Thursday, January 24, 2013

A Peak at Our Week: Session 3 Week 4 - We're Heading Back Down the Mountain

In My Life This Week
Did you notice? Yeah, it's not a huge change. I created an almost new banner and blog button using PicMonkey. I'm pretty darn excited to be able to do these things. Finally. Now, if only I could figure out how to put that code box under my new button. (And yes, I have followed a tutorial, but apparently not followed it accurately. ::wink::)

Anyway, on Tuesday we hit our halfway point: 87 days down and 86 more days to go! I mostly satisfied with what we've accomplished thus far this year. There are a few areas I wish we were further along in, but we're working on it. So, we're "heading back down the mountain"! To celebrate I announced "Game Day!" We made munchies and settled down to some History and Chess games and then watched an episode of  "Ken Burns: America's National Parks: America's Best Idea".

Homeschool High School
White Pine encountered a very frustrating and annoying issue with his Google SketchUp program: the download the instructor had the kids use was a TRIAL and now it needs to be purchased for use. (And there's NO WAY we are purchasing a $495 program for 3 more hours of this class. ::wink::) But his instructor and the director came though and he was able to get some details added to his hospital.

But he finished up his Around the World in 180 Days for this session. Check! He's moving right along! So, for the rest of this session he'll be concentrating on English, Algebra and Biology, all of which he's made good progress in as well. I see a very light final week of Session 3 for him.

Stripe Was Sitting on White Pine's Math work. It was a Stare Down. I Think the Cat Won! LOL

Accomplishments
The Country of the Pointed Firs, Cather Author Profile and Approach Paper, Exponents, Classification, Google Earth SketchUp, Asia Religion and Culture

Homeschool Elementary
My saplings have both finished their HWT for the year, but I still have to play "What's that word?" Even rewriting doesn't always help! Or maybe they're practicing to be doctors someday?

Putting Together a Puzzle During Reading Together Time

Did I tell you that Sugar Maple is writing a story? She asked to type it up on my Microsoft Word program on the laptop. I have to say I think it's been helpful with her Spelling and Grammar! It highlights mistakes that she must fix. But, her creativity is wonderful and the story is already over 2300 words long!

Our Chemistry video from Netflix arrived and we spent our Science time watching it. But unfortunately it didn't spark the interest that I had hoped it would. They did enjoy this elements You Tube video though. Time for a change?


I'm co-hosting the History and Geography Meme with sweet Phyllis at All Things Beautiful for a few weeks. Want to see what we did this week in SOTW? Click here! And if you have a History or Geography post, new or old, link up! We'd love to read what you're doing.

Our History and Geography Center: Story of the World (Volume 1) Books - Wall Timeline - Mapwork with
Notes - World Map with Post-it Pointers on Areas Studied

Sugar Maple's Accomplishments
The Mark of Athena, Creative Story, Sequential Spelling Days 43-46, Reading Comprehension, Synonyms, XtraMath (Completed Addition), Decimals, Converting Unit Lengths, Fractions, Ancient China (Qin and Calligraphy)

Balsam Fir's Accoimplishments
Flat Stanley, Creative Writing in Wimpy Journal, Money, Handwriting, Word Builder, Flat Sam paper doll, Ancient China (Qin and Calligraphy)

Books, Books, Books
"You're never too old, too wild, to pick up a book and read to a child." - Dr. Seuss

Don't you love that quote? It's something that I have to remember because oftentimes our Reading Together Time gets nixed when something needs to go for the day.

After a glance at the bookshelves, I pulled Minn of the Mississippi off, and while reading it aloud, the saplings worked on a 500 piece puzzle. Even though I've read "raves" about the Holling books I'm not really into them, but I hid my reluctance and the kids seem to enjoy Minn

Places We Went, People We Saw
☃ Girl Scout Penguin Camping (SM) ☃ Basketball (SM/BF) ☃ Scouts (WP) ☃ SketchUp (WP) ☃ Clarinet (SM) ☃ Library 

As always, thanks for visiting our "neck of the woods". We're linking up to these wonderful blog hops! Why not click over and read about other homeschool happenings.

Homegrown Learnershttp://184.172.145.63/~savannah/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/savannahbutton2.pngHip Homeschool Hop Button

Note: Words in this color are links for more information, other blogs, recipes, or even helpful websites.

15 comments:

  1. I was planning a history post- I'll join in for sure! Love that history/geography center! I also love Minn of the Mississippi- we did the beautiful feet study with it- the first time I read it was with my now 26yo daughter.

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  2. What an interesting week! So many wonderful and engaging activities and topics your family is doing.

    We started reading Minn of the Mississippi earlier this year after taking a trip to Lake Itasca - where the Mississippi River starts. It was interesting for my daughters to read about places and things in the book that they have seen - both at the park and other parts along the river in Minnesota.

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  3. Love the pic of Stripes having a stare down contest ;) My hound dog decided to help with our math this week too and wanted to stand on Boo Bear's book LOL These pets and their help huh ;) Have a great weekend and see ya next week!

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  4. What a great week. I love Minn of the Mississippi! Have a blessed weekend.
    Blessings, Dawn

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  5. Thank you for cluing us in to Flat Stanley. My kids are pretty excited about that!!

    The pic of the stare down just made me laugh!! We don't have cats, but we do have one large dog. If he gets in the way, he's pretty slow about moving unless you pet him for a sufficient amount of time..according to him, or course!

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  6. I love how you list their accomplishments for the week. It seems so positive. It sounds like your schooling is going so well. I love your timeline. Thank you for hosting the History and Geography Meme for awhile. I really appreciate it, and am enjoying the posts.

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  7. Your timeline looks amazing! You could do a whole blog post just on that and explain how you did that! I love the stare down pic. Funny cat.

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  8. What a great idea to celebrate the half-way point of your school year! I need to remember that.
    Your timeline looks fantastic! Two of my kids are doing timeline notebooks, but I would love to have a wall timeline for the whole family to learn from.

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  9. I love the timeline on the wall. We do Classical Conversations and I think we'll do that next year for our memory work.

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  10. Hooray for halfway points!! And I love, love, love your timeline and map center. You are an awesome homeschool momma.

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  11. Thanks for the PicMonkey link and your header and button look awesome! Nice work. Your week was pretty awesome too. Ahhh one day I hope to have as much variety in our home school. My girls are still pretty young and so we focus on our core subjects mostly with a little variety here and there.

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  12. I love your weeks! The stare down is hilarious. I have been considering the Apologia Geography - do you think it is meaty?

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  13. Such a great week. You truly are a great homeschool Mom. Keep up the good work. Our 75 lb. dog thinks she needs to be involved in our schooling too. Love your stare down pic.

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  14. This is great. Thanks for linking up with Its a Wrap and congrats on the weight loss! Way to go!

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