Our Week in Review

My husband thrived during his first week at his new job, and we survived our first full week of school!!

We are still adjusting to the new routine, necessitated by my husband's new work schedule, but we are adjusting with thankful hearts. I am so grateful for God's infinite love and patience. I am so thankful for the new job! I am so thankful it's forcing us to go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. I am so thankful I can be busy with the task of educating our children. I am so thankful for our house. In fact, I am totally in love with our house right now! I want to buy it things and do nice things for it, and spend quality time with it. Though it has lots of little things that need fixing, only one tub/shower for our family of 7, and many nooks and crannies that need a thorough cleaning, I have a fresh appreciation for these walls that we call home. Among the many lessons I learned during these last 9 months is this: Our house is just a house. Ultimately it is nothing special. What makes it special is the people in it. And it doesn't belong to us. It belongs to God. He graciously allowed us to live in it the last 8 years, and apparently it is His plan that we live in it longer. I AM SO THANKFUL FOR IT!

It is such a joy to see my husband working again. It has really changed the tone of our home. I can't explain it, but it's tangible. He has purpose. He has some where to go after he wakes up. He is making a contribution, earning his own way, and providing for his family. It is such a happy thing!

So, while we were busy adjusting to the new job and being thankful for our home, the children were busy finding their school groove. Some found it quickly. Others, not so much. :-) Here is Little Man spending time with his sissy. I have scheduled Little Man to have some one to one time with each of his siblings during the school day. They all love this time and look forward to it! I'm not sure the anticipation is because of Little Man's sparkling personality, or the fact that his activities are all fun and games. Maybe both.


The 3 middle boys are pictured here working on their history lapbooks. They cut out a little flapbook and wrote about Henry Ford and the making of the Model T ~ the car that changed America. SO MUCH happened in the first decade of the 1900's! Wow. Our daughter read about the presidencies of Roosevelt and Taft. Son G read about the Titanic. Younger boys and I read about the Wright Brothers and their amazing flyer, and the building of the Panama Canal. We all read about Henry Ford, and also about Amy Carmichael, missionary to India.



In science, the boys and I began reading about ocean creatures. We are going to LOVE this book! During the summer I made science notebooks for the 3 middle boys, combining free notebooking pages from Jeannie Fulbright's website (author of our textbook), with free lapbook elements from homeschool share. I am so glad I was able to do this ahead of time! The boys loved seeing their notebooks, with the same covers as our science textbook (color copies - yay!), and they all enthusiastically began working in them. Oh, may that enthusiasm continue!

C's notebook.

G's notebook.


L's notebook.

Meanwhile, our daughter began her science study with the Apologia General Science book. It is divided into 16 modules. Our goal is to finish one module every 2 weeks. We read the first several pages together and then did the first experiment, which was to prove the existence of atoms. Many homeschoolers, including me, approach experiments with a fair bit of dread, because there is nothing worse than building up your child's expectations only to have the experiment fail for some reason. I am happy to report that this experiment worked exactly as it was supposed to! It was actually very cool.




As previously mentioned, we read this book about the building of the Panama Canal. A true engineering marvel and extraordinary accomplishment, which includes a set of locks at either end of the canal.


Then I remembered that we had this toy from Discovery Toys called "Waterworks" out in the shed. Oh my, what fun! It has a set of locks on it too, so we put it together and happily played Panama Canal all afternoon.

We even got little lego men to be the sailors. And homemade boats out of tin foil so we'd have enough for everyone.

Little Man is pumping water into the upper lock. Son G's hand is on the upper lock, a good 8 inches above the rest of the waterway.


In this picture the green boat is in the upper lock and G is pumping water into the next lock so the boat can pass through.


I'm so glad when some toy we already have can tie in so well with school!

I am so thankful for a good first full week, for my husband's job, for our home, and most of all for God's love and faithfulness. That sums up our week, and pretty much my whole outlook right now!