up some. The day started well with Round table and then lunch, since that's the routine. After lunch we would head to the mall {a different mall than where the eye doctor is lol} for the kids' Microsoft Movie Maker class but it was cancelled for this week. So, we got done with Round table and the kids played Wii Sports together. That's their 'PE' class a lot of the time, when they can't ride bikes. I decided that Friday would work best because that is the day the kids have the least intensive subjects on their schedule. They planned it that way. Guess they like to relax a little at the end of the week; what a concept *wink*. Over at the AO forum, there is a February Tea-Time 'challenge' that we are participating. It isn't a competition or anything and the only 'challenge' is to have tea-time once a week. Here is what I shared with the AO group about our tea-time: 

It was very nice. I wanted to make sure it was relaxed so I didn't 'require' anything much. We listened to a Vivaldi playlist on Youtube (per dd's request) as we talked about this term's art. We are finally finishing up Manet. We also dug out last term's art and talked about them. I made sweet biscuits- which is just regular biscuits that I normally make but *with* the sugar that the recipe calls for that I never add in, and cinnamon; I also used a smaller sized round to make them more like cookies lol- and we had 3 choices for tea. The kids had to have the set-up all just so. My ds asked to make the treat for next week's tea time.

Oh, and another thing: they reflected on how 'good' they have life. My dd must have really enjoyed it because she smiled a lot through the whole thing and kept bringing up good memories, that had nothing to do with tea lol. 

I'm going to share a link to my friend Silvia's post about her tea-time. We didn't take any pictures of ours and her's just looks so relaxing.
After tea-time it was just about time to get 'back to work' on school stuff, but it set a nice calm and pleasant atmosphere on the rest of the day.

Saturday started right- with coffee :) I made dh breakfast of two fried eggs, fresh coffee and not-from-concentrate orange juice {it has to be not-from-concentrate lol}. That the way we start our Saturdays. Lee got in some driving with dh, who is so very patient and good at teaching driving skills. Fox slept in, quite late. I don't wake him because it's the only day he is allowed to sleep in. Chores have been done by all who have chores {that does include myself} and now it is time to do what we want. Well, I have some studying to do for a quiz I must take by tomorrow. 

And now that I pretty much broke down our week for the post, I'll share some details of school-stuffs. I mentioned that we'd sung some good hymns this week and I just happened to remember to jot down their numbers from our hymnal. I don't usually remember. The title of the hymnal we are using is The Hymnal for Worship & Celebration*, published by Word Music (*affiliate link). Hymns #116 "Take the Name of Jesus with You", #470 "Footsteps of Jesus", #543 "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder", #512 "My Savior's Love", #514 "In My Heart There Rings a Melody", #515 "Since Jesus Came Into My Heart", #355 "Trusting Jesus", #495 "Heaven Came Down", #409 "I Know Whom I Have Believed".

We have taken out the presidents and states/capitols from Round table for now {have I mentioned this already?}. They are focusing more on their memorization/recitation of The Declaration of Independence and The Gettysburg Address. Memory verses are going well in the sense that they've memorized quite a few. We have been using the "100 verses in 2013" that we started in, well, 2013, and we're not even 1/2 way through them all. I'd rather they have the reason and meaning of the verse down than have all 100 or more memorized for simple recitation. 

Our ASL is slow going. We're using LifePrint {still} but because we aren't really that focused, we are only on lesson 5. Fortunately, the kids also have a once a month ASL club where they get some more practice. In other 'foreign language' areas we have our FL Memory Box- much like the Memory Verse Box system from SCM {I'm sure I've linked to it many times}, we have some foreign language phrases behind the tabs. Right now we just have a few from German but I have some Spanish waiting to be introduced. I wanted to put Russian in there also but eh, I don't know enough. Lee is doing really well in her Latin. Fox is not as enthusiastic about his *chosen* language of German. I would love to buy a program such as the Learnables for him for that but... would he put in more effort than he does now?

In other areas, we are working on writing. Narrations really. The requirement of 1/2 page has been in effect for at least this whole school year but I've noticed that ds especially thinks because his writing is so small that he is only required to do a 1/3 of a page. I had to change it to specific minimum number of lines. Dd on the other hand has wide ruled notebook paper that she uses for written narrations. And the notebook is 9.5" x6". She seems to think one page on that is sufficient. Perhaps I'll get really nit-picky and say how many words are required. I am not beyond going to that extreme if the need be. However, I do think they are getting the point that I find their narrations too short, in length and content.

Along with the area of writing is Ohio Study. Since it is required in our state, I've made it more of an independent project for the kids. They had to do this last year as well so they know what is expected. They will be required to submit a 'research' paper, a Power Point presentation and give a speech {that's just presenting all their findings} on their chosen topic. It keeps getting left off the schedule some how so it's not coming along very well. We're using Writers Inc* to work on this. (*affiliate link) Fox chose something along the lines of automobile crashes in Ohio (?) and Lee chose the Civil War in Ohio. Those aren't their exact words but me trying to recall from memory. Fox may have to change his; he cannot find enough information. 

We are far behind in our Chemistry, sadly. We have 3 books that I want to get through this year. We are almost 1/2 way through one, 1/3 another, and haven't even opened the last one. We also were to be using the Crash Course Chemistry videos {because I like the way they are put together, they are fun to watch and just to add to the whole subject} but we've made it through only 5 of the 40+. I'd much rather rely on the books and our labs. Speaking of labs. Let's see how many we've done this year: 5. 

Math is...math. It's going so-so with both. I think that Geometry is getting to Lee but Fox is starting to get his -nomials and factoring. 

The other areas are all going well. Well, perhaps our nature study, composer study and artist study aren't 'wonderful'. There's always room for improvement, but we do get them in each week. 

I'd love to share what I'm reading, or working on, or any of the 'usual' areas of a Weekly Wrap-up but I'm not really. I 'work' on being there for the kids during school hours, work on my own school when I am not on their school, do housework, occasionally check on the AO forum and Facebook {which I am avoiding since I saw two terrible news stories shared within a short time of each other that have traumatized me- seriously}. My reading pile is a constant and my work is always the same. 

Life is good where I am and I'm so glad this is the life I have. And with that, I'm done with this really long post!