Weekly Wrap-Up: Anti-Procrastination Week

This has been my Anti-Procrastination Week. I made a list of lots of little things that I have been putting off doing and made it a goal to take care of a few a day. Doesn't it feel good to check things off a list? I have one item left on my list and I will be taking care of that later with a phone call. :)

So, with that said, I will not procrastinate writing this post until later. We have had a fairly normal school week...whatever that means. There really has been no real exciting projects or activities since our horseback riding field trip had to be postponed due to illness. We are going to combine a visit to a near-by apple orchard and horseback riding into a trip next week.

Literature: I wrote a blog post last week about our Shakespeare study and how I was happy that I had saved some of the plays for high school. This week reading The Grapes of Wrath I realized that this book needs to be read by adults, the meaning is so deep and reflective. I actually cried this week while reading this book, tears of relief for the Joad family when they finally reached the big government camp in California. I so related to the mother and her emotions as she realized that here she was now "Mrs. Joad" again, a real person. If you have not read this book as an adult, I highly recommend it for your summer reading list. As part of Mr. A's study of this book, he wrote a paper on Hoovervilles.


Chemistry this week was interesting and relevant. If you doubt the power of simple activities you may be interested to know that my boys think they are learning more about the periodic table and chemistry of everyday things from reading the book The Elements than any other resource they have at their disposal. They also have started reading Joy Hakim's The Story of Science: Einstein Adds a New Dimension, the last of the books in this series. Someday I will need to write a complete review of this series.(In the spirit of Anti-Procrastination Week, I started a post and saved it in my blogger dashboard to remind me to write the review.)


Math was ho-hum. I see a pattern here but that is okay with me that math is not exciting or fun. We are sort of in the *let's just get it done* mode with both boys.

History: Mr. B this week is focusing totally on Bible reading as part of his ancient history plans with Tapestry of Grace. I I have read quite a few moms lately that say that TOG is overwhelming and have given up using it altogether. I have to say that in our family it has been just the right amount of structure and since this is the second time through the year plans, I see the wisdom in being able to build on the foundation we built the first time through. I have no problem adding or subtracting from the different levels and at this point I don't even feel bad skipping big chunks of the plans.


Mr. A is plugging along with modern history, enjoying his study of Hitler's Empire using The Teaching Company DVDs. We are also throwing in a few History Scholar pages each week now as a great way to narrate his reading.


Robotics: Did I tell you last week that Mr. B started working on a robotic hand? This is going to be really slick when it is done.

I had to take an afternoon this week to polish up the next few week's school plans since I originally had only planned the first nine weeks of school in detail. It felt great to look back and see how the original plans panned out and now I have a good feel for the next nine weeks. Astronomy is the only subject that has taken a complete revamp (more on that in a future post) and I added How To Write a Story to Mr. B's creative writing plans. I will more than likely be sharing a review of this book from IEW in the future...stay tuned.



Since art and music are at the core of Mr. B's weekly plans, he always finds something interesting to share with me. He has started a study and listening plan of Richard Wagner. You can listen HERE to what we have been hearing all week....the boys had a friend over and he wanted to know what they were listening to because he recognized it from a movie. Amazing how much classical music is all around us and we just don't identify who the composer is or what time period it is from.



I almost forgot this week's baking project.


Braided egg bread. Now we are talking MY language, warm bread that is so yummy that you don't even need to put butter on it to enjoy it!

I think that is the end of this Anti-Procrastination Week post. I will not procrastinate posting it any longer. Have a great weekend!

Barb-Harmony Art Mom