The Best Apple Cake and Frog Guts! ~ Collage Friday
Friday, November 15, 2013 at 5:00AM 
Each Thursday afternoon I sit and write this collage post.
My kids have piano lessons, so I take advantage of the 75 uniterrupted minutes of time to document and reflect on the week.
Today the weather is beautiful - the leaves are almost all off the trees and it's peaceful and cool.
There's SO MUCH to be thankful for, and I'm happy we all get to share our weeks with each other during Collage Friday.
Just a little heads up... in 2 Fridays I will be visiting with family and friends in South Florida. We are spending an entire week hopefully relaxing and enjoying ourselves. There will be NO Collage Friday on November 29th from me.
{I'll remind you again next week, too.}
Frog Dissections
This week was a monumental Classical Conversations day for Anna!
Each week her Challenge A class researches a specific science topic. This week it was amphibians.
The class dissected frogs. Anna was so excited about this dissection that she had another adult come to the Foundations room where I was helping and ask me to come witness the dissection!
This child has always loved stuff like this. Most of the kids were a little squeamish, but Anna was right in her element!
This is the 12th week of Challenge A. I am BLOWN AWAY by the amount of material Anna has learned, and equally blown away by her enthusiasm for the program.
It has been the biggest blessing of our homeschool year.
If you had told me my daughter would be successfully (and fairly easily) translating paragraphs from Latin to English and vice versa I would have been doubtful. If you had told me she would look forward to spending 7 hours each Tuesday in academic seminars I would have been even more doubtful.
This is my free spirited child - my musician and bookworm. I was a bit afraid the Challenge Program would stifle her, but it hasn't. She is learning so many new things and developing new interests as a result. The friendships and positivie peer pressure have been HUGE.
Other Randomness From the Week
We are plugging away for one more week, and then we will be off to Florida!
Anna packed more boxes for Operation Christmas Child with the youth group at church, and I cooked a huge crockpot full of chili for their dinner.
We had two families over last weekend for dinner and time at the fire pit.
There's so much going on, but it's all GOOD, so I'm trying to push through the tiredness and am telling myself there will time for rest soon.
Pictured above:
- Cinnamon Apple Cake - this is the BEST fall recipe! It's almost like a coffee cake, but better. I promise if you make it you will love it. One note: only use ROME APPLES in this recipe. I've tried it with others and it just isn't as good!
- Lots of piano practice this week - Anna is in a Sonatina competition tomorrow (Saturday) and the house has been filled with music. I wrote about the long process of learning this piece, and what we learned from it. Hopefully it will encourage you!
- Les Miserables is the current read aloud for Grant and I. We've also been listening to highlights from the musical. We've learned a little about Victor Hugo and the time period during which he lived (this book was a CC recommended reading list, by the way).
- A cold front swept in Tuesday afternoon. Grant and a friend were at the park and it literally blew in while we were sitting there. A funny from that day: the minute the two boys hopped in the back of my van to go to the park they both started chanting "Timeline! Timeline!" - If you're a Classical Conversations person you will understand that they wanted to listen to The Timeline Song. Once again - SO thankful for CC!
I spent a lot of time creating a gift giving guide for parents and friends of LEGO Lovers.
There is also a chance for you to win a 3 month subscription to PLEYGO (the Netflix of LEGOS!) in the post. Take a minute and check out the guide and enter to win!
As always, there are a lot of things I left out of this Collage Friday post, but I could never be done writing this post if I included everything from our week.
Homeschooling Moms: Give yourselves a HUGE pat on the back. Do you realize how much you DO EACH WEEK and the IMPACT YOU HAVE on your children and your entire family? I would love for us all to be in one room together and celebrate the success of just having made it through another week.
If you'd like to link, you can do so in a couple of ways:
- Enter your link below. Be sure to link to your post with photo collages and link back to this post (or include the Collage Friday button on your blog).
- Share your photo collage(s) on Instagram, FB, G+, or Twitter - use the hashtag #collagefriday so I can find you!
Reader Comments (10)
Your enthusiasm is contagious!! And it's wonderful to hear. I'm so pleased you have found something that works for your family because it makes a huge difference when you feel confident that your children are reaching their potential. Things are going so well for my eldest son, too, and at this age (11 almost 12) this is so important. I love that he loves learning!
Thank you so much for the linky and for your happy enthusiasm for this wonder of homeschooling. You put a smile on my face!
I love reading the highlights of your week! And I love that us homeschoolers have such variety in our weeks - from awesome apple cake to frog guts. Thanks for encouraging, for hosting us!
Wee! For a minute I thought you were reading the unabridged Les Mis!
Sounds like a wonderful week!
hey Mary, it's so good to see that whatever we are using is working for our kids and they are blossoming. I have been using Easy PEasy - a free homeschooling website set up by a Christian Mom. We are loving it. My kids do most of their work independently, I get to concentrate on the little ones- 1st grade and Pre-k. The older ones, 5th and 3rd grade get their leaning done on the website by reading, writing, watching videos, using interactive websites. It's great. Some days are more intensive than others. Some days are just fun, full of discoveries. So far, I am really happy with the site. We still do a co-op once a month with a Science and Public Speaking focus to it. And then 4-H and Lego club, and of course playdates. I still read aloud everyday and we do craft weekly because who can live without being a little creative? :) God is so good to lead us according to our families' needs, isn't He??
I took inspiration from you and we are preparing 4 boxes for Operation Christmas Child. The kids have each painted their own box and today or tomorrow we will fill them up with goodies. I will share on my learning blog of November. Thank you for sharing all you do!
I always love dissection in school! I think that's why my squeamish friends made me do all the work... ;0)
LOL about the Timeline song request! That sort of thing surely does make a homeschooling mama's heart sing! I wish Anna every success with the piano competition. I recently started having guitar lessons (after 2 years piggybacking on my 9 year old daughter's lessons ie having her teach me). Learning pieces is a new discipline for me. It's time-consuming but so worth it!
Thank you for hosting. (You must be very excited about Florida!)
Oh girl, we had three pianists getting ready for our Hymn Festival our 3 year old twins were walking around humming these hymns. It was so precious but our house was truly alive with the sound of music! We range from 3 to 15 and I also fiind that it's better for our homeschool if I school the littles first while the bigs work on math and independent stuff! If I don't I feel like they get the short end of the stick. Truly it takes us about an hour to complete our work (a lot of read alouds for these folks!). I think it also fills their tanks! As always great post now I'm going to watch your hangout, I'm hoping one day to get a better handle on google plus and actually watch one of these things live. Hahaha! Maybe when the twins are a bit older...Blessings, Kyle
Anna loves frog dissections?! I knew that girl was super awesome!! I loved all things dissection, too! Caraline will be taking an anatomy class next semester with dissection and she is thrilled! (I am hoping she isn't too tender-hearted, though.)
We enjoyed the video of her piano piece! She will do beautifully today at the competition. She plays with excellence.
Your dessert looks yummy!
And, we will continue praying over your Operation Christmas Child packages and your trip. What an amazing opportunity to share Jesus' love.
Every time I read about Anna's experience with CC, I am convinced this is what we'll do when the time comes. :)
Mary your title made me laugh!
I am so glad to hear that Anna is taking to CC like a frog to water ;) I've never done CC but people keep telling me to try it. IDK. I don't think it's my kind of style.
Your apple cake looks perfect for a fall treat!