Weekly Wrap-Up

In the past few weeks, almost all our regular activities have resumed. Laurel's co-op classes started two weeks ago, and Duncan's begin Monday. (Our high school program starts 2 weeks before and ends 2 weeks later than the K-8 program.) She and one of her best friends got to actually spend their birthday (Aug. 29) in co-op classes all day. They actually really loved it.


Laurel is really enjoying her classes but is still figuring out how to balance her workload. This past week was especially challenging since we were away most of the four-day weekend. At our Monday co-op she is taking physical science, Excel and Powerpoint, health, art history, and drama. On Fridays she takes British literature and European history. The only subject she is actually learning at home is math (Teaching Textbooks). But her days are filled with balancing a week's worth of homework from all her co-op classes. She gets a little stressed out, but I think she really kind of enjoys it all.

Duncan and I are a few weeks into Sonlight Core 5 (now known as Core F). So far I've read aloud The Island of the Blue Dolphins and are halfway through The Master Puppeteer. On his own he's read Call It Courage and is halfway through The Big Wave. He was supposed to read Red Sand, Blue Sky, but just like his big brother, years ago, he saw the "for girls" sticker on the front and said, "This is a girl's book! I don't want to read it!" Dumb marketing.

We've been doing a lot of geography, which is one of the reasons I love Core 5 so much. Duncan absolutely loves learning about different cultures and labeling maps. We watched a fantastic series about the Sahara (out of Core 5 order, I know, but it's all good) by Michael Palin, of Monty Python fame. I so highly recommend this 4-part program! Michael Palin is wonderful. I would caution that on the second episode, there is a short discussion about female circumcision that is somewhat graphic but very short. I am looking forward to watching his Himalaya and New Europe journeys when we get to that point in our Sonlight.

Duncan's math is going well. He is doing Teaching Textbooks pre-algebra. He was doing great for the first several lessons, and then we got to a review of multiplication. Our conversation when something like this:
Duncan: "Huh?"
Me: "Remember when you memorized all your multiplication facts last year and I gave you 10 bucks?"
Duncan: "Yep. I don't remember any of them, though."

So he spent two weeks reviewing multiplication on HonorPoint. Really like this site. After getting to where he was getting 100% on the quizzes there, we moved back to Teaching Textbooks.

I still haven't resumed spelling and handwriting for Duncan. Again, that 4-day weekend kind of signals the end of summer for us, so I guess I really need to dig through cabinets and find those last couple of books.

We spent Labor Day weekend at our annual Scouting family camp. What an incredibly fun weekend! Here we are about to embark on a hike on Sunday.

The majority of the campers had already gone back home by Sunday afternoon, but a bunch of us took one last hike.

This week we also added American Heritage Girls and Cub Scouts back into our regimen. We started our 9th year in AHG, and Duncan is in his final year of Cub Scouts.

That's my little girl and me when we started our troop 9 years ago.

And here's my little guy when he was a Tiger Cub, four years ago.

And here they are now:




Yep. They do grow up, don't they?

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