Weekly Wrap-Up: Creativity and Stag Beetles

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Homeschool Weekly Wrap-Up

Surprised to see the Wrap-Up posted so early today?  I decided to get it up early since I know nothing exciting that I’ll want to add will be happening today.  No, it’s life skills day here at the old Weird, Unsocialized place.  The day when I hover over my children and make them get  their rooms and the basement Mom-clean.  You know, as opposed to “kid-clean,” which is the polar opposite of Mom-clean.

The benefit to you is an early Weekly Wrap-Up, which I’ve been toying with moving “officially” to Saturday, anyway.  I usually post it late Friday afternoon when we’re finished with school for the day, since we often do things on Friday that I want to include, and leave the linky up until Monday evening.  What do you think?  Do you like Saturdays?  Late Friday (’cause, you know, early Friday just ain’t gonna happen)?  Don’t care?  I like to be democratic and all.

So, let’s see…our week?  Well, Monday was the day when I thought about pulling out a large majority of my hair and banging my head against the wall during reading time.  I don’t know why, some days, Josh and Megan seem to totally lose their minds — or, at least, the brain cells that control the ability to read and/or sound out words — when it’s time for their one-one-one reading time.  Since the rest of the week’s one-on-one time went well and they are reading well when they’re doing grammar and math, I’m thinking that perhaps it’s just a conspiracy to drive me over the edge so that they can go play while I sit, huddled in a corner, with chunks of hair in my hands.

But, maybe I exaggerate.

We wrapped up our solar system unit this week, never having done the hands-on model.  So, there you go.  Everyone who ever reads my blog and things, “Wow!  How do you do it all?” — there’s your proof.  Sometimes I don’t.  I figure that astronomy is a very high interest subject and we’ll come back to it before the kids are grown and gone.

We did make nifty little flash cards.  I printed out forms for each planet from our Christian Kids Explore Earth and Space book.  We included poor Pluto, which gave us three planets for each kid.  They pasted the forms on the lined side of index cards and filled out the information:  planet name, ordinal number from sun, number of moons, etc.  Then, they drew a picture of the planet on the blank side.  It was fun and it really helped them remember, at least, the names of “their” planets.

 

We had an awesome time on our nature walk this week.  We saw a huge variety of mushrooms and a really large rabbit.  We hiked, we sketched, but I’ll post in detail about that next week.

We really enjoyed another art lesson from God and the History of ArtThis week, we tried our hand at the color mixing we practiced last week with the piece “Stag Beetle” by Albrecht Duer.  I thought they turned out really nice.

The original (Okay, not the original, but you know what I mean.):

Our paintings:

 
 
 

How was your week? Be sure to post about it and sign up with MckLinky. If this is your first time to join us, be sure to read the Weekly Wrap-Up guidelines.

**Remember, be sure to link directly to your Weekly Wrap-Up post so that others can find it easily when they visit your blog and be sure to post a link back here so that your readers can find the Wrap-Up and join us..**

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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.

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21 Comments

  1. I read this all earlier, and then forgot to comment . . . It's a toss up for me when you post the linky. Whenever it is, I will swing by and link if I had time to wrap up my week. Early worked well for me this week, but like you, often I have fun stuff planned for Friday that I don't want to leave out. Whatever works for you is fine with me!

    We had some hair pulling moments this week as well. The yellow bus almost seemed tempting. :-O Life goes on. I guess I'm glad they're here driving me nuts, rather than at school driving someone else nuts that doesn't know and love them the way I do. At least that's what I keep telling myself on days like that.
    ~Erin

  2. Glad the beetle was just a painting. I'm all for nature study, but that would be a freaky critter to study up close!

    I like the late Friday option myself. Just my 2 cents. 🙂

  3. I like the idea of Saturday and keeping it open until Monday, lets me get the post done and all of the other links to it done. I'm kind of slow that way.

  4. That video was very interesting. I am afraid I might fall into the category of valueing math and science over art and music. But that definitely made me think about making sure I nurture all the sides of my children, not just the ones I gravitate towards.

    Which I should totally be doing anyway, since no one nurtured my creative side and I was in my thirties before I discovered it…

  5. that video about creativity looks really good. going to watch it later, thanks for posting it.

    love the paintings.

    maybe someday I'll remember this Mr. L and join in. I always forget.

    monica

  6. @ Deb — I agree that I don't think I could value the creative stuff *over* the core subjects, but this is the first year that we've even come close to giving art, music, nature study, etc. more than just a cursory glance and I can really see the value of those things, other than simply how much we enjoy them.

    @ Kristen — You didn't pester me at all. You just asked. Once. One question doesn't equal pestering. Trust me. I have three kids who cross that line on a regular basis. 😉

  7. Ooooh! Very nice stag beetle art! If you want to see the real thing, come on over to our neighborhood. They really are quite harmless, you know.

  8. Thanks, ladies! We really had fun with the stag beetles. And, um, Sue, I think we'll pass. They may be harmless, but they're creepy-looking. 😉

  9. Those stag beetles are fantastic. Funny you should mention Ken Robinson. I just started reading his book, the Element, today. I saw that TED clip a while back and had been debating whether or not to put it on my blog (but I guess now I don't have to because here it is!). The book is pretty much an expanded version of the speech, with many of the same stories and punchlines. Very inspiring stuff and definitely gives me peace of mind that doing lots of art is OK. Heck, it may even be good for you!

  10. I remember those days…and I'm sure I'll have them again soon enough with Bram. Fox used to be able to sound out difficult words but would trip over 'the, and and what' it drove me NUTS!!

    I love your art. And that looks like a pretty steep hill on your nature walk.

  11. I love the video of Sir Ken Robinson. It's been awhile since I've viewed it, maybe I'll watch it later with my hubby. He hasn't seen it.

    The beetle painting were spectacular. We are also using God and the History of Art. The girls just finished lesson 4.

    Thanks for hosting! I love reading your blog.

  12. @ Amida — I reviewed The Element for Around eZine earlier this year. I really enjoyed it, too. Even though Ken Robinson never mentions homeschooling, it definitely gave me some validation about what we do.

  13. I like the Saturday idea, since Fridays are our out and about days, and I don't get around to posting that day. That's a great picture of a stag beetle. Glad it was just a picture though.

  14. I love when you post your paintings. Your family does some incredibly projects!

    Question: Do your kids ever complain and gripe about all having to the do same picture? How do you handle that?

  15. You were early and I was late. LOL

    Thanks for giving me the heads-up on the Grapevine Studies. We got it figured out and started.

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