Weekly Wrap-Up: And We're Off!

Well, tomorrow we leave for the week to celebrate an "Early Christmas" with family. And I'm STILL deciding whether or not to bring school with us. Just the basics though. Some Language Arts, especially LOTS of books. Our Math texts and Discovery Channel's History of Us videos. And some educational-ish games. Should I or shouldn't I pack a box of school "stuff"? Hmmm...

...Anyway, over the weekend it POURED buckets! DEFINITELY weather to stay inside and read by (or watch the Patriots in snowy Chicago)! J was away at Merit Badge Weekend with the Boy Scouts, "roughing it" in a heated training center with electricity and bunk beds WITH mattresses. (Another troop had the rustic cabins...) Friday night was Girl's Night. C and I stayed up late and watched American Girl: Felicity and American Girl: Samantha (Warner Brothers) movies and made mini-root beer floats. Saturday night was S and Mom Night. We watched Ponyo, and S had a float, but I opted for Hot Cocoa. And C, S and I built train coach cars at Lowe's Build and Grow. (S is SUPER-EXCITED about finishing up his 3 piece train set next Saturday!) And we tackled a few deep-cleaning projects. I'm still wondering who spilled STICKY OJ all over the bottom of the frig...

We had a GREAT week! Here are our accomplishments:

J:

• completed his timeline for World History 1000-1200 AD
• finished Wordly Wise 3000 Level 6 Lesson 12 and started lesson 13
• designed December's issue of Pond Press and typed in 2 articles
• completed 4 lessons of Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra
• finished 7 mini books for Apologia General Science Module 5 and got a 91% on his test and started Module 6, completing 6 mini books
  
• completed 12 activities at The Teacher's Cafe on prepositions and pronouns
• wrote "On a dark and stormy night" creative composition
• read The Time Machine by H. G. Wells and A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
  

C:

• started her Spelling City List 1 words (from misspelled words in her writing) by playing games and learning the words in Sign Language
  
• reviewed plural regular and irregular nouns with her Grammar and Writing Handbook
• played Plural Play on The Teacher's Cafe
  
• completed her Primates Taxonomy chart and chapter 6 in Apologia Zoology II: Land Animals
• finished up Saxon 54 practice sets and supplemental sets through lesson 45 and got a 95% on her test
• read Pocahontas: Girl of Jamestown by Kate Jassem and In their Own Words: Davy Crockett by George Sullivan
• made LOTS of paper 6-sided snowflakes
  

S:

• reviewed -at and -an word families and learned -ap word family and read 2 readers from Hooked on Phonics: Learn to Read (Level 1)
• played Road to Reading phonics games at Literactive
• completed 4 Cars and Trucks Dot-to-Dots and 2 Kumon Mazes (for visual tracking exercises)
• learned place value through 10s, reviewed addition, 5s skip counting and read bar graphs in Horizons Math
• played the calendar game on Star Fall
• listened to Christmas on the Island by Gail Gibbons, A Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and Go Away, Big Grean Monster! by Ed Emberley
  
• drew a Santa and his reindeer, including Rudolph
• played Boggle Jr, using CVC short a word cards and spelling the words with cubes
  

One of our highlights this week was finishing our study of Claude Monet. Thanks to Harmony Art Mom, we filled out some AWESOME notebooking pages using library books about Monet. Check out Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists: Monet by Mike Venezia for a simple, interesting book to read aloud. The kids created their own Impressionist paintings using Tempera paints, paintbrushes and Q-tips. Did you know that the term "Impressionist" comes from Monet's painting titled Impression: Sunset? Check out J, C and S's paintings here!

J also got in some Home Economics. He cooked ricotta and mozzarella cheese and spinach stuffed jumbo shells with Italian sausage chunky vegetable tomato sauce and garlic bread and tossed salad for dinner Wednesday. What could top that? Not only did *I* not have to cook, but I didn't have to clean up either! Score! LOL

On Monday we made gingerbread trees and decorated them with M&Ms, chocolate chips, mini marshmallows and strips of strawberry Twizzlers, and played lots of Skip-bo. On Tuesday the kids cleaned out the van in preparation for our trip. C had basketball practice and J had Boy Scouts. On Wednesday we spent the day with Grandparents, decorating 120 Christmas sugar cookies and creating a gingerbread house. We played Apples to Apples, Boggle Jr, Rummikub, and pool. On Thursday B came over to play in the afternoon. And today J had basketball practice. A quiet week!

Now, off to pack up for our trip. And I think I'll skip school for this trip! Vacation!

Check out more Weekly Wrap-ups at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!