Week in Review

I can’t believe it is already March! We have recently finished up our 3rd quarter and we are counting down the days until we are finished for the year. I know we are all looking forward to having a break.

The weather has been so beautiful here and our daffodils have already bloomed. I love daffodils because that means spring is definitely on the way!

My kids have been enjoying playing outside and getting fresh air. My boys play soccer and basketball in the yard and my girls enjoy riding their bikes around the yard.



I have started using a new review product from Memoria Press with my 1st grade daughter this week. We are going through Traditional Spelling I and she is having fun with it. She looks forward to doing spelling work every day. The other spelling program I was using was not an every day type spelling program. I love that this program has something for the child to work on every day to reinforce the words. I feel like she is already learning much better with this program. Full review coming in April.

My 7th grade daughter has been enjoying reading through Little House in the Big Woods and I am hoping to be able to review a Laura Ingalls Wilder biography so she can learn more about the author.

And to end this post ~ Today is a special day! My youngest daughter turns 7 today so  everyone gets a day off from school!
She has chosen to go to Cook Out (a fast food restaurant here in NC) for lunch and we may go by the nature center also. She wanted to play at the park, but it is very windy and chilly here today, so we will have to go another day.

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Weekly Homeschool Highlights

We were still on winter vacation this week. We have enjoyed having a two week break while getting ready to start back to doing school work.

We have been quite lazy this week as it has been so sold here in North Carolina. And…we actually got about 5 inches of snow this past Wednesday/Thursday! My kids were so excited. It’s been a couple of years since we have had this much (or more) snow. My littlest one is always praying that it will snow on her birthday (March 2) every year. I told her this snow was an early birthday present.



The picture below is our road. It’s a state highway, so they try to keep it clear if they can. They worked on it all day yesterday and had it mostly clear by night time. It was all the way clear today and cars were going the normal speed (55 mph).



The picture below is of a secondary road right down from our house. As you can see, they leave these roads until the main roads are cleared, then work on them to get them cleared.



With this cold snap, I’ve been making soups. I made our usual chicken noodle, but last night tried a new to us recipe of potato soup. I had never made it before, so I used this recipe as a guide.

I made a few changes to the recipe as follows:

Potato Soup (Click to print)

Ingredients

• 6 cups peeled and diced Russet potatoes (about 5 medium potatoes. Dice into small cubes about 3/4-inch)
• 1 1/2 cups chopped yellow onion (1 medium)
• 1 1/4 cups peeled and diced carrots (3 medium)
• 1 cup diced celery (2 stalks)
• 2 (14.5 oz) cans low sodium chicken broth  I used turkey broth from the freezer and it was about 5-6 cups.
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup butter
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 cups milk I used 1 cup heavy cream and 1 1/2 cups milk.
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• For serving:
• Crumbled bacon or chopped cooked ham , shredded cheddar cheese, chopped green onions or chives.

Instructions

1. Combine diced potatoes, carrots, celery and onions with chicken broth in a large stockpot. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Cover pot and bring to a boil over medium-high heat (it will take about 10 minutes to reach a boil), once it reaches a boil reduce heat to medium and continue to cook about 15 - 20 minutes longer until potatoes are very soft when pierced with a fork.
2. Meanwhile, in a medium saucepan melt butter over medium heat, add flour and cook for 1 minute while whisking constantly. While whisking, slowly add milk and cook, stirring constantly until mixture begins lightly bubble and thicken. Season with salt and pepper to taste. (Note: I took about half of the potato, celery, carrot, and onion mixture and blended it in a blender until it was smooth. I then added the other half of the mixture to the milk mixture and added the blended mixture to that. It made the soup extra creamy)  Once potatoes are soft add thickened milk mixture to potato soup mixture and stir (potatoes should start breaking down into soup, if not cook a few minutes longer). Add sour cream and mix well. Ladle soup into serving bowls, top each serving with bacon or ham, cheddar cheese and green onions.

Ending this post with a flop or it could be a funny:

I bought an 18-month calendar from the Target dollar spot this past summer. When I changed it over to December, I kept looking at it and thought something was off, but could never figure it out. I finally did notice the misprint and had to take a picture.



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Weekly Highlights

This week we wrapped up our first semester of school. My boys, 9th and 10th grades, did great on their exams and have averages of 95 or higher in all of their subjects.

My oldest son is taking Apologia’s Advanced Biology and this week was the first dissection lab for the course. He had to dissect a cow eye. My younger son who is taking biology helped my older son. They both learned so much and had a good time. They were confused with the directions that Apologia provided, but I was able to find better directions with pictures from the Home Science Tools website where I ordered the lab kit.

In the next few modules, he will also dissect a sheep heart and a fetal pig.

We are still going to do school work until next Friday before taking a two week break.

