June 21st Wrap Up - It's Officially Winter

Beautiful sunny days, but very cold cloudless nights; this is how our winter was heralded in this year.  The sunshine has lifted our spirits considerably, though.  We've found seats by sunny windows to perch ourselves during the day, then we snuggle up in dressing gowns and under quilts in the evening.

It felt like we slowed down a little this week, probably because the children worked a little more independent of me and I could potter around the house a bit more.  I've been organising bookshelves and preparing used books to sell on.

At home ...

Outside, in the garden, I've not worked at all this week.  I need to remedy that next week and get the staging shelves set up in the greenhouse so I can finally use it to start my greens.  Oh yes, and I need to order my asparagus plants!!

 It took two full days to get this kit greenhouse assembled.
Now the staging shelves need to be put up and we can use it!

Our hens are at the end of their moult and I'm really hoping they'll start laying again soon.  It's been tricky rationing eggs.  I know I needed to store up at least 4doz more than I had put away for this winter.

Socially speaking ...

The week started with a full day of dance competitions on Sunday.  Maestro was involved in four routines and Mariposa in one.  They didn't collect any firsts, but both received 2nd placings, and a 3rd.

Funny girl.  

New false eyelashes required for competition.

Mariposa has been the centre of attention regarding extra activities this week.  Her horseriding lesson went extremely well.  She was invited back to learn a few other horsecare skills on Thursday night, involving feeding and rugging up for colder nights.  Her teacher also asked if she'd like to come back and be a helper to beginner students during term break.  Of course, when asked to come and work with horses, Mariposa is most willing, so she's clocked up about 6 hrs at the riding school there this week.

Such a lovely sunny day for riding!

In our homeschool ...

Maths seemed to be one main focus this week.  Mariposa continued practicing her long division based on the strategy we set up last week. (I'm so glad she has that visual to help her.  It's made it so much easier!!)  Maestro is learning more about quadratic equations, working through Algebra 2.  The dvd episodes are a little longer in explanation, and I like to watch them with Maestro to make sure I understand the same method.

The other main focus has been our reading.  Maestro has finished off Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and has now gone straight on to read The Red Baron by Manfred Van Richtofen.    Mariposa is reading Black Beauty, with her read-aloud being Freedom Train.  I'm finding the latter quite interesting, especially as a book I'm reading, called The Runaway Quilt, is on a related topic.

Our science lessons have been most inconsistent this week.  Maestro's been working through his Chemistry book, learning about ionic and covalent compounds.  He didn't get to do his experiment this week, so we'll be doing that first thing next week.

Mariposa will begin working on her TOPS Electricity (Sonlight's Science E) module next week.  I had planned to start this week, but with her doing extra horseriding activities, we couldn't schedule enough time in.

Next week is actually our last week for the term, then we'll take a two week break.  The weather promises to be as sunny as it was this week gone, so that will be great to keep the motivation up and propel us into our break with enthusiasm to organise some things around the home (that being the gardening mainly).

Until next time!

Catherine