Weekly Wrap-up ~ On Thin Ice (Prairie Primer - Long Winter Week 1)

We started out the week with some snow! We work hard in the mornings to get all of our regular studies done so that the kids could get out into the snow in the afternoon for some P.E. time.

And then, friends, things got stressful on Wednesday night with a sobbing phone call from Kyndal and continued on through Friday. I was extremely tense (angry, to be exact) and very frustrated for her. The situation carried over into her wedding plans which ended with her and Collin making the decision to scrap their traditional wedding they were planning and make plans to get married on the beach somewhere. All of the details have not been made yet, but a destination wedding is a definite. The backyard wedding is cancelled. Rick and I are just happy to see a smile on Kyndal's face for the first time in a while. The stress is gone and the fun is beginning.

But when our family is consumed with a stressful situation, it is extremely difficult to get any traditional schooling done. Thankfully Eli and Brynne can do independent work. I was able to give them a few of the necessities to do on their own on Thursday and Friday and then they just did lots and lots of reading. They both finished their books and started new ones.

Even with the snowy afternoon play and the family stress, we got a lot accomplished getting through another set of lessons in grammar, math, current events, Bible, and U.S. state capitols. We also started our new Little House book, The Long Winter.

In our activity time we learned about Braille. We read the books A Picture Book of Louis Braille by David A. Adler and Secret Code by David Meachen Rau and then did some activities from the PBS website.

I used the braille translator and printed off the Eli and Brynne's names in braille. We used Elmer's glue to make the raised dots. The next day the kids were able to close their eyes and read their names in braille by feeling the raised dots. I had also printed off a translation of "I am very proud of you for learning all of the states and capitols!" and had them decode it with a braille key. They really liked this activity.

Rick had told us about a show he had seen on Netflix called Brain Games. We watched the first episode and it was about tricking the mind with the senses. It went right along with our lessons, and it was a great show! We are definitely going to watch the rest of the episodes.

The kids finished the week with some drawing. I have mentioned that they love the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit so they drew maps of the different areas from the stories.

We are certainly hoping for a more uneventful week this week.