In my life this week… I almost completely lost my voice and have been coughing, sneezing, etc. It is better now than earlier in the week when I sounded like a teen boy, going through puberty with the crazy way my voice sounded! I could not sing at our choir rehearsals at church on Wednesday night, but I could still lead them - with a powerful microphone! We enjoyed sharing the message of Jesus on Halloween with the many children who pass through on neighborhood on that night and spent time with my sisters and their families. I wrote posts about Halloween and the 30 Day Giving Challenge. I am having a difficult time leaving the Halloween candy alone!!! I need to hide it from myself so it is not out in the kitchen any longer! We are getting ready to go out of town for the weekend. I will post more about that next week!
In our homeschool this week…
Monday began Week 7 of Classical Conversations with a history sentence about the War of 1812. We read The Flag Maker which is a fine story for this era of history with lovely illustrations. I enjoyed getting back to our "normal" schedule and having a full five days of school this week to get everything done! B is anxiously reading A Rebecca Mystery: A Bundle of Trouble to find out what happens! J read The Flag Maker to himself and then enjoyed some easy readers about Star Wars Clone Troopers from the library. We have been working on compound imperative sentences, adverbs, appositives, and nouns of direct address in English - whew! For their writing assignment, they are writing a two paragraph report about medicine of colonial times. It is actually funny to compare to the current practice of medicine!
Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…
I absolutley LOVE Handwriting Without Tears! It is a great program to use for teaching handwriting skills to children of a wide range of abilities. My daughter is soaring through the cursive writing and voluntarily uses it for her spelling words and other written work as a third grader! My son, who has been diagnosed with "dysgraphia" (a handwriting disability) is slowly improving. I took a peek at his handwriting practice this week and I noticed that with the cursive he appears to be copying the o's and a's in a counterclockwise motion now - like he is supposed to!!!!! {Happy dance!} Against my instruction, he has been writing them "backwards" for years! He resisted the cursive formation last year and tried to do it his own way. At any rate, they don't pay me anything, but I really want every home educating family to know about this great writing program, because it works!
My favorite thing this week was…
My son has been learning how to mow the backyard this entire summer. Wednesday, he said that he wanted to mow again and it needed to be done. I helped get out the mower and he did it all by himself and I didn't feel like he needed to go back and do anything over! {Happy dance!} Maybe it was because there were so many leaves down on the ground that he could see his path more clearly, but he did his best mowing job yet! Maybe he will be ready to help in the front yard next spring!
Questions/thoughts I have…
What kind of physical activity can we all be doing during the cold, winter months? Although I have had several nice afternoons to walk the dogs, it is getting much cooler here and we have had a couple of soggy, rainy days where we just can't go outside. J wants to play basketball again. B is undecided if she will play basketball, but she is interested in trying gymnastics. They enjoyed a home school gymnastics class a couple of years ago, but have been doing other things since then. We already have a busy schedule, but during the winter I am thinking about letting them do these things locally because we will all need exercise!
A photo, video, link, or quote to share…
Remember... Jesus loves ALL the little pumpkins!
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