Weekly Wrap-Up

I loved this past week. I wish every week could be so relaxing. We didn't have co-op classes on Monday, dance/drama on Tuesday, church on Wednesday, or AHG/Cub Scouts on Thursday, so we spent the vast majority of our time, um, at home. It was blissful. Which of course makes me ask myself, "why do we do all these activities, anyway?" But of course I only ask myself that in a fleeting sort of way, because, truthfully, we love to do all that stuff. (Except I really don't love driving 30 minutes to go to dance and drama, where I sit in a freezing cold building for 2 hours. But I do love that Laurel loves the classes, so self-sacrificing shall come into play here.)

But a break is nice, and this week had the added advantage of being my birthday week, so we took Wednesday off completely. It went much too fast, but you can read all about my birthday on the post cleverly titled Birthday Day.

We got tons of "regular" school done this week. I've noticed that happens when we stay home. We're working our way through World War I in history and literature, studying the human body, and doing our regular spelling (Spelling Power), writing (my own stuff), grammar (Daily Grams), and math (Saxon). The kids also have homework from co-op classes (literature circle, essay writing, Latin, book club) that they do throughout the week.

And then on Friday, we went to see Tom Sawyer at a local junior playhouse. We'd read an abridged version of the book throughout the week, so the kids knew the basics of the story. However, that only helped slightly because this particular version of the play was so odd and the acting so horrid that it only faintly resembled The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I mean, wow. It was really bad. This particular playhouse generally has good stuff and it certainly won't keep me from attending future plays, but by the end of the play I was actually giggling because it was embarrassingly bad. I'm a horrid person.

Later that night, however, I got to see yet another play, this time at the university's theatre department. I picked the play Oedipus Rex for us to read in the World Lit class that I teach because I knew it was part of the year's line-up at the Clarence Brown Theatre, and I wanted them to see a play. We had a fantastic time reading and discussing Oedipus, and seeing the play was a great way to tie it all together. The play itself was in the smaller, theatre-in-the-round building, so we in the front 2 rows were very, very close to the action. If you are familiar with the story of Oedipus, you'll know what happens in the very end. It was very, very gory. Poor dumb Oedipus had blood, sweat, and snot running down his face, which was not particularly pleasant. But the play itself was good and the experience well worth the ickiness.

On Saturday our National Homeschool Honor Society group hosted, as a service project, a practice session of the ACT for local homeschoolers. (Have I ever mentioned how irritating it is that homeschoolers aren't allowed to be in the National Honor Society? Harumph.) While the students in the honor society proctored the practice exam, a couple other parents and I facilitated a roundtable discussion about homeschooling through high school, applying for colleges, etc. That was very enjoyable, and I gleaned lots of information from a couple of parents who have kids in college already.

And that's our Weekly Wrap-Up. What happened in your world this week?