This Week's Menu 4/18-4/24

Sunday, April 18- Saturday April 24

Sunday
Grill

Monday
Shepherd's Pie

Tuesday Make it Quick


Wednesday
Roast Chicken (homemade or Wonder Chicken), mashed potatoes, peas

Thursday Early Dinner
Slow Cooker Chicken and Tortilla Soup

Friday
Spinach and Sun Dried Tomato PAsta

Saturday
Bill's Choice

Signs of Spring Walk

A week or so ago we took The Outdoor Hour Signs of Spring Challenge. It was NO challenge at all! Signs of spring were everywhere, but we did use the notebook page to help us focus.

We hiked our Conservancy Center's nature trail with Mr. Bingley keeping us "safe" from "wild" animals--like the bluebirds. But not the ticks, I found out later...

This tree had a nest from last year (didn't ID the species) and a praying mantis egg case to hatch this spring. I love finding one of these and hatching it inside. Make sure the lid is on tight or you will wake up to a few hundred baby mantids crawling around your kitchen. Yes, it did happen.

MeiWei loves the goats they keep there. They start bleating when you're quite far off. It's supposed to be an early warning system, but she believes they are just so glad to see she's back. The kid was a wonderful surprise and loved the attention. It made a great sketching subject.

We checked our bluebird houses to find them infested (and I do mean infested) with House Sparrow nests. Two seemed abandoned; the eggs had slid below the bottom of the trashy nest and were stone cold, so we removed them and gathered the eggs for study. The third had a roosting mother. I will replace her eggs with these infertile ones to hopefully thwart her from adding to "the surplus population." (from Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol)

House Sparrow eggs. Note the greenish-blueish color and mottled brown spots. These are NOT bluebird eggs. If you think interfering with House Sparrow nests are unkind, read this: (warning contains some graphic pictures)

The cat is tasting the nest!

Those are some of our signs in this neck of the woods. How about yours?

Bird's -Eye View of the Week: Putting Some Spring In It!

   Oh, I'm SO trying to use anything to develop habits, habits, habits. This was an especial love of Charlotte Mason. If things are habits, everything is smooth and easy.   
   But, if I am not disciplined enough to do things habitually, how can I expect my DD to be habitual. (Note: this is not the same thing as being obsessive, compulsive or under some sort of legalistic pressure to be perfect.)
    So, this Weekly Wrap-up thing is a good example of a habit. It makes me focus, makes me feel accountable, and encourages me when I see that we have accomplished stuff this week. I might just shove this blog in front of my reveiwer at year's end!
    I have loosened up a good deal this term, maybe a little too much. Once you get out of a groove--in this case that dastardly winter--it's hard to get it back. Wasn't I talking about the need for habits?
     Now on to the Week That Was. I'll relate what might be the most interesting first for you homeschoolers out there. (Lots of links for books. Please don't think I'm making money off them. OK, about 2 cents. I'm just trying to make your life easier.)
     I have thought up an addition to the notebook pages designed for Pagoo at Homeschool Share . (If you want to try unit studies, lapbooking, or notebooking, this is a fantastic FREE resource!)
                           Mei will create a pull-out "paper tide pool" to extend out of her  Pagoo notebook. It will be along the lines of a lapbook with a long accordian section that will be made with blue folders and edged at the bottom with tan and rock pictures. Then she will color copies of the different tidepool creatures she learns about and giving information about them on the backs. They will be cut out, leaving a hinge to attach to the tide pool. When the reader looks at it, he can lift the flapped animal and learn more about it. MeiWei seems excited about this idea. I've begun making copies of the animals from the Peterson Coloring Book of Seashores. Can't wait to see how it turns out. If it's a success I will share it at Homeschool Share.


    This week we read from An Island Storyabout Henry IV. There were so many charcters, and such a complicated lineage thing going on that we had to draw family trees to keep track of who was the "real" heir to the throne. I learn a lot from this; it certainly wasn't covered in MY PS high school. And to think MeiWei is getting exposed in third grade. And she always remembers more than me!

     Mei completed Unit 28 in Math-U-See. This brings us to within TWO units of completing the Beta book. That alone excites me with evidence that we are getting near the end of the year! Because she struggles with word problems, I've been printing out extras from EdHelper.com . They have an awesome array of teacher helps like this, especially for math.  I've been using the Daily Word Problems for 3rd Grade and giving her just three or four a day since MUS already has her doing some. Some of the stuff she hasn't covered in MUS--multiplication--but we apply skip-counting which MUS HAS introduced and manage to arrive at the answer.
    We began Joan of Arc by Diane Stanley. Mei actually BEGGED to read it. I get so surprised and EXCITED when she shows such enthusiasm for subject matter that would be thought "too hard" or "uninteresting" to a third grader. Just goes to show what the kids ARE capable of!!
   We also finished The Wind in the Willows. What a lot of character study could go on with THAT book. It also paid off that we had read in The Burgess Animal Book about a lot of the animals depicted in that story.  We really understood what Ratty was thinking when he met the Norway Rat, for instance (dreaming of a life across the seas as told by a member of the rat family that has infested every continent habitated by man).  
     Finally we wrapped up our long-term appreciation of John Singer Sargent. (Read more about him here . ) Mei did a brief report on him, and surprised me a little by choosing "An Artist in His Studio" as one of her three favorite paintings by him. It's not particularly "pretty". When I inquired, she said it reminded her of her mommy. Awww. If only I HAD a studio!

