Weekly Wrap: Nature and Encouragement

1. Even more snap circuits. | 2. Build your own sundae night (on Sunday night). | 3. Hostessing at the Heart of the Matter Conference. What a thrill to hostess Dr. Jay Wile and Terri Johnson! | 4. The silly boys that were behind the scenes (while three girls were off at Drama Troupe meeting with Hodgepodgedad. | 5. Out for a check up and running errands. | 6. A lunch time treat! | 7. The fruit of the spirit hanging in grand central – the kitchen. | 8. Mama Ann’s stream – spying topics for our pond/stream/lake nature study via Outdoor Hour Challenges.| 9. Sidewalk chalk. | 10. I love God by 5yo. | 11. Porch BD party for Middle Girl! | 12. Library books for nature study. | 13. Castles for Tapestry of Grace history study. | 14. A butterfly landed on Aunt Mary Ann! | 15. Looking at the RR crossing and train pictures Grandpa emailed to us from out west. | 16. Pool after math.| 17. Fabulous find of the frog kind! | 18. Eldest boy scooped the frog. | Youth dinner at church with eldest two (not pictured). | 19. Afternoon Quiet Time – McDuff. | 20. Listening to Junie B. Jones for Afternoon Quiet Time. | 21. More Tapestry books. | 22. Beauty parlor! | 23. Cheesecake with three of my high school friends! | 24. Lilly Pad Pond with our homeschool Creation Club friends.

Many thanks to Camera Phone Friday hostess Dawn Camp @ My Home Sweet Home

Helpful Habit? Birthdays the Easy Way. Up until age five our children enjoy a simple family birthday at home. Then every other year they get to have a party and invite friends – the same number as the age they are turning. This sure helps with five children’s birthdays. Especially since four of ours fall in the August to November time of year. This is Middle Girl’s year for a family birthday. She asked if we could all head down to Atlanta to the Coca-Cola museum. So that’s what we’re doing! Photo above by Middle Girl. For more ideas on frugal birthdays, including recipes and themes, you can read more of Birthdays the Easy Way.

Weekly Wrap – The older three finished Teaching Textbooks math all but one day this week – today when we went to the pond. This was also the week we started to really dig into our Tapestry of Grace studies.

But the main theme of the week was definitely Nature Study. Not only did we have a Fabulous Find of the Frog Kind to go along with our August Pond Outdoor Hour Challenges, we also enjoyed our monthly Creation Club at an enormous pond, appropriately called Lilly Pad Pond.

We saw minnows, lilly pads, a snake (from a distance) dragonflies and plenty of pond life.

Regular activities are starting back: The girls attended a Drama Troupe meeting. Regular practice starts back next week. The eldest two children, Hodgepodgedad and I went to a youth dinner at church to kick off the new school year and hear about all the fun things planned. Soon, choir and piano will be added.

Homeschool Encouragement in general: I had the privilege of being involved in the Heart of the Matter online conference. I got to hostess two of the speakers and a casual chat. Little guy decided he needed to come see me just as I was introducing Terri Johnson. I saw in the chat box that the attendees could hear him banging on the door 🙂

I encourage you to click over to Heart of the Matter Conference. The mp3s of the sessions will soon be available. So many wonderful topics! I plan of getting copies of the sessions I missed so that I can listen at my leisure.

Feeling like the old woman who lived in a shoe? You might like our topic for August at Habits for a Happy Home. How do you make habits stick?

Wow, lots of amphibians and encouragement. Now, time to celebrate a birthday! How was your week? Be sure to check out what other Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers were up to this week. Plus you can win a t-shirt with the same title!