Weekly Reflections - Week Twenty-Five...

At Home

Uffda, I hope I never have another week like this one!! It started with my sister in the hospital with stroke-like symptoms, which turned out to be Bells Palsy, and ended with my dad in the hospital with heart attack-like symptoms, which thankfully turned out not to be a heart attack. Oh, and I had a child throwing up in between. NOT FUN! I'm just so thankfully, everyone is home tonight resting comfortably.

It's hard to believe we are one week into our third term. Because school was starting to feel like a job, I pared back on some things in the hope of finishing strong. We are going to focus on reading great books and math. It's as simple as that!

The kids also started choir and art this week. These are subjects I outsource. We are so blessed to have a fabulous well established homeschool choir and art classes in our area. Both of which are taught by homeschool moms with degrees in that field of teaching. The kids love participating.

Lastly, we finished our 1000 piece puzzle this week! It's still put together on a card table, but I really should take it down. It was just such a labor of love that I hate to see it destroyed. I was surprised by how many pieces Levi was able to contribute. While putting the puzzle together, we enjoyed great conversation and I finished listening to The Call of the Wild on audio. I also enjoyed some quiet time of contemplation. It was a wonderful family venture.  I highly recommend it!

Around the Web

In Writing Scaffolds: Summarizing, Lisa Kelly gives us skill builder prompts to help our kids learn the art of summary. In referencing Charlotte Mason style narrations, Kelly says,

Many of the less significant looking narration suggestions are actually prompts which act as scaffolds in teaching the writing process, prompts with which summarizing is just one section of that process.

Emily Price shares with us the ancient tradition of commonplacing in DICKINSON, COMMONPLACING, AND A BUMP ON THE HEAD. I learned about the monks and this "gathering of flowers" from Dr. Christopher Perrin at the CiRCE Conference....commonplace = florilegium = book of flowers....I love this!!!

Speaking of keeping a notebook, Productivity Coach in a Notebook by Jan Eppingstall offers some food for thought. I love the idea of keeping a bullet journal, but have thus far, failed miserably. However, it's something I've been thinking about and would like to try again. Eppingstall also presents a wonderful case for handwriting over typing.

Since homeschool conventions are upon us, I appreciated Pam's How to Avoid these Six Homeschool Planning Pitfalls.