Weekly wrap up -- December 11

This week provided a great balance of fun and work, but unfortunately no pictures to show for it. Of course, lots to get done this time of year, but with homeschooling we at least get to tackle it all together.


The fun . . . Before the temperature dropped on Wednesday night we did get some time to enjoy our first significant snow fall of the season. The girls especially loved it and spent every spare minute outside on Tuesday. They built a snowperson nativity scene, complete with baby Jesus on a broken snow shovel.


Wednesday we ducked out for a couple hours of sledding in the morning before buckling down with our school work in the afternoon as the temps began to plummet.


Despite the single digits on Thursday we enjoyed an open swim time in the afternoon. We met with some other homeschool friends we don't see often enough. They met us at the swim time and we all had a great time (moms talking, kids swimming, doesn't get much better than that!)


Friday we wrapped up our truly productive school week. Despite the various excursions we still got five pretty full days of school in, just not during "normal" school hours.


Books we are reading . . .

• Right now we are listening to The Call of the Wild and The Endless Steppe. The Call of the Wild is a book I have never liked, and I'm not really enjoying it any more this time through. But, it was not a book I picked because I thought I would enjoy it. Others seem to be liking it.
  
• The Endless Steppe on the other hand I am definitely enjoying. It tells the challenges faced by Polish Jews deported to Siberia during WWII, mostly from the perspective of the daughter in the family. It is high quality historical fiction. Clear glimpses into their difficult lives and unforgettable characters to take you there.

Some websites that have caught our fancy . . .

• My son came across this one. You can listen to air traffic controllers at various airports, and see graphics of flight patterns from today and months past. He found the re-creation of the flight we took out to Hawaii last year . . . wishing we were there again, especially after this week's weather.
• Grace Gems offers downloads and online readings from various authors and pastors of years gone by. Lots of rich encouragement and spiritual nourishment.
• With the gazillion homeschool sites out there, and many of them great ones, too, I could probably easily find a new site each week. I enjoyed looking through Sunflower Schoolhouse. They have lots of links to free homeschooling resources and if you use workboxes they link to a number of other blogs that use that as well.

This coming week will wrap up our schooling for 2009, bring our children's ages back in line (all even ages again, for 5 months anyway), and lead us right into the hectic season of the Christmas parties. Then we get to breathe for a couple weeks.

How was your week? You can see what other people are up to at the Weekly Wrap Up.