Weekly wrap up -- March 27

Making friends at the Touch A Tractor event

We enjoyed a lively week with lots of light-bulb school moments and lots of relationship building. I am currently blogging about the parent-child relationship, and it always amuses me how God loves to hammer away at a subject that comes to the forefront of my thinking.


Last week we relaxed and took a little "Spring Break." This week we hit the books again. I feel relatively set for the rest of the school year, which is nice because the pace has picked up for outside activities.

Some of what we found to keep us busy this week aside from our week 26 of school work (I can't believe we have just 10 weeks of school left this year!):


Some kids play with video games, cell phones or cameras when bored, Blake prefers to take them apart. This broken camera kept him busy for an afternoon of running errands.

Friday we spent the afternoon at the Touch A Tractor event at the local farm bureau:

Little tractors to play with


Little bit bigger tractors to ride on

And . . .
The really big boys to climb up on!

The tires were HUGE!

Nathan could not get enough of the tractors, levers, pedals, climbing, etc. The perfect playground, with lots of supervision . . .


The kids came up with this art project on their own. They simply draw an empty shape made of straight lines and then fill it in to look like something. Funny how they transformed them. This would be fun to draw and exchange with a partner to color in as well.


Our grand finale for the week, Faith lost a tooth that has threatened to fall out for the last two weeks. Finally! She has a place to put her straw when she drinks now.

Light bulb moments:

- Love of homeschool-- I talked to Blake about plans for the future and asked if he still enjoyed homeschooling. His one complaint . . . no "real" P.E. class most days (meaning, team sports in a gymnasium with at least a dozen other sweaty kids his age). Other than that, he says he doesn't really have a desire to be in a traditional school. He recognizes the freedom he has to work at his own pace, which is generally much faster than a regular class would go. That's good to hear.

- Brooke -- reading is flying along. She is my first child to really grasp reading before seven years old. My older kids could read, but it was a slow process and didn't really start clicking until almost eight when they seemed to quickly jump three grades. Brooke enjoys it and really wants to read anything she can begin to figure out.

- Piano -- Faith has finally grasped some of the concepts in note reading and sits to play her couple songs often throughout each day.

Favorite moments of the week:

- Watching kids revel in their own creativity. Blake invented a new game called "Squocky" -- hockey played with the hands while squatting. I think I like the name better than the game. :-)

- The warmer weather (yeah! Although we have more snow in the forecast for tonight) has brought them out of doors, digging for buried treasure, oil, or China, whichever comes first.

Challenges faced:

- Pre-teen attitudes: Not overwhelming or frequent, but those subtle murmurings of disrespect that seem so out of character. I know I need to keep on them while still nurturing the relationship.

- Schedule busyness as we head into baseball season. We are in a good place, so I am not overly concerned, but as our weekends fill up it makes the weeks a little less organized as well.

Favorite passages in our books :

Another tough-to-pick-a-favorite week. We wrapped up The Hiding Place, which was of course incredible. Now we have started Amy Carmichael (love the story about her brown eyes -- "Isn't 'no' an answer, too?" God prompted her disappointed heart). I need to remember that sometimes, too.

- Started Robin Hood by Howard Pyle with my second grader. She loves it. It reminds me of an older Disney movie, starts with death, but aside from that shows promise.

- Blake started reading Galileo and the Magic Numbers. Well written and creates vivid word pictures. And, I'm glad I didn't have to buy it (it was not less than $40 anywhere I found it), rather I learned how to use the World Cat at our library to order books from just about any library in the country from the comfort of my own home.

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