Weekly Wrap-Up

Finally, I am posting another one of these.  I drifted out of the habit, which I regret, but there’s nothing like the start of a new year to spur me on!  This is a recap of our homeschool week.  To read other families’ wrap-ups, check out Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Our morning devotions and prayer time are still going really well thanks to our handy book, “30 Very Veggie Devos About Honesty”.  I know that a Veggie Tales devotional is below the age level for my kids, but it’s very adaptable to their level and works really well.  We’ve never done any type of family devotions before and this is a great way to start.  We are getting close to being finished the book though.  Does anyone have any suggestions for a good devotional to do next?

We did this simple science experiment Colour Changing Crystals.

The kids continued their memory work with quotes, scripture, and the poem we have been working on forever, “The Tyger” (hope to finish that up soon – I perhaps should have chosen a shorter poem, especially for my kids who have only been speaking English for a year!)

The big thing this week was learning to tell time.  Three of the kids got watches for Christmas and are eager to learn.  The “time” to learn is when your kids are excited and want to learn, so this was the perfect opportunity.  We started by practising counting by 5’s.  I have found that the best way to really instil this in your kids in a way they will remember is to combine it with a physical activity.  This helps to train their brains.  What I have them do for this is to stand up and jump from side to side as we count by 5’s.  This also is great for perking them up in the mornings!!!  So we started each of our telling time sessions by this jumping and counting by 5’s several times and then we used little practise clocks I have where they can move the hands on the clocks and play around.  I had printer worksheets for them.  (I guess I should mention that “them” is my three eight-turning-nine year olds.)  Josiah got the concept quickly and was ready to move past the hour and half hour learning that we started with, but Gracelyn and Elijah are still needing more practise.  We worked on telling time each homeschool day this week (every day but Wednesday) and I think by next week, we will be able to move on to quarter past and quarter to.

We progressed quite a bit through Story of The World this week, getting through The Assyrians, The First Cities of India, and The Mystery of Mohenjo-Daro.  This made for a few really good discussions and the kids completed all the corresponding maps and coloring sheets.

From a great grandma in Saskatchewan the kids received some Christmas money, so I had each of them make her a painting, picture, card, or written letter as a thank you, depending on their age and we mailed them off.

Jonah, (age 13) did a book report, some new Spelling worksheets, devotions, Daily Grams, a study of African slave trading, and began a story written as though he were on a slave trading ship heading for America.  In my de-cluttering of the office, I also managed to find a novel study that he had started and not finished, so he took up where he left off in that.  He also did his usual reading of several novels and spent an afternoon at Galaxyland with some friends and went to a youth group event.

Next week, the kids’ activities start up and Tuesdays and Wednesdays will be jam packed for the next while with drama classes, art classes, cross country ski lessons, and swimming lessons.  That’s about it for this week…hope you all had a good week too!