Weekly Wrap-up ~ Some Things to Cheer About

To start off our wrap-up this week, I have to first announce that my daughter, Kyndal, made the varsity football cheerleading squad and competitive squad at her new high school! She has cheered off and on since kindergarten. After all these years she can still throw a round off, back handspring, back tuck. She said it about killed her, but she did it. She was one of 18 chosen out of 40 girls. Pretty good for a student new to the school. She's always been a shining star! I didn't have any doubts she would make it. When she wants something, she just goes and gets it. So proud of you, Kyndal! Can't wait to see you in action next year.

We weren't doing back tucks here at home this week, but I am about to flip with excitement that we are getting so close to the end of our school year!

We are counting down the days until we are finished with grammar, writing, copywork, math (have I mentioned, say, a thousand times how much I am loving Math Enhancement Programme for Brynne? Holy smokes. It is an amazing program!! It's most definitely my Favorite Resource this week, and most weeks.) Brynne is 20 books away from independently reading 100 books this school year! Dawson is reading Journey to the Center of the Earth, and enjoying it. He has completed 7 of his 17 book lessons for Driver's Ed. He is very close to completing several of his classes for the year.

We are moving along nicely, enjoying the nice weather at every opportunity. It has been perfect weather to get out and work on our The Secret Garden unit. We have listened to chapters of the book while pounding flowers on watercolor paper with a hammer for art, and while swinging on the swingset. We worked hard carrying heavy rocks to make a border in our "secret" garden, planted some ground cover and ivy, and painted a moss mixture on our clay pot to (hopefully) grow moss.

1. Enjoying some math outside on the back porch.

2. School happens everywhere ... sometimes even on mom's bedroom floor with a best bud.

3. A precursor to next year ... Eli and Brynne sitting side-by-side reading together.

4. Genetics videos we watched this week.

5. The newly added stones around our "secret" garden.

6. Our flower pounding artwork.

7. Although sometimes I think homeschooling might drive me to drinking (jk!!), that's not what was going on here. Brynne and I went to the neighborhood ponds and collected some moss. We combined it with a bottle of beer and two teaspoons of sugar and blended them together. Then we painted the mixture onto a large clay pot in our garden holding our homemade twig trellis and newly planted ivy. We are hoping the whole pot will end up being covered in moss. We also poured some of it on some of the stones in the garden. We'll see what happens!!

Dawson has moved onto learning about the Roaring 20's. Our daily read-a-loud is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He did some notebooking pages on Al Capone, Carry A. Nation, the 18th Amendment, and Prohibition. Dawson is having oral surgery on Monday, so we are going to spend some of his downtime watching Scarface and the Disney production of Journey to the Center of the Earth.

We've wrapped up our Biology studies and are starting dissections next week. Our box 'o frozen dead animals is waiting for us in the freezer. So, this week we just watched some genetics videos to review what we have learned. Dawson did analyze the fungi growth on his bread products before we promptly tossed them. My kitchen counter thanks us ... gross! (Dead animals in the freezer, bags filled with fungus bread on the counter. Yum!)

We ended our week with a mini-curriculum sale at Co-op. I picked up a few things that I hope will be helpful for us next year, especially to daddy on Science Saturdays. I got all of this for only $14!!!

After we got home we ran up to Eli's school for his final public school egg hunt. Brynne helped one of Eli's friends who has a physical handicap. She gave her an extra pair of legs so she would have a chance at the best eggs, too.

And I just have to tell about something so sweet that Eli's school librarian did for him. He LOVES the Arthur series by Marc Brown. He has read every one the library had. She received some funds from a fundraiser and purchased new books. She put all of the Arthur books in the back room of the library so that Eli can get first pick of them. After he reads them, she puts them on the shelf. Isn't that the nicest thing? She has always been so supportive of our homeschooling. She even told me today that Brynne could feel free to check out books on Eli's card anytime she wants to. Last year she even gave me a big stack of Pizza Hut Bookit! coupons to use.

We are having fun. And, we plan to have even more fun in May. Today I ordered a ton of books and videos from the library to start prepping. Only a couple more weeks until then! And then we're almost done for the year! I can't believe it!

Rah, Rah, Rah!!!

Linking up with Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Susan at Learning all the Time, and Mary at Homegrown Learners.