Homegrown Learners

Welcome to Collage Friday!
This week was truly a "homeschool collage" for us. We touched on every subject area and will end the week with a homeschool day at Turner Field (home of the Atlanta Braves). We are HUGE baseball fans, so we are all looking forward to this.

There was A LOT of reading going on this week. GMan discovered the Stink books - you know Stink, right? He's Judy Moody's younger brother. I was very impressed with these books, and G read two of them this week. My favorite thing in the second book was the glow in the dark bacon and egg pajamas! No wonder my son couldn't put them down. (I also just discovered a discussion guide to go with the first book, and it's really good - putting that on the "to do" list for next week!)
Miss B finished Saddles, Stars and Stripes: Chance of a Lifetime. I'm not sure she LOVED it, but she read it and said it was pretty good. I'm still struggling to find books for her to sink her teeth into that AREN'T Harry Potter or Percy Jackson. She has read those books several times each.

I am almost finished reading Kisses from Katie. All I can say about this book is GO GET IT AND READ IT NOW!

Yes, that would be my crockpot buckled into my van. I had to cook for co op this week -- every mom is responsible for bringing food one week, so this week I made Paula Deen's Crockpot Macaroni and Cheese and Squash Casserole (the theme for lunch was Southern Cooking). I wanted to make SURE the food stayed in place on the drive to co-op, and GMan suggested I just buckle it in. Clever boy.

1. It rained this week in Georgia. A LOT. I'm glad I have cute rain boots. That's the only good thing about so much rain.

2. Miss B and I made a very productive trip to IKEA. Did you read how this little trip and a cupcake pulled me from the homeschool abyss. Maybe you can relate?
3. My daughter is still responsible for one meal each week. This week it was VERY simple, but she learned how to put it all together from start to finish: grilled ham and cheese, fresh fruit, and chips. This is one of those "clean out the frig" meals for our family. She was a little intimidated by the griddle, but she got used to it.
4. GMan was VERY excited to begin learning cursive. Right now I'm just using some basic printables from Donna Young's site. That is working well. I may switch to Handwriting Without Tears (I used this for Miss B), but for now I'm going to try and save some money and piece my own handwriting curriculum together. Donna Young's whole site is full of great resources -- it wins my Favorite Resource This Week - thanks, Susan for hosting this linky each week!!
5. Our sweet dog, Gizmo, had a seizure Thursday morning. It came out of the blue and really scared me. Miss B is VERY close to Gizmo. (He came to us right when we took her out of school -- kind of like her first homeschooling friend.) She laid with him most of the morning to make sure he was going to be ok. Needless to say, a vet appointment has been made.
6. GMan saw this quote from MLK when we were downtown Monday. "Everybody can be great, because anybody can serve." I love that he pointed it out to me, and we all had a good discussion about what it meant. We've been learning a lot about MLK recently and I'm so happy to see them understanding what he stood for.
7. We have been reading The Railway Children aloud from the iPad. The book itself is a free download in the Kindle store. I love that I can highlight quotes and use the dictionary with a tap of my finger. This quote really struck me this week:

Grown up people, even Mothers, often make remarks that don't seem to mean anything in particular, just for the sake of saying something, seemingly.

Guilty.as.charged.
8. Both children made good progress in math this week. I'm not above a little bribery, either. They each have a favorite candy (G's is the Lego bricks pictured above) which I will let them snack on as long as they are focused during their math lesson. It seems to work. Somehow gummy worms take the edge off of reducing fractions!
9. Maple Bacon Yogurt - my new favorite - and I'm not kidding.
How's that for a collage of a week?
I'd love for you to join me this week! Feel free to link up your collage from this past week's activities. Make sure you grab the button from my sidebar and use it in your post or your sidebar, or link back to my blog in some way. I think Collage Friday is getting to be a great resource for some homeschool bloggers and that makes me very happy!