Precious Moments

 

Compared with last week, this week has been a walk in the park.  We are finally settling into a great routine and after tweaking things for the past three weeks, I am glad to say no more tweaking is necessary.  We are slowly becoming the peace loving home school we all know and love.  I’m not sure why this year has taken so long to settle, but we’re there now, and I suppose that is all that matters.

L has spent a loooong time making lots of jewellery.  Every spare moment she is twisting and snipping, beading and threading:

As you can see, A7 has joined the band wagon, with her very own jewellery making kit.  Nothing makes me happier than seeing two of my daughters’ heads together watching the latest youtube video on jewellery making followed by much discussion and action about how to replicate it.  The picture below show L’s contented face and to the left, her L-shaped earrings:

 Here are a few more of her pieces.  Aren’t they beautiful?

The littles and I have embarked on a fairly in depth study of the Michaelmas Daisy and made some fairies to go along with our study:

We’ve been having fun in the evenings with the older four.  Bedtimes have been moved forward for all four of them, leaving more time in the evening and a later rising time in the morning.  It’s a lot of fun because we can school into the night and Daddy can join us.  And everything is much more fun with Gary tagging along.  One night we revised cells and made some pancake cells:

I’m fairly certain more made it into Gary’s mouth than onto his pancake.  The rest of the children managed to behave themselves and placed most of their edibles onto their pancake.  I thought they all did a sterling job….well, apart from my better other half!

Gary and I have started to lead a youth group for those aged 15-16.  If they’ll have us, they are stuck with us until they leave school.  Honestly, they are so cool!  All of them, without exception, are intelligent, thoughtful and passionate for God.  I think Gary and I are going to learn much from them.  We asked what type of subjects they wanted us to cover and one of them was to answer the question of whether or not we can lose our salvation.  Nice and easy then?!  I was leading this one, thinking it would be a good one to get my teeth into. As I studied, I realised it was much more complicated than I first thought.

So I made them all a double sided book mark.  On one side was scripture supporting the view than salvation, once got, can never be lost.  On the other side was scripture supporting the view that salvation can be lost.  I was stuck.  I wasn’t sure how to proceed.  In the end I decided to focus on what I did know, rather than what I didn’t and I found a verse which I felt summed up what was really at the crux of this question, played around with it on Ribbet and made a mini bookmark.  During the discussion I gave them the first book mark and then at the end I gave them the second and a piece of wool.  The second was over layed on top of the first to remind us of what was truly important:

This week was marred with more colds (A seems to have a hard time shifting hers) and by Thursday was feeling really rough.  We did manage to get out for our nature walks at the beginning of the week.  I snapped a picture of B4 and A7 walking hand in hand towards the meadow:

I also managed to get a gorgeous photo of all five which I am going to attempt to attach to my Face book angelicscalliwags page (please do follow along if you are a Face book user):

Each time we go out, I am reminded what a gorgeous area we live in:

Of course, little bodies have little legs which tire easily, but that is no problem for my two.  God gave them three older siblings who all take it in terns to carry them home:

School wise, we have done well this week- a sort of strong and steady week.  Funnily enough fewer books have been read, probably because there was just so much more actual work going on that reading times decreased somewhat:

T13

Operation Yes
Banner in the Sky
Chu Ju’s House

L12

To Kill A Mockingbird: 50th Anniversary Edition

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: 6/7 (Harry Potter 6)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: 2/7 (Harry Potter 2)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: 3/7 (Harry Potter 3)

C12

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: 6/7 (Harry Potter 6)

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: 2/7 (Harry Potter 2)

Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone: 1/7 (Harry Potter 1)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: 3/7 (Harry Potter 3)

The Blitzed Brits (Horrible Histories)

Everybody can know

John Milton’s Paradise Lost In Plain English: A Simple, Line By Line Paraphrase Of The Complicated Masterpiece

All affiliate links, my homeschool budget thanks you very much!

Another few chapters of Charles Dickens

For me though, this week has been a huge learning curve in the whole blogging arena.  I have signed up for courses, am listening to recommended podcasts, paying huge attention to my incredible mentors who are giving up their free time and expertise to help me, and I have been accepted as a guest writer for another blog.  It’s all a bit exciting.  And if all this wasn’t enough, I earned 32 p from my affiliate link to Amazon.  Happy, happy sigh….it really doesn’t take much, does it?