New Schedule Starts (Sept. 9-15 Weekly Wrap-Up)

I wanted to get a post up before this one about how we redid the dining room a bit, but due to time constraints I'm going to go ahead and let you have a sneak-peak.  The dining room post is forthcoming [Update:  now it's done and can be found at this link], for those who are interested in the details of the changes -- or for my own reference since it may be completely boring to anyone else, ha.

This Weekly Wrap-Up is for the week of September 9-15. 

On Sunday we still had some sickies (see the end of the previous Weekly Wrap-Up).  Bethany was the worst by then and spent most of the day lying around feeling icky and resting.  Thankfully, it wasn't a bad sickness, but just gave some of them a slight fever, and then mostly a cold with a touch of flu-like symptoms, but no vomiting or anything really nasty.  Monday we started in on our new schedule anyway, but with a purposeful late start due to Bethany's lingering symptoms.  Our day went much longer than expected even then, though.  And although Bethany was better by Tuesday, about every day this week had a later-than-intended start and went far longer than it was scheduled to even then.  I guess that would be okay if there weren't anything else we had to do. :)

Tuesday marked the recommencement of a group Bible study John's been teaching on Tuesday evenings for some time, but which had been put on hold for the summer.  The older three children have really enjoyed going to that study with him some of the time, and they all wanted to go with him this week, so they did.  It's a good experience for them -- gives them some fellowship time as well as the study, plus they have a good emphasis on memorizing scripture there that is really great to see.

Photos from the week:

Here you get a glimpse of the dining room rearrangement.

Now here's an interesting photo opportunity that appeared on the table.  I call it "Which of These Things Does Not Belong?" 

Upon inquiry, I discovered that someone decided to fling her socks randomly without regard to where they landed, when she just as randomly took them off!  Ahem.  I won't name names.  It's not necessary since I took a photo. ;)

This was after I gave her back the sock, instructing her to deal with it properly.  Home school definitely involves more than academics. 

The excitement never ends.  What do we have here? "A Wedged Bear in Great Tightness," perhaps?

Well, he was stuck, for sure.  Big sisters to the rescue!

This one was very focused on her work here.  She's been practicing making some letters lately.  She calls them words. 

Yeah, it's pretty cute.

Peter, doing something besides math (handwriting/copy work).

Little ones playing more or less happily. :)  I think Abraham was upset that they didn't want him to destroy the tower.

 

First science experiment for Apologia's General Science -- about density.

Peter's drawing was very basic.

Bethany's was much more artistic and detailed.

Almost everyone likes to watch and participate in the experiments.

Meanwhile, Abraham does his best to create general havoc and plenty of interruptions, as well as providing great cuteness and comic relief.   Here he is raiding the cabinets, which is really not allowed, but Mom is getting soft I guess.... :/

Blurry, but I like this one anyway.  It's harder to catch him looking at the camera these days!

 

I'll end the photos with a couple sweet reading shots.  I'd asked Bethany to read to Abraham while I had something else to attend to.  She chose an entertaining story from Rod and Staff (God Made Us), and some of the others listened and joined in laughter about the boys' adventures in the book. 

Abraham wasn't quite as entertained perhaps, but fell asleep sweetly, and this is how I found the situation when I came back.

 

We got some good things done in our studies this week, though by the end of the week I was really wondering whether our schedule would ever work out anywhere close to how it's "supposed" to time-wise.  Thankfully, I'm looking back on it a bit now and do feel more optimistic, though it's probably still unrealistic to think it could possibly work out the way I wanted it to exactly.  It doesn't have to, though, as long as it accomplishes enough toward that end to be enough of a help toward our goals.

Without going into too much detail, I'll mention that Liberty had some digestive issues mid-week that caused some concern, as well as disturbance to the schedule, as we helped her, tried to figure out what was going on and whether it needed treatment, etc.  I don't know whether or not they were related to the illness early in the week or not.  Thankfully, it seemed mostly resolved by the end of the week.

During the week, Peter said that sometimes he lies awake at night, "thinking about cubes, things to the fourth dimension, and all that."  He's said things along those lines in the past about thinking about math concepts at night.  The things he thinks about are just getting a bit more involved as he gains knowledge.  He of course continued in his Algebra studies.  He's been disappointed that the schedule only gives him about an hour dedicated to math.  He still does it at other times when he can.  However, I can't quite take being on call for random math questions all day long, even if I had time for it, and he does need to study other things, so he's been forced to slow down some. 

It was nice to get into science more again, as we'd had quite some time without any formal study of it (though of course they always have access to many science-related books, and frequently have other exposure to science topics).  Bethany and Peter are both going through Apologia's General Science this year.  I asked Zion what she wanted to do and she enthusiastically responded that she wanted to cover Jeannie Fulbright's Anatomy course.  She'd started out in it working along with Bethany and Peter a while back, but was really not mature enough yet to keep up as well in several areas at the time.  We did the first lesson together, and then Bethany and Peter continued on, studying it largely independently.  They enjoyed the book and learned a great deal from it.  But Zion is excited to do it herself now, and Bethany and Peter want to participate some because we didn't get to a lot of the experiments/projects before.  It's a little overwhelming because Zion still needs me heavily involved at this point, Bethany and Peter need my help some in coordinating the experiments for General Science, and they all like to be involved in each other's activities/experiments, so it's a lot to fit in.  It will take longer than each book separately would, but that's okay, especially since they enjoy it.

Check out what others are doing at the Weekly Wrap-up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.