My girls are doing great with all of their school work and are looking forward to taking some time off. We will probably take a couple of field trips during our break. We have a year membership to the aquarium and we love going there every couple of months.

A new playground opened up near where we live and my youngest daughter wants to check it out.

Not much is happening around here right now, just working our way to having a break. Have a great week before Christmas!

Check out these posts on my blog:

• Magic Stix Washable Markers
• Angel on Assignment Book Review
• H is for Holiday Cookies
• Christmas Scripture Copywork

I am linking up at:

I is for In Review

I can’t believe in less than 3 weeks that this year will be over and it will be 2018.

Here are my top posts for each month for this year. Click on the pictures to see the post.

January

February

March

April (there was a tie)

May

June

July

August

September

October

November (there was a tie)

December (so far)

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Hopkins Homeschool

Weekly Homeschool Update

This was a short week but I wanted to update where we are in our studies.

It was nice to have a short week this week and to take off a few days to rest.

My boys are getting ready to take their 2nd quarter exams and be finished with semester one by the end of the first week of December. Even though we will finish one semester, we will continue on until December 22 before taking a two week Christmas / winter break.

The girls are doing great with their studies as well and can't wait for a longer break. My 7th grader will finish up her Anne of Green Gables study and start on a new book (Shiloh or Little House in the Big Woods) next week.

Have a great week!

Weekly Highlights ~ 10/6/17

Well, we finished our 1st quarter this week and my boys have A’s in all of their subjects. I don’t grade the girl’s work yet. My 7th grade daughter took a midterm reading test over the book Anne of Green Gables and only missed one question. We are using Memoria Press for that and she likes it.

I had my 1st grader do a candy corn craft this week and she loved it. It is simple and easy. I need to find more crafts/art projects for her because she loves it and it keeps her from being bored.



This is also how the 1st grader wants to do her work (I let her as long as she is getting her work done):



My son’s birthday was back in July and he had told me he didn’t want any presents but he wanted to wait and receive Fifa  18 when it came out for PS4. Well, it came out this week and now he is so excited to have his present. I had to sneak a picture of my two boys playing the game.



Also, this week, I wanted to make cheddar biscuits like Red Lobster but wanted to make them from scratch. I found this recipe and they came out great. We all loved them.



Coming up on the blog next week starts a new blogging through the alphabet. I haven’t really thought much about what topic I want to write about, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something. I was thinking of featuring a different recipe each week, but I’m not sure I can get it done. I’ll have to think some more about it before I commit to it.

Also this month, I decided to participate in the Write 31 project with using the prompts over at the Five Minute Friday blog. You can see my posts by clicking here.

Next week, I'll be having a giveaway for a children's book. I also have two review posts coming up next week.

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Weekly Highlights ~ Last Week of September

Wow, this week seems to have flown by. In fact, this whole month seems to have flown by.

Our homeschool week…My boys finished up their first nine weeks and will be taking their exams next week.  My daughter has been reading Anne of Green Gables and is at the halfway point. My youngest has been getting her work done, but she told me one day that “I’m so bored because it is so easy.” I’m planning to just let her do what she wants each day and if she finishes 1st grade early, we’ll just go ahead and start 2nd grade.

Field Trip…We just, spur of the moment, decided to go down to the beach on Thursday. We wanted to see what kind of shells Hurricane Maria kicked up. We found a few nice ones.



The shell with the ‘s’ on it was found by my 6 year old daughter whose name starts with ‘S.’
Since we also have a yearly family pass to the aquarium, we went also went there yesterday.



And lastly, we visited Fort Macon. We walked around the fort and went to the beach overlook.



We had a fast and fun week.

Don't miss this week's reviews that I posted: The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls and Captain Bayley's Heir.

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Weekly Highlights

We have been busy these past few weeks and I haven't taken the time to write up a weekly post.

Two weeks ago we went on a field trip for my birthday to the aquarium and Fort Fisher in Wilmington NC. We had a great time seeing the animals and learning about how the fort was used during the civil war. I posted pictures on this wordless Wednesday post.

I've been busy with review items and have had two reviews due back to back for the past two weeks and also have two due this upcoming Monday and Tuesday.

You can click below to see the four reviews I posted the past couple of weeks:
Let's Go Geography
Imagine...The Great Flood (book review)
Carole P. Roman (book review)
The Bears on Hemlock Mountain Study Guide

So, now I am working on a few reviews that will post this upcoming week and in a few weeks in October. One is the newest production from Heirloom Audio Productions. The others are two books from The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls book series and Brinkman Adventures (audio drama missionary stories).

We have also been getting school work done these past few weeks and my boys (high school) are almost to the nine weeks exams for their subjects.

We've been busy and I don't know if it is ever going to slow down.

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