Week 9 ~ Report Cards and Camping

On My Mind ~  Being on the market is not nearly as hard as preparing to get on the market!!  We have had eight showings and two families asked questions about placing offers.  We were told that an offer may come in this weekend.  We are praying that it does and that it is a strong offer.  The lenders keep coming up with additional documentation that they require for our loan.  It is incredible how much information they need.  We are busy gathering the latest round of documents.  There was a shock this week about our new home ~ part of the side yard was separated during the previous owner's refinance a few years ago and that piece of land was not included in the foreclosure.  It is not a deal breaker for us, but we want that sliver of land so she does not sell it and we end up with neighbors very close on one side. We are considering how we might go about acquiring that land.  If we are able to get that land, we will have almost three-fourths of an acre.  We visited the house last weekend with the dogs.  Since our old dog is going blind, we tied the two dogs together while they explored the backyard and carport.  Boomer made a good seeing eye dog for Lady.

Family Fun ~  We went on a one night camping trip this week.  One night seems to be about how much we can handle.  With our special needs kids, it is fun to experience the great outdoors; but when the fun starts to end, we wrap it up and go home.  The kids especially enjoyed the fire, climbing trees and eating toasted marshmallows.  We decided to let Tom Sawyer have four marshmallows (despite corn being an ingredient) and he did react to them, but he did not get as sick as he would have a year ago.  He is having more tears and inflexibility than usual and his face is very splotchy.  We decided to go home the next morning when it was only 46 degrees.  The kids thought it was great to eat in the car and watch the wildlife while we broke camp.  I'm just happy the wild life consisted of many chipmunks, squirrels and a possum instead of a bear or coyote!

In Our Homeschool ~ Our last week of each quarter is devoted to a musical, our artist study, and our musician.  We spent the last 9 weeks listening to Wagner and enjoyed the CD one more time this week before returning it to the library.  The kids also enjoyed watching State Fair and learning some of the songs.  This musical went along perfectly with our own state fair experience earlier in the month.  The kids spent the quarter studying many works of art by the great children's book illustrator, N. C. Wyeth. This week they worked on their artist notebooks.  They did five artist studies each and learned about the life and work of N. C. Wyeth.  They also learned about his children and grandchildren who became artists.  Did you know that his children and grandchildren were homeschooled?  I always love finding modern examples of successful homeschoolers such as Andrew Wyeth and Jamie Wyeth.  We also did math, language arts, dance class, chess class, choir and lots of reading.  We are supposed to have a two week break now, but I think we are going to continue on since no one is worn out.  With the move and surgery, we will have to take an extended break later.

End of Quarter Report Cards ~ One of the things that the kids really wanted to continue from last year was report cards.  They were so excited that the day had finally come.  I determine their grades based on several factors.  The math is easy to grade, since it is graded for me on Teaching Textbooks. For the other subjects, I use goals for the kids and how much progress they have made toward those goals.  If they have achieved a goal and I need to write a new one, they get an A.  An example would be if a child needed to be able to remember to put a period at the end of a sentence and a capital at the beginning 100% of the time, as well as complete 50 workbook pages and they accomplished that, then they need a new goal.  A "B" means that they are doing well toward their goal and a "C" means that I may need to rethink why they are not meeting a goal.  I have seen a great deal more effort going into their studies since starting report cards.

Counting Blessings ~ The kids all are pulling together and doing a great job keeping the house super clean and uncluttered.  I am so glad the showings are going well and potential buyers like what they are seeing.  Now we just need a strong offer!  The doors keep "opening" on the other house with ease.  I am so glad that our curriculum is working well for us.  It is one less thing that I need to think about!

Blessings, Dawn