Weekly Wrap Up Week 3

     In Our Life This Week: things are about to get caught up from all of the side-tracking that was pitched to us. My children are really working hard on their school work this year, even my reluctant son. Both of them finished their week's work, along with the three days work we missed last week. That's a wa hoo! around here. For those of you that might not be familiar with a wa hoo, that is a thumbs up.

     In Our Homeschooling: Both finished their Saxon Algebra 1/2 lessons. My son does 2 lessons a week & my daughter does 3per week.

Matthew at his desk working on Saxon Algebra 1/2.

     We finished up Module 9 in our Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science on An Introduction of Acceleration. We have felt like detectives in this module trying to determine the speed of different things. Then when we would add velocity (speed & direction) it would seem like a crime scene trying to determine who was going what direction & what speed each person was traveling, we've had a time investigating.

Module 9 experiment: Matthew standing on a step ladder & dropping a ball to be timed with a stopwatch so they can determine the distance from the ceiling to the floor.

     For Literature, we are moving right along in Oliver Twist. Maybe I can get a pic or two of a portion of their outlines to show how well they have picked up on an outline.

     Spelling/Vocabulary went well, except for the day my son informed me that he did not know some of the words I had given him. I laughed and said, "I don't want to give you words you already know. I want your mind to grow & feast on some new words." He did his work, but I don't really believe he like Mommy's answer.

     We began a new book this weekfor our Bible study, that I obtained the title from another HS Mom's list of curriculum, of which I am so greatful, thanks.

     We feel like we are going to enjoy this book. This first week has been slow about getting us into the scriptures, but it looks like next weeks lessons are going to have us digging.

     We only did one Shurley English lesson this week, but we also participated in an online English class through Alpha Omega so that gave us two English lessons for our week. It was our first time participating in one of their online lessons and my children really enjoyed it. They are doing a free class every two weeks on Thursdays, every other week until Dec. Today's lesson was for 7th to 12 grade on clauses and phrases. The next lesson is suppose to be on nouns for elementary grades. The teacher talks, gives examples of sentences. goes over the parts with the children, & then gives a sentence or gets your child to type in a sentence with certain requirements that the teacher has given. If a child puts a sentence on there that does not meet the requirements the teacher goes over it in a very nice way without bringing any kind of shame to the child to show everyone what should have been done. The teacher just uses that sentence for teaching. The class lasts 30 minutes. Although it did go over today about 5 or 10 minutes.

     As for our History this week, we chose not to open a book. We wanted to catch up from last week so we left history off so we wouldn't be so pushed.

     Growth Moments: Mommy has had a couple of sad moments this week. My children's entire school years I have worked on getting them to an independent study level. My daughter has obviously reached that point. She has asked for very little help from me this week (sniff, sniff, my baby's growing up, sniff, sniff). I did not realize how I would feel when they did become independent (sniff, sniff, she's only in the 8th grade, doesn't she need me, sniff, sniff). Here's a pic of Ms. Independent working without Mom, not needing Mom, Mom trying to offer help, but not being accepted;

Sarah working independantly.

Sarah sitting on couch and in deep thought over her schoolwork.

     Pre School Years: Here are some pics of my dear sweet little nephew working on his "cool work" as he calls it:

Daniel's "O, C, L." Not bad for his age. He loves to have school on our dry erase board.

Here he is playing & constructing with giant Lego blocks. His Uncle E had to help him build a big garage for his trucks & cars.

Daniel is studing real hard at the piece in his hand. "Hmmmm, what should I do with it?"

Daniel with a well deserved piece of chicken for a good student. Yum, yum!

     He never puts an "S" on any words that he says with "S". We have to drink milk hakes around hear. And one day they even had to have a herry on them. He can now say cherry. Although, the first time he asked for a herry I had to call his Mom and aske her what he wanted on his milk hake.

     I think that about wraps our week all except for the Park Day we will have tomorrow with our homeschool group.

