Weekly Wrap-Up

I got this idea from several homeschool blogs- a weekly wrap-up of what we've done in school. This is good for record-keeping but also for easing my fears that we are 'not getting it all done'. The fact is, we are doing A LOT MORE than I realize.

This week Sam went to TCPS Co-op on Monday where he attended Chapel, learned some new songs in Music, memorized the months of the year in Spanish, made turkey crafts in Art, continued typing skills and learning games in Computers and played outside. During Library Time, they had a book fair! Ellie and I joined him for the book fair and then stayed to watch PE, which was basically a lot of wild running in circles playing tag. Exactly what he needs!

While Sam was at Co-op, Ellie and I had some informal preschool time- played with her felt weather board, paints and the Montessori letter sounds puzzle a friend loaned us. Sister does not know her letters. But I'm told that doesn't matter at this age.

The rest of the week our schedule was kind of off due to hair cuts and other appointments but we still managed to fit a lot of school time in:

• Bible- Our Bible story for the week was Samson. Did you know that Samson was married to another woman before he met Delilah? I didn't. We read the Beginner's Bible version together and then Sam and I read the longer account from Egermeier's.
• Circle Time- We continued to add leaves to our thankful tree. Highlights from this week were Mitt Romney and yogurt. Minnie Kitty continues to be the favorite, with 7 leaves on the tree and counting. Our letter for the week was "L" and our virtue for the week was "Love" but these don't seem to get a lot of attention other than a brief explanation at the beginning of the week. For Scripture Memory, we have started memorizing part of the Christmas story from Luke 2.
• Reading- We read the new books we got at the book fair plus a bunch of library books- Dog in Charge, National Geographic All About Dolphins, Lady Bug Girl, Fancy Nancy Pajama Party, Flat Stanley's Samurai Surprise, If You Were on the Mayflower in 1620 and Skippyjon Jones. Sam read aloud from Little Bear's Thanksgiving, Lego Fire Rescue Easy Reader, Beginner Bible and his I Can Read It 2 reader.
• Math- Sam completed levels 12 and 13 in Math-U-See which includes adding doubles, +9, basic geometry and basic algebra. He's really starting to grasp the algebra which is so encouraging to see! Ellie played with some of her Montessori manipulatives and puzzles.
• Language Arts- We muscled through our copywork and handwriting (Sam hates it), wrote letters to our Operation Christmas Child recipients, practiced our spelling words (he has been struggling with sight words but he got them all right this week!), and played sight word bingo (bo-ring but Sam loves a game). I ordered a separate grammar workbook since I haven't been impressed with Sonlight's grammar portion but we didn't get to that this week. Ellie did some "K" and "L" preschool stuff- play-doh letters, tracing, do-a-dots, etc.
• Social Studies- We spent most of the week studying Thanksgiving- mapping the Mayflower voyage route, making Mayflower crafts, reading about the Pilgrims and what life was like in England, on the ship and in Plimouth. We learned about Squanto and how he lived with the Pilgrims for the rest of his life. We read about how even though the Pilgrims didn't have enough houses for everybody and needed to work all the time to build shelter, they still took every Sunday off to worship God and rest. We learned that a baby was born at sea during the voyage and named Oceanus. We read that they ran out of clean water and so even the children drank wine on the ship. We were surprised to find out what they ate on the first Thanksgiving- turkey, yes, but also oysters, eel, fish, geese, deer and mincemeat pies.  Sam started a lapbook about Life in Plimouth, which we will finish in the next few days. We also watched a Charlie Brown episode about the Mayflower voyage that was cute and surprisingly accurate. Social Studies is my favorite! If we could do that all the time and nothing else, I'd love it.
• Science- We don't have a formal science curriculum but do lots of reading and video watching. Sam loves science, both kids love learning about animals and I am always amazed by the information they retain. This week we watched several Wild Kratts episodes, a documentary on Sharks and Orcas, Creature Reports from Octonauts and added more animals to our Animal Classification chart.
• Service to Others- Teaching my kids about the world outside of Tupelo, Mississippi is very important to me. I want them to have a heart for others and missions, and I want them to know how truly blessed they are. Honestly, I'm just starting to learn a lot of this myself. So it's a journey we are taking together :). This week, we packed shoeboxes for Operation Christmas Child. We watched several clips on the website about the ministry and the kids who receive these shoeboxes. So precious. And my kids were honestly touched by seeing it for themselves- they both loved watching the kids jump and scream as they received their shoeboxes. Sam said, 'That's how happy my little boy is gonna be when he opens his shoebox. I love how they smile!' And Ellie promptly showed me on the globe where the shoeboxes might be going (she pointed to Sudan, so she could be right). We went shopping together to buy stuff for 2 little boys Sam's age and 2 little girls Ellie's age. They were (generally) very good about keeping the focus on other kids and only got a mild case of the 'Gimmes' (how can you not while standing in the toy section of Walmart 5 weeks before Christmas). Then last night we lit a fire, watched more videos of OCC, prayed over our boxes as a family and packed them up. Those sweet baby voices praying for the kids that would receive these boxes is one of the sweetest things I've ever heard. Oh, and Ellie may have stolen a candy cane from one of the boxes...

The rest of the week was spent playing (lots of baby-mommy pretending in Ellie's room), going to Art class (Sam) and Dance class (Ellie), counting down the days til Sea World and Disney World and major Lego construction. Oh and more DVD's- Action Bible Songs, Cinderella and Miss Patycake's God's Great Big World. My kids watch a lot of TV. I don't like it but... it is what it is right now.

Ok see? When I type it all out (and I'm sure I'm forgetting something), I feel MUCH BETTER about what we have accomplished. God is good. I can do this. The End.