The Weekly Wrap-Up: South America, Heidi, and Getting More Rest

Can't believe this ends the last full week of January! It has been one busy month ...and there are still a few more busy days in it for us next week.

This hasn't been a very smooth week though. I have been more tired than I think is reasonable. I'm not sure why that is, but it has made for an emotional and cranky mama at times. When you throw a stubborn son into that mixture ...well, it makes for some rough moments. Just being real. However, we have survived and I am making it a priority to get more rest (last night was a restful night for me, thank goodness!).

This week in our homeschool:

there were new math concepts introduced to both kiddos and they caught on quickly
Mr. B learned about interjections and conjuctions (cue Schoolhouse Rock!)
The Princess is continuing her language arts study with Pippi Longstocking and enjoying it
we learned about the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Incas, Cortes, and Montezuma in history
and enjoyed South American-style hot chocolate, too
we started learning the specifics of how birds fly
and we made a "suet" block to refill our bird feeder

I guess those are most of the main highlights from this week.

We also enjoyed going to a local production of Heidi, too! We are currently reading through the story of Heidi so I was excited about seeing the play, although the kiddos spent a lot of time looking at me during the production saying "that wasn't in the book!". heehee I was just glad they didn't really tell the ending of the book so that we can enjoy finishing it without any spoilers.

(one of the kiddos' friends was with us for the day)

(with "Heidi" and "Clara" after the play)

I plan to spend some time this weekend getting extra prepared for next week (that may have been part of my problem this week--I didn't fully get my lesson planning done last week like I usually do) and doing some cleaning and organizing in our learning room.

I also am looking for more interactive ideas to use with Mr. B to offset his frustration of sitting still for even a little bit to do schoolwork. He is such a kinesthetic learner and I am learning how to work with that.

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

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 ...

Making Notebooks

Recently I tried out a new craft idea~and it was SO much fun!! And extremely frugal, too. That's always a bonus, right? So here we go: 1. Take your basic composition notebook (purchased at the back-to-school sales for .99 each). 2. Go to your craft supplies and get your Mod Podge ready, along with a good paintbrush. 3. Look through all those scrapbook papers you've been randomly collecting and choose some. 3. After choosing your paper for the cover of your book and trimming it to fit, start *painting* the cover with the glue. Next, give the back of your paper a good coat of glue, too. (I left the binding uncovered so that I could use a contrasting paper there later on). 4. Glue it on! Remember to smooth out any air bubbles under the paper. 5. Flip the cover open and make a few cuts on the corners so that they will fold over nice and neat, then add a little more glue to the edges of the inside cover and a little more to the paper edges. 6. Fold them over and press...

my blessed life

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