Weekly Report

What a week! This was the first week back after a couple of weeks of sickness. It was really difficult to get back to good habits in the schoolroom. The girls had forgotten how to sit properly in their chairs and how to not complain about doing school! But we hit grammar, writing, math and science hard! Nutmeg is diagramming adverbs describing verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. We are right smack in the middle of our weather unit. This week we studied the Beaufort Wind Scale. I really want to push through weather so that we can spend all our science time in the garden. I plan to read Seed Babies to the girls, but I want to keep book-learning to a minimum and concentrate on observation. The girls will keep nature notebooks. We may look up one or two facts about each insect or plant, but I want to keep their hands in the dirt!

I have been trying to incorporate weather and planting with our history studies. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin fit in really well! This week Nutmeg made her own almanac. She picked out some weather sayings, a recipe, a cure for sore throats and some planting instructions. Her illustrations are the cutest! I also have seeds for black hollyhocks and flowering tobacco and of course tomatoes for our Thomas Jefferson garden. I planted some flax seeds to get a head start on our Ancients year starting in the fall (we are skipping year 4 for now). I planted flax also for its reputedly positive effect on carrots. And speaking of carrots, (yes, this is how I talk in real life - I jump from topic to topic quite a bit) any of you studying the Middle Ages may want to grow some WHITE carrots. I ordered the seeds from Bakers Seeds at rareseeds.com ( shipping is always 3$, and they ship quickly). Apparently, white carrots were very common in the Middle Ages. Who knew? Maybe I should do a plant-based history curriculum. Maybe...maybe I should get back to my Weekly Report!

The Chipmunk is working through her Rod & Staff workbooks. She and her Buddy made The Carrot Seed lapbooks. Homeschoolshare.com has the best FREE resources! Yesterday, Chipmunk planted radish seeds in the garden. I hope someone will eat them!

My husband is rebuilding my garden beds. After 8 years, the untreated wood had become compost. That is better than arsenic! I am trying to follow the Square Foot Gardening plan. I have the grids on one bed, and it looks so promising. I just can't see planting tomatoes that close together. Maybe in New England, but our growing season is LONG, and I expect big plants! We'll see.

I hope you all had good weeks!