Weekly wrap up -- November 7

A fairly quiet week this week. A few odds and ends thrown in, but overall, everything got done that needed doin'.

We had a very busy weekend last weekend with two family get togethers consuming Saturday and Sunday evenings after the end of the soccer season on Saturday and church Sunday morning. So, we took Monday morning off of school so that I could get all the school prep done for the week. Monday afternoon we enjoyed our drama and ballet classes.

Election day on Tuesday gave feet to our school day as we all went to vote (well, my kids didn't vote, but they still got the stickers), a habit I hope to instill in my kids. A little discouraging that almost no one that we voted for won the election, on a federal or local level, but still a great opportunity to teach civic responsibility. We also had lots of conversations about supporting and respecting our government officials no matter who they are. We can respectfully disagree, but they still need our prayers and deserve our respect and submission.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we had wonderful, action packed, typical school days with a visit from a potential homeschool mom on Tuesday and gym and swim class on Wednesday afternoon. My husband took a couple hours off to come see our little fish in the water and I marveled again at how far they have come this school year.

Friday was a special day . . . We had a field trip to a local dairy farm. Some of our favorite field trips have been to local businesses like this one. Generally inexpensive, close by, and so much more personal than places that run tours on a daily basis. Grocery stores, restaurants, family owned shops and farms are just a few of the great finds.

We started in the barn with a milking demonstration

Cows are huge(!) animals. Their chest area is large because God specially designed them for producing all of that milk. Each day they eat 100 pounds of food and produce 8 gallons of milk. Each of those gallons requires their enormous heart to pump 400 gallons of blood.

Despite the frigid temperatures we enjoyed checking out the calves.

They loved coming out to say 'hello' and seemed to appreciate the attention.

We had never been on a dairy farm so it was neat to see everything close up. The calf pens were interesting.

Samples of the cows' feed for touching

And, what would a tour be without milk and cookies at the end!

Favorite moments of the week:

- Enjoying salami snowflakes.

- Parent night at AWANA -- seeing my girls work so hard on their verses and having a blast running around the circle once again. :-)

Challenges faced:

- Recovering from a busy weekend. Often homeschooling is the easy part, it's trying to keep up with our calendar, meals, laundry, housecleaning, etc., etc. that's the tough part.

- Potty training (not a forever job, right?), but better than last week!

Favorite passages in our books :

- Number the Stars -- A riveting story. Just imagining what it would be like living during a time of intense war (Denmark during WWII). Having soldiers constantly on guard around your everyday life would be very difficult.

- John 15 -- as we talked about love this week we read John 13-15 throughout the week. Not necessarily love related the part that stuck out to me. We talked about pruning, what it is and the benefit of it. Clipping off some productive branches help the remaining branches to produce even better fruit. Made me think, what branches should I be clipping in my life? Sometimes I think of my life as a crazy tree with more grafts than it can manage. Balancing roles of wife, mother, teacher, housekeeper, nurse, taxi driver, church volunteer, potty trainer, cook, and more on a daily basis becomes quite challenging. How can I "prune" to offer the best fruit?


To hear more weekly wrap ups check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.