Our Week in Review

Ah, this week ended well! It was a beautiful sunny day today, not really warm but warm enough to be outside and dream of spring. My daughter and I swept and spruced up the front porch, and finally took down the outside Christmas lights (yes, we're one of those families!). I hung our Easter yard flag and put our "He is Risen" wreath on the front door. My husband and sons worked together on a project in the backyard (pictures below). It felt good to get a few outside things done! I made a goal a few weeks ago to try and work at least 15 minutes a day at organizing and deep cleaning some area of our home that really needs it, and I'm happy to report that a major pile in our bedroom which had been there for well over a year is now GONE! I have one huge garbage bag of stuff to donate, plus one small bag, and a plastic tub full of things to sell at the MOPS sale in May. I also gave 3 of my boys haircuts today ~ they look quite handsome if I do say so myself!

We had a good week in school too. We learned about President Johnson who assumed the office when Lincoln was assassinated, and about the reconstruction era following the Civil War. It is so clear to me now how that ill-handled period paved the way for discrimination and a hundred years of racial tension that was to come. I wonder how history would have been different had Lincoln lived and presided over reconstruction as he had planned it?

Among our school activities this week was finally finishing our model of the Monitor (of "Monitor and Merrimac" fame) out of an empty soy milk container and floating it in our kitchen sink. More on that in another post. Our son G has been fascinated with the famous sea battle between these two ships for several weeks now. I think he has read Battle of the Ironclads about 5 times!


Our daughter G is currently finishing up Tom Sawyer on audio CD, and at the same time devouring this book, a true story of an African princess who is taken under Queen Victoria's wing. Last week she finished reading Behind Rebel Lines, another true story this time of Emma Edmonds, a woman who disguises herself as a man in order to serve in the Union Army during the Civil War. It's so interesting to view history through several different lens!


She read this entire book this week and learned so much about Reconstruction.


Meanwhile I used these books during my history time with the boys. We touched on the transcontinental railroad, reconstruction, carpetbaggars, slavery and the underground railroad, and Laura Ingalls!


It's been a while since I've mentioned our Bible reading. We are currently in Matthew chapter 13, and among our readings this week was the parable of the sower who sowed good seeds, but during the night while everyone was asleep, an enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat. When harvest time came, the harvesters were told to cut the weeds down first and throw them into a fire, and then to harvest the wheat and bring it into the farmer's barn. Here is son L's picture illustrating this story. In the bottom right corner you can see the enemy, sowing weeds during the night.


And this is son G's picture of the same story. On the left you see the workers sowing good seeds during the day, and on the right you see the enemy coming during the night to sow weeds. The kids are really loving all the parables we're reading right now ~ trying to figure out who or what each element of the parable represents. Jesus explains this parable quite plainly to his disciples after he has spoken it to the crowd. The farmer is God. The wheat seeds are the children of God. The enemy is satan, and the weeds are all those who follow him. Harvest time represents the "end of the age" and the harvesters are God's angels who divide all the people into those who follow satan (the weeds, which are thrown into the fire) and those who follow Christ (the wheat which is harvested and brought into the barn - heaven). The children got that one pretty easily, especially our oldest. Some of the parables are harder to understand.


I just love having a one room schoolhouse and seeing firsthand all the different ages working at their ability level on the same topic. Truly it is thrilling to experience! Here are our daughter G's Abraham Lincoln president pages. She had so much to write about she had to write in some of the picture space. She included many details she had learned about Lincoln's childhood and young adult years, things we read about which are not commonly known.


Here is a close up of part of her picture at the bottom of the page. On the left is "Abe, the rail splitter", and on the right he has been elected president and people are throwing their hats in the air with excitement!


On the other end of the spectrum, here is the same page done by our son C. The only words he wrote himself were "Abraham Lincoln". Then he dictated the rest to me and I wrote for him. He was quite taken with Abe's courtship of Mary Todd, and how she was being courted by two men at the same time and had to choose. For anyone who actually reads his paragraph, I suggested the word "governed" in the last sentence. :-)


And what was Little Man doing during all of this? Practicing cutting...... (I have LOTS of little papers to prove how much he practiced!)


....and being Batman!


Here's the backyard project my men completed today. Mulching on top of the mud under our swings, and re-laying the rubber mats with holes in them that the grass grows through. They really do help to keep the mud layer to a minimum, but it has rained SO much recently that our poor soil just couldn't keep up. Much nicer on the shoes now, and much nicer on my carpet. :-)