Journey to Excellence

Last Friday the kids and I went to the park to collect rocks for our rock study. We got instantly distracted by the ice on the lake and spent the majority of our time breaking ice, exploring animals, and observing things (and animals) trapped under the ice. We ran out of time, and got oh-so-cold, so we gathered up some rocks to take home to study at a later time. With Eli recovering from the stomach flu, none of us had much energy for a full-out day of school today. So it was the perfect time to pull out our rocks and do our rock study. We used the Rock Observation Chart and Rocks Up Close printables from Barb at Handbook of Nature Study . We needed a few supplies: a magnifying glass, rulers, flexible measuring tape, colored pencils, a magnet, a penny, and a nail. We had a lot of fun and learned a lot about our rocks. Brynne decided to start a rock collection.

In our regular life this week… I started off my week in Portland, Oregon, visiting my brother, sister-in-law and sweet baby niece, Bell. My parents and I had a great time getting to know our newest little family member. Rick took the kids on a special weekend back to Oklahoma to visit friends and have some fun staying in a hotel. Kyndal and Dawson also went back to Oklahoma to visit some of their friends and to go to their orthodontist appointments on Monday. Everybody made it back home by Monday (me at 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday morning). After we all recuperated from our fun-filled weekend, we spent the rest of the week doing the norm ... church on Wednesday night and relaxation on Thursday night and tonight. It's been very cold, so snuggling in at home has been a necessity. In our homeschool this week… Tuesday was an educational computer and iPad app day since I was recovering from my weekend away. We got back into the full swing of things on Wednesday. We are now ...

Thoughts about the Week ...  With such a great week of homeschooling to end with such tragedy in Connecticut, it makes it really hard to carry on about how great things are here. However, the possibility of these types of tragedies, among other things, is one of the reasons why we homeschool in the first place. After my husband and I discussed the shooting, he sent me a text that said, "Thank you for homeschooling." There are so many arguments for and against, but I know that I cannot depend on others to protect and care for my children. It's my job, and I am grateful that I have the opportunity to do that on a daily basis. My prayers are most certainly with the families of those precious babies. I think this is going to be one of those weeks that when I get done typing this wrap-up, I will say, "Wow! We really did do a lot!" We have cut a couple of things out here and there because of some life events, like my grandma going back into the hospital and ...

Well, geez. This was an odd week. On Monday we took a Life Skills day because we had to go to "town" to get groceries, buy dog food, and go to recycling. It had to be done! So, that's how we spent our day. (Of course there was the on-and-off playing of educational games on the iPad.) On Tuesday morning, I had to get my hair colored in the morning. My sister is here two days a week and she is my FREE hairdresser, so it was necessary that I take the morning to do it. After eating lunch at my mom's (which we do every Tuesday because my sister and my aunt are in town for lunch), we came home and played for the rest of the afternoon. In the night Wednesday night I had the worst headache I have ever had! It was a sinus-like headache in my eyes and I was dying! At 5:00 a.m. I was in excruciating pain. I figured out a combination of over-the-counter medications to take to relieve some of the pressure. I slept in that morning, and was back in bed by 1:00 p.m. For the few ...

This has been the challenge I have been waiting all month to do. Every morning, when I walk at the park, I walk past a huge grouping of Queen Anne's Lace. It is so pretty and I couldn't wait for the kids to get down close to it with me. Once we got close to it, I wondered if that's really even what it is! Can someone help me identify it? And as luck would have it, right after we arrived and I took a couple of close-up photos of it, my batteries died on my camera. Urghhhh! We have a nice time of exploration, however. UPDATE: On the way to an out of town football game tonight, I think I saw legitimate Queen Anne's Lace next to the highway in several places. We are going to check it out this week! We used the free notebooking page provided by Barb for today's challenge. Up close and personal we could see that it was covered in bees, spiders, and fireflies. Most of the "Queen Anne's Lace" was still bloomed and very lovely. We measured i...