Weekly Wrap-up ~ Experiences

Before I launch into what we did inside our home in the way of schooling this week, let me tell you about the amazing educational experiences outside our home ...

Renaissance Faire

I posted on Monday about our trip to the Renaissance Festival for Dawson's 19th birthday. Eli and Brynne watched a video about the Renaissance Era on Friday to get ready for that "field trip". If you have ever been to the festival then you know what an educational experience it is. Plus the clothes are super cool.

Dr. Ben Carson - A More Perfect Union

The highlight of our week happened on Thursday when we had the opportunity to meet Dr. Ben Carson. I have been a huge supporter of Dr. Carson for a couple of years and thought many times that a man like him should run for president. I am so glad that he is because he, in my opinion, is exactly what our country needs at this time if we have a hope and a prayer of getting us moving back in a positive direction.

Dr. Carson has released a new book called A More Perfect Union, and he is currently on a book signing tour. We had the good fortune of attending his book signing. I made the kids t-shirts to wear with his motto of Heal-Inspire-Revive.

We drove to Springfield, Missouri, about two hours from our house and got in line with over 1,000 people for an opportunity to meet him and receive an autograph in his book. We were well-prepared with our lawn chairs, snacks, books, and electronics to keep us occupied for our 3 1/2 hour wait.

They ushered him in and then raced us through the line, but Eli and Kyndal each grabbed an opportunity to shake his hand. He looked at Eli's t-shirt, smiled at him, shook his hand, and said, "How are you, young man?" Eli was overwhelmed with excitement. Kyndal was able to get in a handshake, as well, and wish Dr. Carson the best of luck in his campaign. Brynne and I got lost in the shuffle, and I felt bad for her that she didn't get to shake his hand, too. I also didn't get any photos. It was rather chaotic. And then we were moved out. But it was so worth the trip! We honestly didn't know if we would even get a chance to see him because of the crowds we had heard were in attendance at the events, so we were thrilled with the contact we did have.

This was an experience that my kids will never forget. Did they meet the next President of the United States? We are hoping so!

The Miracle Worker

We popped up Friday morning and drove two hours the other direction to Kansas City to attend the play The Miracle Worker at the Coterie Theatre. We finished reading the play by William Gibson this week and have really been looking forward to seeing the production.

The play was excellent! We love the Coterie Theatre because it is really small and engaging.

Had to stop and take a photo in front of the KC Royals blue
fountain and banner (in the background). Our Royals are going
back to the World Series!

After the show we stopped and had lunch at Fritz's, one of our favorite restaurants. The food is greasy galore, but it's delivered by a train! So fun!

We're not done with field trips yet! We have one scheduled this afternoon and another one on Thursday. Last year we didn't hardly go anywhere. This year we just can't seem to get enough of the experiences available to us!

At Home

Believe it or not we actually put in a pretty full week of schooling at home, as well. In grammar we have moved onto IEW's Fix-it Grammar, Robin Hood. We completed three lessons. This was our review week in spelling so have been going back over the last five week's of words. Math has gotten a little more complicated with subtracting mixed fractions. With several steps to be taken, I made some extra practice problems each day and we continued to work on that concept. I think we will put in one more week of the same before we move on. In writing the kids prepared outlines for a personal narrative. That went very well. (We are using JacKris Publishing's Soaring with Spelling and Winning with Writing); As I stated above we finished The Miracle Worker, and each day we read passages out of McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader. Of course we watched CNN Student News every day.

The Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe - Further Up and Further In

This week we read six chapters of the book. The topic that we worked on was logic. In the book, the professor wonders if children are even taught logic in school anymore. (That was in the 1940's.) No, most kids are not taught logic in school. I can't say that we have been too good at incorporating it in our schooling, either. So I printed them off some logic puzzles to do. They had some difficulties with it. I want my kids to be forward thinkers ... problem solvers. But their brains need to be trained for that. This is something I think we should try to incorporate more of into their daily clipboard lessons.

WWII

We mostly caught up on some reading this week. The Spine for the WWII study is World War II for Kids by Richard Panchyk. We read about the Battle of Britain, the lend lease, and how to extinguish an incendiary bomb. (We also did a little demonstration. No actual bombs were used in the activity.) Our last activity was to do a photo analysis of family members returning to their bombed neighborhoods. The spirits of the British people could not be crushed.

The Victory Garden

I do not think I could be a public school teacher. I have such a passion for teaching, and my two either humor me often or have a passion for learning because they seem to usually be pretty into whatever we are doing.

It is frustrating for me to prepare a lesson about something I find interesting to be met with blank stares and a bored attitude. This is some of what is happening in our enrichment class we are hosting. We read a couple of chapters of our book (one that I think is very good, by the way), do a couple of fun activities, play some games, and have related snacks. I am not sure what else can be done to engage the kids.

This week we learned about some of the jobs those on the homefront were doing for the war effort: acting as spotters, red cross volunteering, farming, and women working in factories. We played a game I picked up at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans called Squadron Scramble. The boys seemed to enjoy the card game. The girls seemed to want to be doing anything but playing it. I thought it was fun and challenging! Maybe I'm just more lame than I think I am.

We also ate some sweet potato fries from our harvest a couple of weeks ago. Now that got some positive responses!


2015-2016 Hours Logged - 230 hours and 55 minutes out of 1,000 required hours (68 1/2 hours outside home)
Plus 167 Summer Hours

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We are linking up with Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and Mary at Homegrown Learners.