In my life this week…
we have/had 2 weddings and an engagement! We attended the wedding of one of the girls from youth group last Saturday. It was beautiful and it’s just so hard to believe she’s old enough to be married! We have another wedding tonight! These girls… Ahhh it’s just so amazing how quickly kids grow up. Enjoy them while you can!!
The MOST exciting news though, happened in our own family! Our son G, after 4 years of chasing one girl, and 6 months of dating, proposed to his sweetheart and…
In our homeschool this week…
We are starting to settle into Time4Learning again. I just found the Assignment Scheduler, which they didn’t have the last time we used this, and I will be using that to help them know what to do each day. This week the boys have been mostly using T4L for Language Arts, but that is an area where they really benefit from their lesson format. I haven’t adjusted grade levels for either of them, so they are both working at their actual grade level. They haven’t done much math on T4L yet. I am planning on having them do it daily after they complete their Teaching Textbooks lessons. D2 will be done with those in 3 weeks. D1 may not finish before the end of July. We’ll see. D1 has been really trying to stay on track and get his assignments done in a reasonable length of time. I’m proud of him!
Helpful homeschooling tips or advice to share…
Don’t be afraid to change something that isn’t working out. You can always tweak a curriculum or it’s lesson plans to fit the pace or interests of your family.
I am inspired by…
Our son G, because he continually proves to us that boys can grow into godly young men who don’t have to compromise their values to get the girl. 
It gives me hope for our younger boys.
Places we’re going and people we’re seeing…
This week, just weddings, an engagement party, and seeing all of the family and friends who will be at all of those!
My favorite thing this week…
I could say G’s proposal and photos after it, but I’m going to go with our science co-op this week. The kids studied different crystal formations that various minerals create, and then we started growing some crystals of our own. We have jars on a cabinet now that have solutions of salt water, sugar water, and borax in them. The salt crystals have wasted no time in getting started! The sugar solution seems to be very thick (although we followed directions!) and it is crystallizing but I’m not sure how it will come out. The Borax solution is making tiny crystals right now but I had read that it can take a couple of weeks to get something from it. We’re growing the sugar and Borax crystals on wooden skewers, and the salt crystals on clean eggshells. Here are ours.
Crystal Growing Solutions
Salt Crystals Forming
What’s working for us…
Time4Learning, so far.
Questions/thoughts I have…
I am still trying to find families who have used Teaching Textbooks for the lower grades on the computer, who are now using Time4Learning for math. If that is you, or if you have done the opposite and went from T4L to TT, please leave me a comment! I’d like to chat with you!
Things I’m working on…
I’m still working on figuring out a meal plan that will work for my family. Maybe I’m just over-thinking this and making it harder than it should be!
I’m reading…
Learning in Spite of Labels, still. I know. I should have finished it weeks ago. I’ve been busy! I also started reading Made to Crave: Satisfying Your Deepest Desire with God, Not Food
I’m cooking…
before 5pm! This week I have really made a point to get dinner started early, like around 3:00, so that it is ready when we need it. I have fallen into the Oh no, what’s for dinner?? trap too often, and these days we have activities 2-3 days a week that begin around 6pm. It goes to reason then, that I can’t try to figure out dinner at 5! This week we have grilled steaks on Father’s Day, then used the meat to make Steak Fajitas one night and then used the left over Fajita meat, peppers and onions along with some rice and chicken broth, and made a really GOOD soup out of it! I also made Mango Pork Chops, and yes one night we did hit McD’s but only because we had back to back activities at 4:30pm & 6pm with only about 10 minutes in between! Thankfully this is NOT normal!
This post is long enough, so I will leave you with a thought from Joyce Herzog:
“Children cannot learn in the midst of fear, tension, or confusion. They will not progress if they are afraid to make a mistake. It is our responsibility to teach our children that it is okay to fail. It is even okay to give up, but not until great effort has been directed at the problem.”~ Learning in Spite of Labels
Affiliate Advertisement
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links which, if you click over and make a purchase, help to pay this site’s maintenance fees.
Congratulations on your son's engagement!!! That is really exciting!
We made crystals a few years ago and some worked really well and others not really at all. Either way, a fun experiment!
Sharla recently posted..Weekly Wrap Up
Sharla: I am DYING to see how these crystals come out but honestly I don't have a lot of hope for the sugar crystals. This is our second try with those. The first time, the solution grew mold! This time it just seems to be very thick (like pancake syrup) and I'm not sure it will grow much. We'll see!