Our Week in Review (July 23rd-29th)

All summer long there have been empty chairs at my dining room table.  Some days boys were gone for one day events.  Then we had camps.  Alex and Christian gone for 3 days, then a week later gone for 4.  Lily, Christian, Nick, and Alex gone for 3( I can't remember the last time I only had to cook for 4 people!) , then a week later Nick and Alex gone for 4 again for 4 H State O'Rama.  You only have a chance to be young once and have these opportunities and I am so thankful that they were able to have them!  I was asked how I could afford to send the children on all of these trips.  All of the 4 H activities that the children do come out of my education fund.  I set aside money every month for curriculum, art supplies, etc.. and other activities.  It's not a lot of money and it has to be able to stretch.  We are very blessed that the community we live in has so much support for 4 H.  Our 4 H Foundation helps pay the cost of camps and other activities like District and State O'Rama.  The first time a child attends a state camp, half is paid for by the Foundation which is an enormous help to the parent!  This year Christian received a state scholarship to attend STEM camp.  Camp counselors attend camp for free, so Alex could attend our county camp free.  The 4 H Foundation paid the costs for State O' Rama, all they had to have was spending money and money for a few meals. They had some wonderful learning experiences this summer and lots of fun too!  I am so glad they had these opportunities even though I do miss them when they are gone.

My van is still in the shop as I sit here and write this.  It has been under repairs for a week.  The wrong parts and something else needing to be fixed caused some complications.  And Art had to work all week-end. I only had 4 children most of this week but next week will be more complicated if it does not get fixed for a few more days since I cannot fit all of the children in the truck.


Monday Chelsea and Liam came over for the morning.  Nick was gone all day to finish up working on his project for State O' Rama.  Our ag agent came over in the afternoon to check out our animals and pull DNA and tag goats for state fair.

Tuesday morning I dropped off Nick and Alex for their trip to University of Arkansas at Fayetteville for 4 H State O' Rama.  This was their first time to go.  4 hers 14-19 can complete at State O' Rama in individual and team competitions and also take place in workshops. Nick did not place high enough at District to complete at state so he was signed up for 2 workshops and an Interior Design team competition.  His role in the contest as STEM is his main project, was to create and present a design of a floor plan of an apartment using 3-D design software on an iPad.  The other components of the contest was to choose furniture to suit the floor plan and things like fabrics for furniture and curtains and types of flooring and countertops. Alex placed high enough at District in Sports Fishing so he was able to compete in that, take place in one workshop, and compete in a team contest in Livestock Skills.  Some of the things he had to do was to identify retail cuts of meat, different feeds, hay quality, fill out a medicine form, and more.  Nick's team placed 4th.  In Alex's individual competition he placed 6th.  In the team contest they did not place in the top 5 and so did not find out their final score yet.  They were gone until Friday morning.

Wednesday was Anthony's 13 birthday!

Thursday Lily had piano.

Friday we picked up the boys and ran a few errands including buying some penicillin for a goat that just can't seem to shake a snotty nose that we do not want to go to pneumonia.  Hopefully it will help her so she will be able to eat better. Alex has been giving her the injections. 

I was happy to turn my animal chores back over to the children!

The girls wanted to have a sleep over with sleeping bags and a tent they made in their room.  They had a list of 17 activities they wanted to do at their sleep over including books to read, a board game, and shadow puppets.

Our baby chick is one week old and doing well, but none of the other eggs have hatched.  We are about to give up hope on them.

We did some school work this week.  Emmie worked on a few Learning about Science studies from WriteBonnieRose (review this week.)

We did a lot of work on Project Passport: The Middle Ages (review this week.)  And one blazing hot afternoon we watched Disney's Robin Hood as part of the study.

Lily and Emmie started a study of Paddington Bear from Branch out World.  After reading the book and working on some of the day one activities we had to watch the movie.

We started the Molly American Girl series, finishing book 1 and halfway through book 2. 

I filled out and mailed in our Notice of Intent to homeschool for the 2018/2019 school year.  The paperwork has been simplified and mostly you just need your name and address, the students you are homeschoolings name, age, and grade they are going into.  I could not remember what grade Christian was supposed to be and started to write down 5th.  Then I didn't think that sounded correct so I asked him.  It is 6th.  Oops.  Our new year will be starting August 13th.

I hope you had a great week!

Happy Homeschooling!

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