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The Weekly Wrap-up: 1st Week Back

Well, here I am, getting back into the swing of posting a weekly wrap-up! Yea! We started back to school this week and it was good to have some routine again.

I had such grand intentions of doing at least a little school (science and history) through the summer, but then our move to Kentucky began to develop...and *summer school* didn't happen. Maybe next year...

I say that to say this though, we are now finishing up the science and history that wasn't finished last year. And I'm okay with that. I probably wouldn't have been a couple of years ago, but I've learned to be flexible. Besides, these are family subjects for us and it's really quite easy to pick right back up. Then we'll move seamlessly into the next books from these.


I just had to share this fun project we did with our history (Story of the World I) activity book though: we made our own stickers!

We are studying about the Greeks, so I photocopied the page of Greek images from our book and then the kiddos colored them.

Next we made a solution using unflavored gelatin (2 envelopes), water (1 cup) and peppermint extract (1/2 tsp). It was really quite simple: just heat the gelatin and water over medium heat until gelatin has dissolved.

Then add the peppermint extract and let the mixture cool. Luckily I already had all of the ingredients and didn't have to make any special purchases for this (always a factor in choosing my activities!).

After the mixture had cooled to the consistency of glue (kind of thick, but still runny) we brushed it onto the back of the pictures they had colored and let them dry.


After they had dried it was time to cut them out, lick them and stick them on something!

I was curious if they would really stick and if the mixture would taste good or bad. The kids said it tasted like *nothing* really and it actually did stick. Now, not like real stickers from the store, but it did stick. All in all, a fun little project! We love the SOTW activity books!

The rest of our week went really well. You can read more about the curriculum we're using here. We are just getting started with the new choices, but I am very pleased with them so far~and the kiddos are, too!

Today was our first group meeting with our new homeschool group in our new town. We were all excited (and maybe a bit nervous). We all had a great time! I was thrilled to meet some wonderful moms who I can tell are kindred spirits and the kiddos really enjoyed hanging out with some new friends. It's such a wonderful feeling to know that we've found a good group here. We had such a wonderful one back in Arkansas and I was a bit worried. Of course, the groups are very different in style, but the kindred spirits are the same and that's the important thing.

Afterwards we decided it was too nice of weather to not go to the park. We hadn't even visited any of the parks here yet, so it was high time. We found a nice shady one and had a relaxing time. Well, I had a relaxing time. Vince had to play *dragon chasing the princess while the prince tries to save her*. Yes, that's a favorite playground game of my children:)

And then we finished up with some ice cream~what beats that?! I am loving having a Dairy Queen around!

And that's a wrap for our first week of the 2011-2012 school year!


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