Weekly Wrap-Up: The One with the New High School Stuff
* This post may contain affiliate links or sponsored content. *
It’s hard to believe that we’ve now successfully completed our third week of school. Dare I say how smoothly everything is going? I’m a little afraid to, but I will say it. Things have really been going well. We’re enjoying our curriculum and, bickering amongst my younger two aside, things have fallen into place quite nicely.
I need to update my curriculum page to show what we chose for Brianna at the curriculum fair. She started using it all this week and has really been enjoying it. She’s had a strong interest in WWII for several years and her world history courses have not gone into enough depth to suit her. So, for history, we got the two “Uncle Eric” book, World War I and World War II and the study guides to go with them.
Peanut, one of our four-legged, furry students
She’s going to be reading other factual books about the two wars, along with biographies about related people (Woodrow and Edith Wilson to begin with) and historical fiction books. We’ll be tying in literature and writing, as well, with books like All Quiet on the Western Front and essays and reports about what she’s reading.
For science, we’re using Real Kids 4 Science Chemistry Level II. The book was created for advanced eighth graders, but came highly recommended by a vendor at our local curriculum fair, who was not selling it herself, for a kid who needs high school chemistry, but would struggle with a traditional chemistry course.
The company is supposed to be revising the book, adding 10-12 more chapters to make it more complete high school chemistry course, but without adding all the math that would make the course challenging for the high school students who are using it so effectively now.
Funny thing, Brianna requested to go back to our version of workboxes. She said having all her work in folders in a crate with a checklist to mark off as she completes each assignment makes it easier for her to stay focused. Works for me.
In other news, I think long division has finally clicked for Megan! If you’ve read my last couple of wrap-up posts, you know how happy this makes me. She said a couple of times this week, “I’m actually getting pretty good at this” and she is! Yay, Megan!
We had Josh’s third online dyslexia therapy session. That is going so well. He’s doing well and he actually enjoys the games. He said so himself. He said that they’re fun because “they actually make it feel like a game.”
His Lexercise therapist, Tori, has been wonderful to work with. She talks with me after every therapy session and emails me in between times to coordinate so that what she’s doing with Josh and what we’re working on at home complements as much as possible to provide maximum reinforcement. I couldn’t be more pleased with how well it’s all going.
We did a cool science experiment yesterday. If you are a fan of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers on Facebook, you may have seen my status update yesterday in which I admitted to cleaning my bathroom just so I wouldn’t inadvertently publish pictures of it in its natural state on my blog. {ahem}
The kids have been learning about weather this unit. This week, they’re learning about the formation of thunderstorms. They were supposed to drop water onto a cloud (a.k.a. “cotton ball”), one drop at a time to demonstrate how much water vapor a cloud can hold.
Their mostly highly inaccurate count was close to 200 drops. I didn’t hold them accountable too much for accuracy since we were all starting to get really tired of counting water drops and the point was to realize that clouds really can hold a lot of moisture before it rains.
We’ve also really been enjoying the art class lessons. They’re short, simple lessons that fit well into our busy homeschool day. I’ll be doing a full review in a couple of weeks, so be watching for more.
This week I’m going to try something different with the wrap-up and use thumbnails for the link-up. That means you’ll be able to post your blog button or a photo along with your link. You’ll have to let me know how you like it.
Now, I’m off to get my oldest to work and get ready for the weekend. Have a great one!
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.
**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.
This post contains affiliate links.
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.
I really like Brianna’s version of workboxes with the file folders. Smart! And I also like adding our photos to our link up. Thanks Kris!
Thanks, Tricia. I like the thumbnails, too. It’s more visually appealing to me.
Kris – welcome to the TTD team 🙂 I like the thumbnail linky- I’ll add my weekly wrap-up post to your linky each week – look forward to getting to know ya better. God bless
We are learning about the weather, too…great year to learn about it with the crazy summer weather here, in GA! I like the linky with the picture….to me, it just gives more appeal to a link…. I’m looking for a fun way to integrate art this year….. How am I doing – first week back of FULL school….it’s a little bit of a challenge since I’m spending most of my time with my little guy….trying to transition older children to more independent work – good week, we have some work to do, though…
Thanks, Rebecca. Something about the thumbnails makes me want to click-thru more on other link-ups, so I wanted to add it to the Wrap-Up in case it made other people want to click through more, too.
I always love reading your curriculum choices. I am considering the Real Science 4 Kids for my 9th grade son, but am not sure what to do about when they will release the new section to make it worth a full credit. They won’t commit to a release date and I’m a little confused on how/what they are releasing next…a whole new book or just the new chapters, but it looks so worth it. Did Brianna take biology before this…just curious, I know they stress that chemistry should be the first science studied, but most do biology first and I’m not sure he will be ready.
I can’t wait to check out your file system…thanks for sharing!
She did do biology first. I’ve never heard that chemistry should be first. I’ve always thought it was biology in 10th grade, chemistry in 11th.
It’s that company that recommends doing it in that order. We did some of their first level books and we started with chemistry. Their theory is that you start with what everything is made of, from the smallest atoms and molecules, and build up from there, don’t know that I worded that exactly right, but that’s the main idea. I am sure it explains it on their website…now I just need to decide what to do!