Next week, I plan to move things around a bit in our schedule to get to the things that have been slipping by, like nature study. It's so beautiful this week that I'd be a fool to miss the opportunity.
     Hope it's nice where YOU are. Have a great next week!
Read links from others at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers !

This Week's Menu 4/4-4/10

Sunday, April 4-Saturday, April 10

Sunday Happy Easter!

Monday
Turkey Tetrazzini , zucchini (must be Ini Day)

Tuesday (no pioneers; dad out?)
Frozen What-Have-You

Wednesday
Chuck's Mac n Cheese

Thursday Early Meal
Italian Sausage Soup, garlic bread

Friday
Homemade Pizza

Saturday
Bill's Choice

Easter Blessings

One thing the weather has done for us these past couple holidays is to cooperate nicely for enhanced entertaining pleasure! First the White Christmas, now the Glorious Easter! Who could complain about 78 degrees with dry air and cloudless skies? The cherry blossoms were in full bloom, daffodils everwhere, birds singing the "Halleluah Chorus". I swear it!
After a moving morning service at our home church, we headed south to join Father R's side at his sister's. An egg hunt (just what IS the cut-off age?), a feast of grilled lamb and spiral sliced ham with lots of seasonal trimmings, and then pie, cookies, and candy (of course).
Lots of silly reminisciences followed with the grandparents STILL learning about secretive, ne'er-do-well exploits during their sons' childhoods.

Much hugging and kissing and talk of upcoming graduations and recitals and trips promising more good times ahead. Blessings indeed.

Bird's-Eye View of the Week: Shoveling Out Our School

We are still working at getting caught up after the snows and the concussion which so derailed our regularly scheduled programming.  But at this point I'm only about a week behind, and the best part is, I'm OK with it!

SOOO-
We have finished our selections of poet James Whitcombe Reily.  I'm going to miss "The Hoosier Poet". MeiWei loved hearing my attempt at reading poetry in the Mid-western twang that he invoked his works with through his unique spellings.
(This is the poetry book I still have from my childhood. Excellent! I don't know why this link calls it "MORE Poems" The title is just what the cover says.)

MeiWei completed Unit 27 of Math U See: Subtracting Money with Regrouping. She always says she hates math. I always counter with, "But you get A's most every time!" Now I've been pointing out that being good at math is a pre-requisite to the sciences, so if she wants to be a vet like she says, she better keep up the good work.  Today, I sided with her that she didn't have to LIKE it, but that what she was doing with arithmetic was laying a "good foundation", just like learning her phonics led to reading. Maybe that will strike a chord.

We're almost through The Wind in the Willows. We got really behind on that during the Snow-pocalypse, so this week I laid all other reading aside and just worked on that.  It is TOUGH reading. I cannot figure out what age range Kenneth Grahame had in mind when he wrote this "children's book". MeiWei is blessed, if I do say, to have it read aloud (and explained at times). I have a different voice for each of the characters and love doing a British accent whenever I have the opportunity. I like to think through the character when I choose a voice. For instance, I base Toad's voice on Hugh Laurie's interpretation of Bertie Wooster from the Masterpiece version of P.D. Wodehouse's "Jeeves and Wooster" because both characters are upper-crust, ding-dong, ne'er-do-wells. So, even though some of his descriptive passages weigh her down, she pleads with me to keep reading because "It's getting really interesting!"
(The illustrations in this version are spectacular. I find myself feasting on the detail.)


MeiWei wrote (narrated) an excellent book review of  The Little Duke. She LOVED this book, something I never would have guessed. Come on!:  boys, and knights, and castles, and 13th C Normandy? And the 19th C writing style? For a girl? But she would beg me to read more. (BTW, to be honest, not so in the beginning.) She said her most fav part was the Norman protectors fending off the French in the tower. Her least? When the little duke's dad, William "Longsword", is killed. Awwww.

She has put together her Ancient Egypt lapbook , and minus the cover, it looks great. She really gets into these lapbooks. I'm glad we have started incorporating them. Perfect for a reluctant writer and a great way to show off her knowledge. It will look impressive at the Closing Program night!

A couple of nice nature walks during a blessed streak of gorgeous weather pretty much rounded out the week for some Natural History.  We've kept our eyes open for the first flowers of spring--wildflowers that is--and today sniffed skunk cabbage. Not one of the better signs of spring, at least nasally.




  Lastly, blessings upon Meiwei's fatal animal attractions. Just after identifying the inevitability of a horse in her future to Father R, and neither of us knowing how to budget for that, along comes our neighbor, practically begging for Mei to take over riding their DD's horse while she is away at college for four years! She can even show the lovely, ribboned quarterhorse and all at NO COST!! Then an answer to prayer--a substitute for, Mr. Bingley, the (dis)obedience class drop-out. What is the replacement? The show trainer's own pure-bred CDX Belgian Sheepdog. . She can even enter her in dog shows! WOW!     That's about it. Things are definitely looking good for spring! Happy, blessed Easter!

Head on over to Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers to meet more like us!

The End is Here

Well, spring has definitively sprung. Yet, after such a winter, I look around and see-- instead of green grass, wide dry streets, and inviting decking-- ghosts of snowpiles, treachorous icy walkways, and walls of white. Just closing up the hot tub without risking a broken neck this evening was a wake-up to the reality that that dreadful season is over. May it Rest In Peace!!