Weekly Wrap-up ~ Astray {Prairie Primer: Big Woods Week 2}

What do they say about the best laid plans? Yeah, they are right.

After such an amazingly successful week last week we were a tad disappointed with all of the obstacles of this week. First off we had a holiday on Monday. But even had we not I likely wouldn't have been much of a teacher as my arthritis was flared up and I was in bed all day (and had been on Sunday, too). That day Brynne really started feeling bad with the second virus the kids have all had, so she slept with me that night. We had a fitful night sleep and were neither one feeling good all day on Tuesday, so we had our first "Couch School" day of the year. We eeked out a full day of lessons, minus any projects that required much energy.

On Wednesday we slept in a little later and didn't even start school until 1:00 p.m. I felt like Brynne needed some extra sleep to help her battle her virus and Eli needed some also to, hopefully, keep him from getting it. We were still not feeling too good but managed to get in a solid three hours of work. On Thursday we were feeling better and ready for a full day, but then Brynne and Macie were deep in the process of watching a movie and playing with playdoh. Sometimes you just have to let kids be kids. We did start school at 11:00 a.m., got in a full day, and even made it to the library for our Gardening class.

This week Eli had turned up with some bug bites. He had one on his neck that developed a large, inflamed itchy rash. And then on Thursday morning he woke up with a blistered bite under his right eye that was painful. As the day wore on it became swollen and inflamed and I was worried it might be a spider bite. So I took him to Urgent Care. They couldn't conclude that it was a spider bite, but put him on an antibiotic just in case.

On Friday we did finally have a consistent day and put in all of our hours. At least we ended the week with some accomplishment.

I lay all of this out to show that some weeks life just gets in the way of traditional schooling. I am forever grateful that we have the freedom to get some extra sleep when we are suffering from a minor illness, can do school in pjs from the couch when we are feeling cruddy, and can do some learning through play when the situation warrants it. I am not sure what this week would have looked like if the kids were in public school.

We had a whole list of things we didn't get to this week, like whittling soap and learning about animal tracking. But we will get to these things in the next couple of weeks. I promise.

So what did we do?

We completed a full set of lessons in Math U See Delta. We have zipped through some review lessons and are ready to start Lesson 9 next week. We worked steadily on our grammar lessons, which I am really loving. We watched CNN Student News every morning and discussed our world's current events (this is becoming a daily favorite). We read five chapters in Little House in the Big Woods and watched four episodes of Little House on the Prairie (and this is definitely our new favorite way to end our school day).

We learned about Maple Syrup. We read a couple of great books and watched a video on Youtube called How to Make Maple Syrup and Sugar. We have friends at church who have started doing this so are planning to go watch in February.

Then we had a blind taste test to determine if we liked real maple syrup or maple-flavored syrup. We unanimously chose the maple-flavored syrup. We discussed how we would love pure maple syrup if that was all we knew, but really we prefer the store-bought. But even Ma and the pioneers preferred store-bought sugar over maple sugar. They only bought small amounts of store-bought sugar and only used it when they had guests for dinner.

We learned about Osmosis. We tackled our first science experiment and science notebook assignment on the topic of osmosis. We learned about hypertonic and hypotonic solutions.

We learned about the gastrointestinal system. This was a fun one as we learned all about digestion. We saw an activity where you were supposed to eat sesame seeds and then keep track of how long it took for it to come out in our poopy. But my friend said that they did it and it made them constipated. So, I remembered that we made some cupcakes one time with Pillsbury Funfetti Aqua Blue cake and cupcake mix and a few days later our poopy was a dark blueish-green color. So, we made some cupcakes and ate them and we are going to be on potty watch for the next few days to see how long it takes to get through our gastrointestinal system.

Then the kids made the digestive system with playdoh.

We learned how to knit. Well, Brynne and I did. We just watched a video on Youtube and we were off. Brynne spent most of the evening knitting and even took it to bed with her. She was up first thing this morning knitting, too. She is making a small blanket for her rag doll. She loves it!

We learned about Square Dancing. We watched some pioneer style square dancing on Youtube (okay, seriously, what did homeschoolers do before Youtube?) and daddy told stories of his childhood when his family was in a square dancing group. He was the youngest member of the T-Town Teens and has some fond memories!!

Macie learned all about the letter B, and helped us make cupcakes. She has been such a joy to have at home with us. She just soaks in everything we are learning and brightens our day with her four year old silliness.

And now it's time to get to planning another week. Hoping this one has a few less bumps!

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