It’s rather difficult to wrap up a week of homeschool that did not feel as if it was filled with enough…school!

There are times that I fall into despair about homeschooling.  It happens to most of us, and I know it will pass.  But homeschooling while having health issues is a whole different journey.

We began our school week at my parent’s house out in the country.  It was truly delightful to be out in East Texas where the pollen turned my black car green, the dogwood tree blossoms were past their peak, my dad’s roses bloomed on the trellis, and we got to explore a beautiful park with my family.  A nature trail wound back in on itself through the piney woods.  We stepped carefully to avoid poison ivy.  My photogenic niece and nephew posed for pictures every so often, but I couldn’t get my daughter to stand still long enough to snap one of her!  Trust me: she was there.

The park contained a couple of historical buildings.  Most impressive was a huge tree:

The trunk was so large that four of us were able to circle only half of it:

I couldn’t leave the park without getting a shot of some of the flowers planted in and around the grounds:

If you look closely, you’ll see the cottonwood seed pod on top of the flowers.  These pods littered my car, leaving worm-like squiggles everywhere.

In addition to traipsing around the park, we continued our memory master challenge.  I’m happy to report that my daughter remembered 765 out of 766 facts!  She will do her second and third “proofs” this next week.

We still endure the battle of the minds when it comes to math.  Currently we are using Saxon 7/6.  I like Saxon because it continually reviews previously learned content…but my daughter hates math with a passion. We left Saxon earlier this year to try an accelerated curriculum, but I wasn’t happy with the accuracy of the materials and the lack of review…so we switched back.  Next year she will begin pre-Algebra.  I’ve decided I need to go back to school with her in this regard and do the lessons for myself.  Otherwise I will never be able to keep up!  If only she could learn to appreciate the beauty and precision of mathematics….well, I didn’t, either, when I was in sixth grade.  I cried over math nearly every day.  So I feel her angst!

But homeschooling means I should have some sort of options for making math more enjoyable, right?  So far it hasn’t meant that, but it has taught her that there are some things in life we have to buckle down and do regardless of how we feel about them.  Like laundry. 🙂

In science this week at CC, she worked with a partner to design and create an “egg protector.”  She’s not thrilled with the design but has next week’s class to improve it…

I wasn’t with her at CC to observe her public speaking, geography lesson, science experiment, orchestra and classical music instruction, etc. because I stayed in bed all day due to pain.  My fantastic friends took her to and from class for me so I could rest.  There was no way I could have driven safely.

And so, we meandered through the week with school, taking it easy when my pain made it difficult for me and continuing the routine as closely as possible.  But I don’t want to write any more tonight about the pain.  It’s depressing.  I’d rather go read awhile and look forward to my dear husband’s return from his 10 day trip to China!  Tomorrow can’t get here soon enough!