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The Weekly Wrap-Up: Mars, Volcanoes and SNOW!

Whew! We made it through a very full week of catching up and getting back to routine. Overall it went very well. I was proud of how hard my kiddos worked.

Being in someone else's household makes it much more of a challenge to create your own routine. Plus right now we do not have a separate *Learning Room* {sigh} which means that wherever we are there are new distractions. This week was spent mostly at the dining room table~which was great for a workplace, but also in a heavy-traffic area. I am considering moving our school area upstairs to a quiet bedroom next week. That means more work and set-up for me, but it will probably be worth it. I'm sure having us disrupting their routine has been a challenge for my parents as well:)

Character Sketches:
This month we are learning about *Determination*. I just love the different definitions that our study gives, they are always so applicable to our lives.

Language Arts:
The Princess worked super hard in her grammar lessons this week and completed her first workbook and reader in her 2nd grade Horizons curriculum~yea!!
Mr. B started a new grammar workbook, learning consonant letter blends. He's also nearly finished with his third reader for the year. Even though it's hard to get him to sit and read to me, he's doing so well reading!

Math:
The Princess had to really get back into the groove with math this week. She's either on or off with math and she did fairly well this week, but it was a challenge for her to get her head back into it.
Mr. B finished his first math workbook in his K5 Horizons curriculum this week.
They are also both working in a couple of extra workbooks from The Critical Thinking Co. that they are enjoying. I'll be reviewing those for you soon!

History:
This week we were learning about ancient Africa~very interesting! We all love The Story of the World books!
Science:
We are learning about Mars right now with our Apologia Astronomy study (have I mention that I love their books?). We have had a lot of fun with that this week!

First off Mr. B made his very own Lego Mars Rover, of which he was very proud:)
Then one day we made *edible* Mars rovers from cookies and frosting~very fun and yummy!
Our final project for the week was a re-creation of Olympic Mons--the largest volcano in our solar system which is found on Mars. This was a lot of fun! I've always thought that making a volcano would be fun, but for some reason I never did it when I was in school, so I really had a great time with the kiddos this week making this. They loved it! Although I think they may have been a bit disappointed that it didn't spew all over the room...heehee






And that's a wrap on our school week!
Did I mention that we also had a lovely snow day in there, too? That was a lot of fun~my kiddos are crazy about sledding:) I'll leave you with a little video of some sledding fun:


This post is linked to The Weekly Wrap-up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

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Comments

Caseybumpinalong said…
Love your blog! Looks you had a fun and busy week. Love your edible mars rovers!! We love studying about Africa, especially the Anansi stories (we use Story of the World, too). Our library has a great audio book by, I think it's James Norfolk, on Anansi stories - it's my kids' favorite. Oh and I love your term "learning room" - we used to school all over the house, but this weekend I finally turned our basement into a school room because I was getting worn out running all over to help everyone. Now I'll have them coraled into one place :) And I like the idea of calling it a learning room. Thanks for sharing your week!
January 23, 2011 at 11:03 AM
Joelle said…
I love your projects. Looks like a great week of learning!
January 23, 2011 at 1:31 PM
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