Sunday, September 5, 2010

Weekly Wrap-Up


What an incredibly fun week this was! We started with a vacation day, so that's always good. We have a tradition of taking birthdays off. Since Laurel's feel on a weekend, we took Monday off. (Come to think about it, we took the previous Friday off, too!) Some friends had invited us to go to the indoor waterpark resort Wilderness in the Smokies, so we spent the entire day relaxing with friends.

As for our academic world, everything went so smoothly this week. We are nearly done with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and enjoyed lots of good discussion. Here's a picture of my jelly roll from last week, which didn't taste terribly exciting but it was fun anyway.

My new commitment this year is to do math the very first thing each morning. (Please understand: first thing means 10 a.m. for us.) This has been working out beautifully for us. Duncan is moving quickly through his math book. I skipped a whole year in Saxon because it seemed terribly repetitive, and so far it's a breeze for him. Laurel was thrilled to get her math program started this week. Actually, she has been enjoying it thus far. My friend Amy offered to let us borrow her Teaching Textbooks Pre-Algebra, and we finally managed to connect this week. Laurel heard a rumor that the first three chapters are tedious review work, so I've promised that I'll look at it and let her skip if appropriate.

In science we read about the astronomer Annie Jump Cannon, and fortunately this coincided with our first monthly trip to the Heritage Planetarium. Duncan especially loved this show on stars. Laurel enjoyed hanging out with her friends but wasn't crazy about the show itself. I actually found it interesting, although I must admit that Earth and Space Science was pretty much my least favorite college course ever. I don't let my kids know that, though, so shhhhh.

Friday afternoon brought our first meeting of the hiking club. A couple other moms and I thought we needed to start an official one. We live in one of the most amazing spots in the U.S., and so many people have expressed that they would love to hike more regularly. With only a few days' notice, we had a nice group of 30 adults/kids on the hike. Some people got lost and ended up on a different hike, but that's OK; there will be more to come! After the hike, there was lots of time to play in the river.

Saturday I had a most unusual and wonderful day: I had the house to myself! Randy and Duncan went hiking, Laurel was babysitting, and I was outrageously productive. I got all the lesson plans done for the Readers' Theatre and Creative Writing classes I'm co-teaching/teaching at our co-op, as well as getting various things ready for American Heritage Girls, which kicks off this week. In fact, yesterday was so productive that I took a nap today. One more week until our co-op classes begin, and then our weeks take on a whole new dimension!

Linked up with the Weekly-Wrap Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

7 comments:

  1. Ummm- thanks for the shout-out...I think...

    (Seriously, that made me laugh that you included my mishap in your wonderful week- I am DEFINITELY meeting you somewhere for the next hike!)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Enjoy your hiking club! One suggestion: Put an experienced hiker in front who is familiar with the trail and put another experienced hiker at the back to keep slower ones going in the right direction. Make sure that one knows how to read the blazes for the trail and your group won't get separated. Have a nice week!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow - looks like a great week! Isn't it wonderful when things go smoothly? I've thought about starting up a hiking club here - you are inspiring me to give it a second thought. Enjoyed your post!

    ReplyDelete
  4. We also take off for birthdays. I am implementing a new EARLY schedule this week. We start with Bible :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love the hiking club idea!
    Janet W

    ReplyDelete
  6. A hiking club sounds like so much fun. Great exercise and to be out in nature. Might have to try something like that here.
    Blessings
    Diane

    ReplyDelete
  7. Sounds like you had an action packed week! The jelly roll looks yummy and your tea kettle is beautiful!

    ReplyDelete

I love comments! Thanks for taking the time to leave one. I have comment moderation on, so your comment will take a little bit to appear.