Weekly Wrap-Up: The one with the highlighters and a cool announcement

Happy Friday, y’all! I hope you’ve had a great week. We enjoyed a very seasonable day Monday, and Wednesday wasn’t too bad, but we’re back to winter now. I’m ready for spring!

You know, I’m not quite sure what to write in my Weekly Wrap-Up now that my kids are doing workbooks and working completely independently. I have actually started to discover that extra time that I thought I was going to have now that we’re starting to get on a routine. I’m finding a rhythm to my days and discovering the times that I work best.

One thing I really enjoy is that Josh likes to do his bookwork at the table. That means that are frequently times that we’re sitting at the table, quietly working side-by-side (like now, as I’m writing this blog post).

Because who wouldn’t want to take a mid-day nap in the closet? Makes perfect sense.

Megan likes to go to her room and work. She’s a kid who works better with music, so she’ll put her headphones on and work away.

Both of the kids are getting better at pacing themselves and getting all the work done – usually. I think it’s cool to see them pick up on little things on their own. For example, in spelling, Megan is supposed to write definition for all her spelling words on Monday. Then, on Tuesday, she’s supposed to look them up to see what part of speech they are, write that down, and use each word correctly in a sentence.

It didn’t take her long to decide that looking up the words twice is a waste of time. Now, she looks them up on Monday, writes the definition, and jots down the part of speech on Tuesday’s page. Then, she can just go back on Tuesday and write the sentences.

She’s also discovered techniques that help her study the spelling words more effectively. Both kids have also started reading the questions on the written work before reading the text, a suggestion from the Victus Study Skills System, and both have become big fans of highlighters.

Josh’s history tends to have a lot of reading on the first day, so he likes to break that up into two days. However, he’s discovered that the workbook questions tend to follow the order of the chapter, so he’ll answer the first few questions after doing the first half of the reading, so he doesn’t forget.

Those are simple little things, but it’s kind of fun to watch the kids figuring out what study and work skills work best for them.

I have some exciting news that I think I’m free to share now. If not, um, oops! I have accepted the position of Homeschool Expert for About.com! I’ll be writing for the homeschooling channel there a couple of times a week. I’ll let you know once everything is up and running so you can come see me over there, too.

Do any of you have anything exciting planned for Valentine’s Day? We don’t. We’re not particularly exciting people. I’ll probably do one of these ideas for my kiddos. I thought I’d get some steaks to make for dinner Saturday night. I’d much rather enjoy a steak at home than fight the crowds at a restaurant on any Saturday night, but particularly on Valentine’s Day.

On a completely unrelated note, Megan got some Beats headphones for Christmas. They apparently have a short in the wires between the headphones because the sound was going out really bad when she’d move. I think they’d been doing it for awhile, but she was afraid to tell us because we thought she’d be mad that she’d messed up these expensive headphones.

I knew she didn’t do anything to mess them up, though, because she takes really good care of them. When I finally found out and checked, we’d missed the return deadline by less than a week. I was so afraid we were out of luck. Can I just say how much I love Amazon? I emailed them and they responded almost immediately.

They didn’t give us a hard time at all and she got the replacement headphones on Monday. Amazon is awesome!

Speaking of Megan, her first gymnastics meet is next weekend! I can’t believe it’s here already. Neither can she. She’s nervous, of course, but I think she’s going to do great. Her strong suit is vault. Her coaches have been giving her 9’s and up in their evaluations. I can’t wait to see how she does!

It’s time for me to quit rambling and wish you all a wonderful weekend. Stay warm and enjoy your family!

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