     Linking up with Kris over at the Weekly Wrap Up. Happy Homeschooling Everyone.

Weekly Wrap UP

     In Our Life This Week: We/the children have had a blast. We had cousins over from Friday until Tuesday evening. The cousins were out of Public school Mon. & Tues. & thought it was time to come spend some time with us. A lot of basketball was played, along with jumping on the the trampoline, to just getting out in nature. All of them enjoyed each other's company.

     We also still have the puppy. My nephew is suppose to pick him up tomorrow. I think we might miss the little fellow.

Here are a few pics of the children having a great time:

     I managed to get to my lesson plans on Wednesday. That means two days will be pushed forward because we only schooled three days this week. Well, I say that two days will get pushed forward, actually, my children have done some of the work off of those two days, just not all of it.

     Our Schooling for the Week: Saxon 8/7, three lessons this week, yea. We also pretended like we went shopping at the store (even though it was just in our pantry/freezer) to reinforce what we were learning in our math book, Unit Price, Rate, & Sales Tax. Here's a couple of pics of our pretend shopping trip.

 

     I gave each child a certain amount of money to purchase their items with. My daughter was surprised when she reached the register and was $ 3.67 short of what she needed to pay for her items.
It was rather funny. She just went to the pantry and began to grab, not figuring. I told her that is why you always figure your bill BEFORE you go to the register. She immediately decided the dogs would not eat this week, or at least not dog food, so she returned the dog food back to the shelf so she would have enough of money. Lesson learned, learning to figure Unit Prices, Rates, & Sales Taxes in our math is something I will need in life.

     Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science: We began Module 7, Factors That Affect Earth's Weather. We began the weather experiment & will be doing our observation of the weather for the next four weeks. Also, we watched some weather videos. I'll put a link to the web site in case any of you need a site that has lots of videos to use for school. It has videos for all subjects.

     History: still reading The Summer of 1787, wondering if we may toss it. Had good reviews given to us on this book, but we just can't seem to get into this book. We are about to be on chapter 6 & still just haven't took a liking to it. Usually, by the time we are this far in a book we are captivated or at least interested enough to talk about it & discuss it. But not much talk has been going on about it. We are finishing up If You Were There When They Signed the Constitution by Elizabeth Levy today.
English/Literature: Yea! we did English this week. The children wrote their book reports on Little Men. We have decided that our next Literature selection will be Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes. This is a book that we wanted to read so we decided that we would read it while we are studying the Constitution so we would be along the same time frame.

     Helpful Home School Tip/Resource: the link where we have been watching videos from, http://www.watchknowlearn.org/ There are a few videos that we have clicked on that would request payment, but many, many, many that we have enjoyed are free. Videos for all subjects. Check it out if you like integrating videos in with your schooling. I'm talking a few thousand videos.

What I'm Reading: rereading Things We Wish We'd Known by Diana Waring.

     My Most Favorite Thing This Week: watching my children battle out a debate in our Science over when the northern hemisphere is at its Aphelion point or Perihelion point. This was my favorite thing because remember my daughter has not been a Science fan until this year. After the debate, I would say she's on the Science wagon now. Even though one of them was wrong, I am proud of both of them because of the way they both were trying to prove their points.

     I think this about wraps up our week. I'm linking up with the HMJ & the Weekly Wrap UP..
If you'd like to read about some more great weeks, drop over to one of them & visit some more great blogs.

