Weekly Wrap-Up

It's been a fast but relatively calm week here in SmallWorld. On Monday, our support group's enrichment classes started back up again. We were ready!

Tuesday was our regular flurry of Montessori, dance and drama, and biology classes. And while I do a lot of chauffering on Tuesdays, I also have a 2-hour lesson-planning session. It's well worth the driving time!

Wednesday was a bit of a flop. I broke one of my own cardinal rules of creative writing. The kids have been begging to get back to WordSmithery lessons, so I started them on a new one (which I've not posted yet). The problem was that I didn't remind them about not criticizing one another's ideas. They started bickering about "I don't like that" while we were working on a group poem, and I just had to stop. "We absolutely will not," I declared, "do creative writing when you are bickering." So, no new Wordsmithery lesson up. Blame my kids. We'll try again next week—and this time I'll remind them that we only use encouraging words.

We got a lot done on Thursday. We're breezing through a biography of George Washington Carver. The kids are making a lot of connections lately. Laurel seems to be really into predicting right now: "Wait, let me guess what's going to happen!" That makes me happy because she used to be so easily distracted that she would lose track of the story. She is a serious visual learner, like her Mama, so Sonlight's read-aloud emphasis has been a bit of a stretch for her at times.

Thursday also brought one of my colossal Bad Mom moments. So it was the long-awaited day for Jesse to take his driver's license test. We decided to take my parents' car because our horn is unpredictable, and that is one of the things they check. Dad couldn't find his registration papers, but the tag is clearly on the license plate, so we weren't worried about that. So Jesse gets out with the examiner and comes back inside a few minutes later. The registration was expired and he couldn't take his test. My father somehow thought that tag indicated the year in which it was renewed, not the year that it expired. I never even checked the tag! My poor son. He was very disappointed, but he recovered quickly. The next available appointment is in 10 days, so hopefully it'll all work out then. Oh, and the examiner said he would have lost only one point without a working horn.

Friday we continued working on our basics: history, math, and language arts. The kids both memorized another Bible verse. We're making mini-books of all the verses they learn this year so we can have a complete lapbook of verses at the end of the year.

Friday afternoon I taught my high-school World Lit/Geography class. We discussed some more of Funny in Farsi, watched part of an interview with author Firoozeh Dumas, and had a Middle Eastern feast. All the kids brought in a dish to share: chicken ka-bobs, rice, almond cake, almond cookies, hummous, lamb burgers, Syrian bread, salad. We made baklava, and it was amazingly delicious. I found a really easy recipe here.

And that's about it for our week! I also finished painting the fireplace mantel and am furiously scraping a door in the living room. I want to get that painted and clean the carpets before our new furniture comes on Wednesday! But before I get to that, I have to finish lesson plans for Monday's co-op classes.

How was your week? More Weekly Wrap-ups can be found at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.