Our Week: 4/22-4/26

I made more progress in the school room last weekend than I expected. I still need to organize all the craft stuff and hang stuff on the walls, but most of the books are put away. I was excited that it was good enough to do school in there and hoped to get back to a full schedule this week. Then I woke up Monday morning with a sore throat and earache. That sickness stuck around all week feeling like strep, then the flu, and now like a regular cold. Luckily, no one else has gotten it, and I'm finally starting to feel better. So we didn't get back to our full schedule, but we were able to add a few things in.

The girls had been doing review sheets and Life of Fred for math, but went back to their regular RightStart Math lessons this week. They also started doing grammar and spelling again.

Colin added logic in with what he'd already been doing. He finished Module 9 in General Science.

We finished reading Litle House in the Big Woods and doing the activities in The Prairie Primer.

We also read a few chapters in A History of US, but my voice wouldn't allow me to do as many as I had planned.



Sophie turned 3 months old this week.

This week started with more snow. On Wednesday, we went to a park to meet with some people from a homeschool group we've joined. I was probably too sick to be out and the wind made it way too cold, but I wanted the kids to be able to meet some other kids and we needed to get out of the house. Happily, the end of the week turned out to be great. Friday was in the 70s and just beautiful. Colin had a hockey game that evening so I found a park near the rink and we went there to walk the trails and let the kids play for a while before the game. We had great weather over the weekend too. At least it's looking a little more like spring out there. We did still see some snow on the ground in the shady areas today when we went for a walk. It looks like we'll only get another day or two of it before it gets a lot colder for a few days.

Still lots of ice on the lake, but at least some of it is melting

Kids playing at park

They loved this slide that goes down to the beach.

Our Week: 4/15-4/19

We continued doing a shortened version of school this week. The sink in our school room backed up and made a mess so I haven't made any progress in there. I'm hoping I can get some more unpacking done this weekend and get it organized to at least find some more of the books we need to get back to doing all our subjects.

In A History of US, we're still reading about people moving west. We also read about Texas becoming independent.

Colin is reading about DNA in General Science.

We've done a few days of the Download 'n Go study, Prairie Pioneers.

We read six more chapters of Little House in the Big Woods and used The Prairie Primer for comprehension questions, discussion, and activity ideas. Some of the things we learned about this week were maple syrup, animal tracks, cheese making, honey and bees, yellow jackets, and harvesting grain.

We seem to be having the winter that won't end. The kids are loving it since they've spent most of their winters in NC, where a few inches of snow a year is as much as they could hope for. We got a lot of snow Thursday and probably ended up with about 10 inches. To go along with snow, we read some books about snow, made snowmen from cake balls, and made our own snowglobes.

I sure hope some spring weather shows up soon so we can get out and explore our new area more. I'm glad the kids are having fun with the snow though.


Having a brother that can pull you around is always a good thing.















For now, Sophie prefers seeing the snow from inside the house.

Our Week: 4/8-4/12

We're still trying to get back into our regular homeschool routine. Just as we were adjusting to having an infant during school, we moved. Unpacking, organizing, nursing a baby a lot, and trying to keep up with all the regular household things like laundry and cooking haven't made it easy to get planning and school work accomplished. I have started unpacking the school room, but it's a huge mess right now. I feel like we'll do better with school once I get that room done.

Everyone is doing math everyday. We're reading at least a chapter each day from A History of US. Colin has continued doing Apologia's General Science on his own. We've also started reading The Little House on the Prairie (LHOP) series and we're using The Prairie Primer for activities to go along with it. I've meant to read them to the kids for a long time, but just never got to it. I'm excited that we're finally doing it. The timing is actually working out since we're living in Minnesota now close to the settings for lots of the books. We're planning a trip to Walnut Grove this summer.

Most of our week looked like this with lots of snow.



Our backyard

I'm really hoping it starts looking more like spring soon. I've found lots of places here that I would like for us to be able to get out and explore. I guess I can't complain too much since the winter in NC wasn't too cold and we had only seen an inch of snow there. It's been 6 years since we lived somewhere with lots of snow though so we just aren't used to dealing with it anymore. The snow actually went along with our LHOP studies this week though. It was snowing here while we read about all the snow Laura had on Christmas. We also got to make molasses on snow candy like they do in the book.

I have some more pictures of last week's activities, but they go along with The Prairie Primer so I plan to put them all in a post talking about just that.

Here is a picture of my baby girl just because I think she's so cute. I can't believe how much she's grown and that she's already 12 weeks old.

Where has the time gone?

I can't believe how much time has gone by since I've posted anything. So much has happened since then and we've been so busy.

The biggest change is a new addition to our family. Our sweet baby girl was born in January. We are all so in love with her.




The next big change is that we moved to Minnesota a few weeks ago. It was a big move because it's far from where we lived (NC) and a place we aren't too familiar with. We all flew here for a few days in October to look around, but that was the only time the kids and I had been anywhere near here.

A young baby and lots of unpacking are keeping me busy, but I'm going to try to get back to posting here. I like keeping a record of the things we're doing. We have plans for a lot of exciting things over the next few months so I want to write about them. I also think I'll try to post highlights from the months I haven't posted.