Rainy Days Will Allow Accomplishments To Happen

Rain, rain, rain, that is all we've seen today, other than the walls in our home because that is right where we've been. The weather has been too nasty to get out. Locked inside a home with 4 children, ages 2 to 12, you can imagine how the day has been. Actually, not that bad, just a bit noisy from time to time.
I have managed to get some lesson plans lined up beings I had to sit still for a change. That's a plus for the rain, & my lesson book. I can definitely tell that we will not be finishing our Saxon 8/7 Math or our Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science by May. That doesn't bother me about the math beings my daughter will only be in the 8th grade next year. We can finish it up at the beginning half of next year & then pick up with Algebra before she enters her high school years. I would have rather finished the Physical Science so we could start a different branch of Science at the beginning of next year. We've not ever started a new Science program in the middle of the year. But, beings we like to add extra library books along side our Modules there is just no way to finish a complete book in one eyar.
So how have all of you been doing this weekend? Are you going to finish all of your curriculum by the end of this school term?

Weekly Wrap Up

    In My Life This Week: We've had the norm of a week, not anything spectacular. School work was done, house was cleaned, cooked, & took care of pets.
    We did have one extra pet this week. My nephew had a sick puppy that he brought over for us to take care of while he was at school & work. All of the dog training & puppy taking care of skills that we studied a while back were put in to action. This little guy was a sick pup when he was brought to us. He's doing great now. Here's a pic of the little fellow.

    I did have one accomplishment this week. I finished an afghan this week.

    I should have already finished it, but I just haven't worked on it. I enjoy crocheting. That is my pass time while I am sitting with the children while they work on some of their school work. I crochet while they are working a math problem, answer a question in their Science, etc. I'm not just sitting idle.
House Work/De Clutter: Normal house work, laundry, dishes, bathroom, made beds, floors, & then did some dusting and cleaned my entire desk. My desk was much in the need for some attention. It looks great now.
    Home Schooling For the Week: We finished Module 6 in our Apologia: Exploring Creation With Physical Science on the Lithosphere. I really wanted to study a little more on the earth's magnetic field, but haven't found any books yet to take it in to a deeper study. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
    There are a couple of experiments we have skipped in the past 2 Modules. I think we are going to take an experiment day & just do all of them.
    Saxon 8/7 has been a breeze this week. There were several lessons on division & decimals so we were able to just move right through them. My children love working with decimals. So math was not a subject I had to beg & plead with this week.
    Our great Literature read comes to an end. We finished up Little Men this week. My children have enjoyed this book so much. I suppose it was due to the character Jo, they felt like they knew her already from Little Women. They did find some favorite characters in this book also. That's one of the great privileges of reading great Literature, you feel like you know the characters by the time you reach the end of the book. In some way you just feel connected to them in the end.
    Still no English. Oh, I've got to get with the program.
    For our History this week we have been reading a library book titled If You Were there When They Signed The Constitution by Elizabeth Levy. We have also been reading another library book titled The Summer of 1787, which we will be reading for the next few weeks.
    In reading these books we've been learning why the Articles of Confederation would not work for a permanent government, causing the Constitution to be written. We also learned that people think that Shay's Rebellion had something to do with the writing of the constitution.
    Shay's Rebellion was new to my children. We have not studied this in the past.
Here's a few links to some videos we watched this week on the Articles of Confederation & the Constitution;
     The Background of United States Constitution
     The Articles of Confederation
      Benjamin Franklin Biography
     John Hanson Our First President
     The Articles of Confederation 1781

    What I'm Cooking: We are trying a recipe from another home school mom that we ran across this week, Taco Chicken. I'll let you all know how we like it. Probably will be a big hit with my family. My bunch loves some Mexican foods, also Italian.
    Helpful Hint for the Week: REMEMBER, we don't have to finish the entire book in one year & we can pick & choose what we want our students to learn. We are the teacher. The Curriculum should never be the driver. So, beings we are the driver, we can choose the speed we travel.
    Goals for Next Week: Hope to get my kitchen cabinets pulled out & shop-vac. I like to do this to keep my cabinets organized.
    Pic/Video: Just a quick pic of one of my Valentine cards I received. I think it is so pretty. My hubby knows I like butterflies so this card was perfect.

    I suppose this will about wrap us up for the week. To read about more great weeks drop over to the HMJ & Weekly Wrap Up to read some other great blogs.