Weekly Reflections - Week Thirty-One...

At Home

Look at those puppies! They are growing like weeds...naughty though they are. They are in the ripping up the patio cushion stage. It's kind of like kids, it's a good thing they're cute ;-)

It was a good, but busy week here on Drywood Creek. That's typical for spring. We lost a couple days of 'school' to life. There was dentist appointments, choir, and thrift sales...'tis the season :)  This is the time of year I make clothing purchases for our family for the upcoming year. I scour various neighborhood thrift sales buying the next sizes. It's fun, but a bit tiring.

As we whittle down our weeks of the 2016-2017 school year, the kids are finishing many books. I purposely schedule this way, knowing how crazy busy spring is. We don't take many breaks throughout the year in order to wind down early in the spring. It allows us to finish our academics in approximately three day weeks so there's time for other life events and to get outside. Winter in Wisconsin can be a bear so as soon as the snow melts and the thermometer is regularly above freezing, everybody wants to be outside!

Riley and Ruben both finished their outsourced art class last week and Riley will finish choir next week, just in time for softball to start.

Around the Web

Being outside and away from home, hasn't afforded me as much time on the computer, which is OK. However, I have a couple of things I want to share.

I've been looking at Nicole Williams Forms 3-4 Science Curriculum and would love to hear feedback from any of you who've used it.

I've also been studying Ambleside Online Year 7 and Year 8 schedules trying to plan for the upcoming year. I just realized they have some combination upper year schedules allowing you to do six years of Ambleside Online in five years by combining Years 7, 8, 9 in two years. I have been thinking about combining Years 7 and 8 since this covers the time period I'm aiming to study in the fall. I'll be playing around with schedules over the next couple of months.

This week, I listened to Amusing Ourselves to Leisure and mentally noted a couple of interesting thoughts, but plan to go back to make written notes. I find myself doing this more often than not. I listen to the podcast while working around the house, then go back and listen a second time, when I'm able to jot things down. It's helping me make connections.

I also listened to The Mason Jar #15: Jan Bloom of Books Bloom. I was able to shop at Jan's booth at the Great Homeschool Convention last week, which is where I acquired my new to me copy of Better Late Than Early. During the podcast, I learned a little more about the Landmark book series. We've been collecting Landmarks for years and highly recommend them. But, I didn't realize how Random House chose authors and assigned them topics to write about....interesting!