Weekly Wrap-Up
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Can you believe it is the last day of August already? Where has this month gone? While it’s still pretty hot here in the South, I am starting to feel little teasers of fall crispness in the air. I don’t like winter, but I am looking forward to fall.
I am doing the happy dance today! I’ve been wanting/needing and saving for a new laptop for a few months. I finally have enough money, so as soon as Brian gets home, we’re headed to Costco to pick it up!
Our first week back to school after a week off went fairly smoothly, especially considering we introduced some new stuff.
WriteShop
The kids are going to be using WriteShop this year. Megan is using WriteShop Junior, Book D, Josh is using WriteShop I and Brianna is using WriteShop II. Yes, Trail Guide to Learning includes basic writing instruction and assignments, but with Josh’s dyslexia, this is an area in which he needs more detailed instruction.
Brianna wasn’t using anything for writing with her new curriculum that we started a few weeks ago, and Megan…well, WriteShop Junior just looked like fun. She enjoys writing and I wanted to nurture that. For both her and Josh, we’ll be incorporating the Trail Guide writing topics into their WriteShop assignments as we get into it and get a bit more comfortable with what we’re doing.
Trail Guide to Learning: Paths of Settlement
Since it was a new six weeks, we also started a new unit in Paths of Settlement. I love when we discover compelling, well-written books that would have gone undiscovered apart from the Trail Guide to Learning series. Janie’s Freedom is one such book. It’s one of those that leaves us disappointed when read-aloud time is over. We want to read just a little more.
In science, we’re learning about climate. One of our assignments this week was to make a graph of the average temperature and precipitation in our area and another graph for a different city. I chose Honolulu, Hawaii, just so I could daydream a bit. The kids kept saying, “Can’t we just go live there.”
I wish.
I discovered my exceptionally lazy cat asleep in my closet the other day…on my shorts!
Homeschool High School
I know I’ve said it before, but I really wish we’d started this World War I/Bluestocking Guide stuff a long time ago. Brianna is really enjoying it and learning so much. It’s exciting to see her really enthusiastic about school for a change.
She also starting Teaching Textbooks Algebra II this week and, believe it or not, is excited about that, too. Well, maybe “excited” is overstating it a bit, but she appreciates the way concepts are explained with Teaching Textbooks. She says it makes a lot more sense to her than some of the other things we’ve used in the past.
Stuff You Need to Know
I’ve got a giveaway going on through Monday for the first DVD in the Art Class series. If you’ve been looking for an easy way to add art instruction into your homeschool day, be sure to enter.
I think I’ve got all the kinks worked out in my blog feed now. If you’re an email subscriber and you’re still getting duplicate emails, please let me know. If you’re an RSS feed subscriber and you haven’t subscribed to the new feed, you can do so by clicking the RSS feed button in the blog header above. And, if you’ve never subscribed, I invite you to do so, either by email or RSS feed.
Oh, this last one is really important. Next Friday, September 7, is National Lazy Mom Day. I plan on milking that one for all it’s worth and I wanted to make you aware, so you can take advantage of being lazy, too. {grin}
How was your week? Be sure to post about it and link up. If this is your first time to join us, be sure to read the Weekly Wrap-Up guidelines. You can also follow the guidelines link to grab the banner code.
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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.
National Lazy Mom day? 🙂 And I’m with you – where did August go?
I LOVE the idea of a national lazy mom day! In England I’m fairly sure we don’t have anything like that. Maybe I could start one up…..
YAY for a new laptop! And that photo of your cat almost makes me kinda want to pet her (or is it him? I can’t remember).
By the way, Linky was being weird so if mine ended up showing up more than once, I apologize!
The cat is a he. See? He’s awfully cute. Our neighbors have made it a point to let us know that they like him…and they don’t like cats. He’s one-of-a-kind.
Your link only showed up once. Good for you. I’d have sent the linky police after you. 😉
I will definitely be taking next Friday off then! (Unless I don’t. You know how it is…)
You don’t want to live in Honolulu…it is a huge big city like all big cities…crowded, traffic, noisy. You would want to live on one of the other islands with quiet palms swaying in the breeze, lots of beach sand all to yourself, and no need to hustle to find a parking spot. Okay, now you have me dreaming of Hawaii. 🙂
So looking forward to sharing my Fridays with you and your link-up. Each one will be a treasure.
Thanks for hosting.
Yes, that! 😉
I had to show your cat to my boys. We have a kitten that looks just like him so I told my boys that’s what our Tony (original I know!) will look like when he’s grown!
Lazy mom day sounds great! We’ll be traveling to a family reunion so I’ll be sure to spend a little extra time in the hotel pool to celebrate. 😉
Thanks for hosting!