Skip to main content

The Weekly Wrap-Up: the One Where We Start Christmas Break

This will be my last Weekly Wrap-Up until next year!!  Our Christmas break begins today~yea!  It's been a busy few weeks since our last Wrap-Up and I'm probably even more ready for our break than the kiddos are.

To end our school semester:
  • We have way more days of school under our belt than we did last year at this time so I'm thrilled about that.  
  • The Princess finished her first Total Language Plus unit (The Whipping Boy) for this year.
  • The Princess finished her first math book for this year (although I am looking at a mid-year switch in math curriculum ....again).
  • Both The Princess and Mr. B are tracking nicely in their other subjects.  
I am pleased at where we are curriculum-wise and schedule-wise in almost everything so far.  I'm excited about our next quarter.  We won't be participating in co-op for the 3rd quarter, we just need to focus more here at home.  Then I think we'll be ready for 4th quarter co-op.  This fall has been incredibly hectic for us (me!) and we are all looking forward to a bit more routine and not as many interruptions in our schedule.  There will still be lots of field trips and activities though and hopefully more playdates!     



You may remember that I mentioned my parents have moved here.  We are SO excited to have Nana & Papi close by again!  We've been busy at their house lately (especially Vince) getting walls painted, light fixtures changed, etc., and getting them settled in.


Did I tell you that my sweet Mr. B lost his favorite lovely ...back in October?  Well. "Geoffrey" has been found!!  There was much celebrating, I tell you (notice the balloon in the above pic). 


We took a field trip last week to our local area history museum and a couple of other local museums.  It was lots of fun~I'll be sharing more on that day soon.


This past Sunday we had our church's annual Christmas banquet.  It turned out great (props to my hubby for working so hard to make is special!).  I shared this week about the table decorations as well~there is some awesome holiday inspiration in that post should you need some table top ideas.

Last Friday finished up our 2nd quarter of co-op.  It was a wonderful day~the kids really enjoyed their classes with friends as always.  And yesterday evening was our homeschool group's Holiday Family Fellowship where we enjoyed a yummy potluck and the music class from the 2nd quarter co-op performed some songs for us.  My Princess was really excited about this because of the instrument she got to play: a metalaphone.  Mr. B wasn't quite as enthused about singing, but he still did a great job.



This morning, to finish up our science lesson before breaking for the holidays, we made a bird feeder.  It was pretty easy, using a recycled juice bottle, a bamboo skewer, some wire and bird seed.  We are really enjoying our bird study and watching the birds in our yard.  


Now it's time to fully focus on the season!  We have a lot of special things on the calendar: parties, sleepovers with friends, ice skating, caroling, cookie baking, candy making, and all of the usual holiday activities that we love so much.  

I am recovering from my first experience with strep and also my first ear infection~so not fun!  I'm looking forward to getting over all of this soon and feeling good again.  The strep is actually cleared up, but the ear infection has really knocked me for a loop (almost literally with my balance being off..ha).  But I am getting back into the groove again.  Although it was nice for a couple of days to let Vince handle the school work and let me lie around watching Christmas movies and English murder mysteries:)

I hope that you are enjoying this beautiful season as well!  I pray that you keep Christ at the heart of all that you do.

Blessings!


This post is linked to the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.


Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

One Way I Refresh During the Summer as a Homeschool Mom

As our homeschool takes some time off this summer, my mind almost never stops thinking of and planning ahead for the upcoming school year.  This is probably because I'm Type A and an obsessive planner...lol Whatever the reason, I do enjoy this season of planning.   But I also need to be refreshed as a homeschool mom.  Homeschooling can be incredibly exhausting and all-consuming.  It's not easy and it's a lot of responsibility.  And I take that very seriously when I am researching curriculum and planning toward the next school year.  So also taking some time to rejuvenate and refocus myself is very important.   How do I do this?   Each summer I take some time to read something inspiring and motivating that speaks to me as a homeschool mom.  Some of my fave reads from past years--that I have nearby on my shelf and refer to often--are Educating the Wholehearted Child, The Well-Trained Mind, The Charlotte Mason Companion, A T...
Read more

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 ...
Read more

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 ...
Read more