Weekly Wrap-up ~ Last Week

Yes, we had a full week of school last week. I just could never get myself to sit down to write about it. This will be short and sweet, to get things documented.

We took off week before last for Thanksgiving, and had a perfect week of family and good food.

Getting back into school is always difficult after a break, but we managed to do alright. We learned about landforms, and the kids really got into their project. From various videos they learned about mountains, lakes, ponds, canyons, valleys, islands, volcanoes, plateaus, deserts, and plains. Then they got to work with salt dough and paint.

In our WWII enrichment class the kids started on a no-sew blanket to donate to an active-duty soldier. While some worked, others read out loud from our book The Victory Garden.

We did lots of reading: Our Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George and The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis (both read alouds); A goosebumps book (Eli); and, The Darkest Hour by Erin Hunter (Brynne).

Eli learned about kinetic and potential energy and made a roller coaster demonstrating it on Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 while Brynne learned about the inventions of appliances in her Minecraft class.

We started multiplying fractions in math, did spelling and grammar lessons, and watched CNN Student News.

We finished out our week with our first Advent lesson on Hope. We made our Advent candle display, revisited the legend of the candy cane, and then made peppermint bark.

Other activities for the week included getting our Christmas decorations up (which were kept VERY simple this year). Brynne also had her first basketball game of the season. It's going to be a fantastic year in basketball with a great new coach! The kids are also actively bowling each Saturday now in their league.

Dawson and I went to Oklahoma on Saturday and Sunday so I could go to Rick's company Christmas dinner with him and Dawson could spend some time with his best buds.

I drive, he sleeps.

Rick and I really enjoyed ourselves on Saturday evening. We enjoyed a nice dinner and drinks at Polo Grill on Utica Square in Tulsa. In the dirty Santa game, Rick walked away with a Kindle Fire and an Amazon gift card.

Then we came home to catch up with his family. His brother Rob and sister-in-law Becky are off their yacht (Rob is a retired Air Force Chief Master Sergeant, and he and Becky purchased a large sailboat and sailed around Mexico last year). They are taking some time back on land while their son, Robbie, completes Air Force basic training. Then they are getting back onboard and sailing around South America. They are going to actually go through the Panama Canal. How cool is that?? I wish we could go do it with them. What a school lesson!! As always, it was a great time with Rick's family. There are just no better people than Rick's sister Julie and her husband Milton.

We will be plugging away this week and a few days next week to get in our goal of 500 hours before Christmas break. Then we will be taking a good month off to enjoy the holiday season. We are so excited for our break!!

2015-2016 Hours Logged - 366 3/4 hours out of 1,000 required hours (94.5 hours outside home)
Plus 167 Summer Hours