Weekly Wrap-Up: It's Been a Good Week!

Homeschool:  We were able to follow what we hope will be our daily school routine this week, with a few exceptions.  Of course Monday was a holiday, and also the day we moved Harrison into his apartment, so it wasn't a school day for us.  I did briefly entertain the hope that the boys would decide on their own to do a bit of schoolwork.... briefly, and fruitlessly.  But that's okay.  Tuesday morning we started off by reviewing The Rules and discussing how our daily schedule would work best.  The Rules were finalized and printed, and ready to be signed into family law on Thursday morning.  Spencer is off and running with his course load for the year (English 10, Algebra I, Biology, World History, Issues in World History{Bible}, and World Lit) and we considered some options for an elective credit for this year.  He's settled on a Tech credit - the course will be Practical Drafting.  (using Practical Drafting - Applied Engineering Graphics Workbook from Insight Technical Education)



(In case you thought you might see a picture of Spencer on this blog - yeah, don't count on it.  Might have to be satisfied with pictures of his books)  Anyway, he'll start work on this course a little later on this year - probably at the beginning of second quarter, unless he wants to start earlier.

Landon and Kennady started Science this week.  We are starting off with Properties of Atoms and Molecules and introduced this chemistry course with that perennial favorite chemical reaction - vinegar and baking soda.



We are using two main books for Social Studies this year - Around the World in 180 Days, and Geography Through Art.  This week we discussed a few world geography facts (highest mountain, lowest elevation, largest countries, etc) and did an art project focusing on positive/negative space.  I was pleased with how these chalk on construction paper "big blue marble" pictures turned out, although we had a little trouble with chalk smudges!







Yesterday we talked about cartography and started creating our own "antique" maps.  After coloring and labeling these world maps, we tore the edges, creased and crumpled the papers, and then soaked them in tea.  After the crumpled tea-soaked maps dried, we flattened them out again and this morning brushed them with a little vegetable oil and put them in a warm oven to dry them again.  The finished works will go up in our stairwell gallery on Monday.









Gym class starts today! And this evening is the homeschool group's Back-to-School picnic!

In Other News:  As I mentioned, Harrison is now moved into his apartment.  His first week of broadcasting school was quite successful, and he is enjoying it.  He had his first chance on the school's FM station yesterday and I was able to listen online - he did very well, and I'm told his instructor thought so too. :-)  Here he is in his room, trying to figure out how to rearrange the furniture -



We were finally able to connect with Kennady's softball coach - from the spring! - so that we could get her pictures and trophy!



We cleared out a whole bunch of stuff from the basement in preparation for finally getting rid of an old deep freeze that we 'inherited' when we bought this house nine years ago.  If all goes according to plan, someone will be picking that up today.  Some of what we moved out of the way was the old homeschool archives (don't let the fancy term fool you though - it's several boxes, some of them falling apart, of schoolbooks that I should have sorted years ago), so I'm in the process of sorting those and hopefully reducing the whole stack to just one box or so and giving/tossing the rest away.

Youth and children's programs started at church this week and we are looking forward to a great year!

On the Bookshelf:

• Gold Fever - A Klondike Mystery by Vicki Delaney


• The Skin Map by Stephen R Lawhead


• The Warrior by Francine Rivers

Finished The Red Queen and The Mysterious Benedict Society.  I blogged a little about each of them on Kym's Bookcase