Weekly Wrap-up: Elephants and The Plague

Usually this is the spot where I write how fast the week went by but this week was quite the opposite.  This week just wouldn't end.  All of us seemed to be counting the minutes as they ticked by and I am pretty sure I saw Little M marking the days with tally marks on the white board.  There are a few reasons why this week was so torturous for everyone.  Here's why:

It all started last Saturday on our way to the shore.  The kids and I decided to go to the campground where we have our seasonal trailer.  My parents stay the whole summer there and the kids really wanted to go swimming.  So we packed up the van and headed out shortly before lunchtime.  The traffic was fairly light for a holiday weekend and we were making great time.  Until the driver in the car in front of us decided to start driving on the shoulder of the road and then pull out right in front of us causing a collision that sent us off the roadway and into to woods.  Thankfully no one was injured but I had the children transported to the Emergency Room to be sure. 

Our van was totaled and we have been without it all week.  My husband was kind enough to lend me his car to take Baby C to his well visit at the pediatrician and to take Ms. Q to girl scouts this week but otherwise we were unable to leave the house during the day. 

There has also been alot of construction this week.  We are getting the kids' playroom refinished and finally getting the deck that we have been talking about for years.  So in addition to being stuck home all day, the kids were not able to play outside or in their playroom due to construction equipment and supplies.  We are all going a little crazy!

Playroom Before

Playset Before

Deck in progress

We did manage to get some school work done though.  Little M learned about the letter E and elephants.  We used The Story of Babar for our spine book and read lots of other books about elephants.  He learned what sounds the letter E make and words that start with E.  We also talked about the things that are alike between people and elephants and other mammals.

In history Ms. Q learned about "The Black Death."  She really didn't understand the devastation to the population (the number was too great I think) but she stated she was glad that serfs didn't have to work for lords anymore.  The next day she told me she was suffering from what she thought was a cold but told me she would watch out for anything growing in her armpit.  A few minutes later she came out of her bedroom with a baseball hidden in her shirt near the armpit and told me it was definitely the plague.  Then she started chasing Little M around the house telling him to watch out or he would catch the plague.  I think it's really funny how so many of our topics in history end up being topics for play.

In science Ms. Q learned all about magnets.  Here she is learning about the north and south poles of a magnet as well as how pole attract or repel.

We did not get to our homeschool group playgroup this week but we are keeping our fingers crossed that we can make it strawberry picking with them on Monday.  We all seem to have caught a cold now.  Not sure how that's possible given we've been inside the house with only each other for most of the week.  But I guess it's just one of those weeks.