Skip to main content

The Weekly Wrap-up: Valentines, the Capitol and the Red Sea

As I sat down to begin this week's wrap-up, I realized that it began with Valentine's day. Really?! Was that only this past Monday?! Whew...what a busy week!

Monday was an abbreviated school day since that afternoon was our homeschool group's Valentine's skating party~always a big hit with my kiddos! Plus there was some major excitement about the Valentine box contest for which they had been preparing. The excitement really escalated when they discovered they were both winners:) You can read more about our Valentine's day here.

(Mr. B won "Most Creative" and The Princess won "Best in Show"~
in their respective categories)


Tuesday
came bright and early at 5am (especially since it followed mine and Vince's hot Valentine's date..heehee). We, along with several families from our homeschool group, drove to Little Rock for "Homeschool Day at the Capitol". It was strictly a hands-on learning day! I love those!

(Arkansas State Capitol, Little Rock)

Several hundred homeschool families were there from across the state, bringing desserts to the senators and representatives, taking tours and learning all about the legislative process.

(Our group with Senator Jake Files)

(On the steps of the Capitol)

By lunchtime our group went its separate ways and we took off to explore more of Little Rock. I have a more in-depth post on our day there coming up in another day or so, but here are some of the highlights.

We really wanted to visit the Central High School Nat'l Historic Site and we were so glad we did! It turned out to probably be the best part of our day. Their visitors center is wonderful and the displays were so fascinating.

We also stopped by the riverfront area on our way out of town and checked out part of the *little rock* that the city is named for. It was one of our best family field trips in a long time! Loved every minute of it (except for those 2.5 hours driving back home~ha).

Wednesday morning was a tough one. We were all so tired from the day before that it I didn't push them too hard. We got our basics finished and then had some fun with our history making a *flannel graph* type story about the 10 plagues in Egypt during the time of Moses. The kids enjoyed retelling them over and over. (On a side note: if you didn't catch our making of Egyptian death masks, you can read about it here. Those really turned out great!)

Thursday the kids were ready to work hard and quickly in order to be rewarded with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese from their Nana and Papi. Nothing like some game tokens and cheap prizes to motivate kids, is there? heehee I was impressed with their new-found ability to get so much done in so short a time! No, really, they did very well since they were making up a lesson or two from our field trip day.

Friday...ah, Friday. I was so glad to see it come. I'm ready for the weekend! The weather was so mild today that The Princess took her work out on the front porch. I'm thinking we'll be doing that again next week if the weather holds. So much nicer than sitting at a table or desk.

Since we've been studying this week about Egypt and Israel's great exodus, we spent some time today making dioramas of the crossing of the Red Sea. The only thing I bought for this project was some construction paper (since mine is packed), the rest of the materials we gathered from around the house (ie: plastic cowboys and Indians for the Israelites and Egyptians). The kids had a blast making them! And I loved how they turned out!

(The Princess busy crafting)

(Mr. B trying to recreate the water crashing down on the Egyptians)


(The Princess' finished diorama)

(detail of The Princess')

(Mr. B's Red Sea diorama)

(the proud artist with his creation)

I hope next week will bring a bit more routine back to our schedule. My children really thrive on their schedule and we've been so off lately. Although I think I may shake things up a bit by moving our *classroom* around some, whether outside or in a different part of the house. We'll see...

P.S. If you read the wrap-up last week, you may have noticed that we visited an art museum recently. I've blogged more in-depth about it here and I hope you'll check it out! It was one of our favorite field trips ever.

Comments

Ellen said…
What a fab week! You had a LOT going on. I bet the trip was a lot of fun and educational, to boot.
Jen@Scrapingirl said…
I am hoping to take my kids to our capital, one of these days. :) Glad you had a good week.
Stefanie said…
What a fantastic week!!!
Nicole said…
Our Capitol Day in Oklahoma was Thursday. It was such a great day!
Sarah said…
Hi Lora!

I just spent the last hour & a half catching up from December until now! Goodness, you are one busy woman!

I'm so glad you all had a great Christmas & the kids science fair looked great! I am sorry that you had to move; how frustrating... It sounds as though your parents are a true blessing though. :) And by the way, I am totally *borrowing* your chocolate bacon cupcake recipe....

Heres hoping your head is feeling better after that sledding mishap, the kids are still enjoying winter, & you are well!

God bless!

Sarah

P.S. As the mom of a child with cancer, I have been homeschooling since September. It is HARD to maintain my enthusiasm sometimes! You are such an inspiration!

Popular posts from this blog

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while.  It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it.  However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it.  Plus it's a little bulky.   When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it!  It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make.   I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course.  They  have these little wooden door hangers for .79.  I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each.  I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing.   I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had).  Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will clip on the right direction.   The left

1st Day Back to {home}School, Among Other Things

We did it! We finally got unpacked enough and got our new learning room organized enough to start back to school! Frankly, I was starting to get worried...ha Today went very well though. So far I am extremely pleased with our new curriculum choices for math and language arts. Now, if I could just actually get some lesson planning done... And get the finishing touches done in the learning room, so I can blog it! In other news, it has been a bit of a traumatic week...pet-wise. Last weekend a sweet friend (who had asked my permission beforehand) brought the kiddos their very own little fish tank with two goldfish. Well, on Sunday we noticed that The Princess' fish was pretty lethargic...dead, actually. She was sad, but she handled it fairly well. And we went to the store that evening and let her pick out a new goldfish. Well, today during our school time~the fish tank is in our learning room~we noticed Mr. B's fish was acting funny. And then he was dead. It was a