Weekly Wrap-Up: The Nearing the End Edition
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Woo hoo!! It’s Friday!! And, next Friday is our last Friday of school! We have a few more required days after that, but only three or four, not a whole week’s worth. I do plan on want to will very likely do some types of fun learning over the summer, but I’m looking forward to some time when I don’t have anything I have to do. Mark it down, because, in two or three months, you’ll be hearing me say how much I’m looking forward to getting back to a schedule and a routine.
I plan on trying really hard to finish up the Medieval portion of Story of the World before we stop for the year, but I’m not sure we’re going to make it. I tried to skip a few chapters this week, but found that I couldn’t quite do it. They contained some interesting info. I guess, if we don’t finish it, we can finish it over the summer. No law against reading over the summer, I suppose. 😉 Though, I was really hoping to read through a stack of fun books that don’t necessarily fit into any upcoming school subjects. Where the Red Fern Grows is on the top of the list. I have my tissues ready.
We’ve had a lot of fun learning about the weather with Christian Kids Explore Earth and Space. First, we talked about humidity, which the kids understood pretty easily thanks to living in the incredibly humid South. Then, we learned about air composition. That sounded rather dull and hard to understand until I had one of those rare moments of brilliance. CKEES was explaining “composition” as “ingredients.” In a moment of clarity, I decided to discuss the “composition” of Kool-aid. The younger kids realized that the composition of Kool-aid is water, sugar and Kool-aid mix, and they quickly made the connection to air composition. The Kool-aid illustration also made it very easy to discuss the percentages of air composition, as well.
Finally, we learned about the different types of clouds, which I found very interesting. I printed a chart from NASA to give us a visual about each type of cloud. I also had this really cool game bookmarked, but we haven’t had time to play it yet. We did get a lot of IRL experience, though, with all the moisture that moved through our area this week. It was fun identifying the clouds we saw at the ball field last night.
We finished up our week learning about Hawaii as part of our “Fifty State Fridays.” I’ve put off learning about Hawaii for a couple of weeks because I was hoping to do something really elaborate and fun with it since Brianna is so interested in Hawaii. I finally decided that we were just going to have to go forward, though, since I couldn’t really come up with anything especially fun. We are hoping to have a luau dinner this weekend. If we do, I’ll post the recipes.
We did enjoy listening to our Lilo and Stitch music while working on our state notebook pages. And it was pretty cool to learn that one of the eight larger islands, Niihau, is privately owned. I was impressed that Megan was the first to realize that Hawaii was the last state to enter the Union and we all thought it was pretty cool that Hawaii has been a state for less than fifty years. Hawaiians will celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of their statehood on August 21 of this year.
My personal highlight of the week came today with today’s mail. Remember when I had Catherine Levison here for a guest post? Remember that she gave away an autographed copy of one of her book, A Charlotte Mason Education? Well, I half mostly pretty much jokingly told Catherine that I was a little jealous and might have to enter my own contest because I’d love to have an autographed copy of one of her books. Well, let me just tell you, Catherine Levison has to be one of the sweetest people on Earth, because this arrived in my mailbox today:
Not only did she send me two of her books, but she wrote this sweetness inside:
Isn’t she just the sweetest person ever? So, if you don’t have her books, you should buy yourself a copy so that you can get a practical how-to manual for incorporating the Charlotte Mason method in your homeschool and support a really nice lady. (Yes, that was a completely unsolicited plug.)
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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.
Looks like a great next to last week!! I too am looking forward to no schedule, but will be begging for a little structure come the end of summer, LOL!
I LOVE the NASA chart. I added it to my faves.
We have 19 days left. I am so ready to be done. By the end of the summer after hearing “I’m bored” for the millionth time I will be ready to start again. LOL
Gianna has told me she wants to do science over the summer. We shall see. 🙂
That is very cool about the books. What a nice thing to do!
Josh told me, verbatim, what you said on your way out to the mailbox to get that book. 😉 He emphasized how much you love books!
Sounds like everyone is counting down the days! Homeschooling is great, but we do need a break!
Sorry I didn’t get back with you, this is almost the first time I’ve been at the computer for any length of time since Monday.
Congrats on being almost to the finish line!
Maybe you can read your new books over summer break.