Weekly Wrap-up: Week 7

I can not believe we have just completed week number 7 of our homeschooling. Time has most certainly flown by over these past weeks. Veteran homeschoolers - does it always go by this quickly? Since this is our first year, I am a bit amazed at how much we both have learned.
What I have learned:
- To find ways to make the lesson more fun. For example, this week we began learning about bones. Little Buddy is fascinated with Ben 10 figures that you click together to make aliens or monsters or something like that. So, I asked him to bring his figures to our schoolroom for a little hands-on exercise. I think he was in shock that I actually asked him to bring toys to class. Anyway, after we made a couple of different "aliens," I asked him what these aliens had in common with humans. I took it back to the aliens by asking him to draw what he thought their bone structure would look like compared to humans. The lesson went from there.
- To always begin the day with our Bible lesson and prayer. How simple is that? Well, there have been two times in the past seven weeks that I rushed into our schoolwork and missed Bible as our priority of the morning. (I know, I am ashamed still.) What did I notice on these days? Well, for one, I was not in the right frame of mind (obviously) and from me being off-kilter, Little Buddy was as well. When we begin our mornings with the Bible lesson and then a prayer from that lesson, our entire day just flows better.
- A ton of other things. The quick list - take a break when Little Buddy or I either one run out of steam. It's okay to have school in the afternoons, in the car, in the RV, at the lake, or in a different room of the house (even outside) sometimes. A routine really does help. Little boys definitely need to run and have active, hands-on learning time.
What Little Buddy has learned.
- Mom means what she says the first time. Being an only child, Little Buddy has been able to "make deals" a good bit in his short life. He knows my pattern. Well, my pattern has changed and now he's getting used to knowing that I mean what I say the first time and not the nine billionth.
- Yes, we do have school today. Even though he asked to start school in late June, there are some days that his first question when he gets out of the bed in the mornings is, "do we have school today." After me saying, "yes, we have school today." since that day in late June, he is now understanding the pattern.

Weekday = school day. Weekend = no school day. Everyday = learning opportunity.

- I hope a ton more. If you ask him what he learned today, he might say, "that Macbeth was greedy like Lot." OR he might say, "Nothing much."
So, where does that leave us for our plans for week 8? Well, we have got a whole bunch of fun stuff and many "learning opportunities" planned.

1. We are making a Flat Stanley and plan to send him traveling. You can read about the Flat Stanley Travels project at Heart of the Matter online.
2. We continue our studies of bones. We'll be completing a lab project with a chicken bone. It's part of Bob Jones Science curriculum.
3. We have two field trips planned for next week. The first is to the mummy exhibit in Atlanta at Emory University and the other is to the Fox to see Grease with Taylor Hicks.
4. For recreation, definitely more golf. Lessons and practice.

Thanks so much to Kris at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers for hosting this wonderful weekly wrap-up. I enjoy visiting with the other homeschoolers who link up each week. You know, sharing ideas and fun projects really helps the entire homeschooling community. That is surely where I have gained so much. There, prayer, and listening to Little Buddy.

Going Nowhere!

Today, we go nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.

We have been going, going, going so much this summer and I am definitely not complaining. I love to go. I love to see new places and experience new things. I love to go to the lake house and enjoy the environment there. I love to hop in the RV and head out for an adventure with my family. But today, I am thoroughly enjoying just being at home. I refuse to even crank my car today. There, I said it.

What will we enjoy instead:

- school in our schoolroom (did I mention we moved it last night?)
- playing outside
- roaming around on the farm (checking on the animals)

I'm enjoying it so much, I may plan a "going nowhere" day more often.

Strawberry, Raspberry Pretzel Delight

This is the recipe I tweeted about making. It is so delicious and one of my husband's favorites.
Ingredients
2 cups pretzels (broken)
1 1/2 sticks butter, melted
2 tbsps granulated sugar
1 box confectioner's sugar
1 8 oz. package of cream cheese
1 tsp vanilla
1 large box Jello - Strawberry flavored
2 cups frozen raspberries or strawberries if you prefer
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix pretzel pieces, granulated sugar and melted butter. Pour into 13 x 9 baking dish. Place in oven for 8 minutes. Remove and cool completely.
Meanwhile, mix cream cheese, confectioner's sugar and vanilla until creamy. Then pour over cooled pretzel base.
Make jello to package directions, stir in frozen fruit and pour over cream cheese mixture.
Refrigerate for at least 2 hours.

And the Winner is...

I am so tickled to announce the winner of our very first giveaway at Our Homeschool Home! We chose to giveaway Hamlet for Kids! in the Shakespeare Can Be Fun! Series by Lois Burdett (Firefly). You can see my earlier post about this series of books and how much we are loving them here.

So, now to the winner. Little Buddy selected the winner. He chose...

Karin Katherine

Congratulations Karin! Send me an email with your address and I'll get it shipped to you this week. I hope your twin boys enjoy this book as much as Little Buddy.

Thanks so much to all who entered a comment in our contest. We appreciate them all!

It's a Blog Hop! Curriculum

This week, we are participating in Darcy's Not Back-to-School Blog Hop! She is so organized and has planned out great topics for each week in August.


See how just gorgeous she makes everything? Even a calendar looks so pretty after Darcy gets hold of it.
I've included the link to my previous post on curriculum here since I'd already written a post on this topic a bit back for Kris' Weekly Wrap-up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers. I didn't want to overpost on our curriculum. Although, I do think it is simply super!

Weekly Wrap-up: Week 6

This week, we enjoyed homeschool on the road. We took an RV trip to the Experimental Aircraft Association's (EAA) AirVenture 2009 in Oshkosh, WI. I planned for weeks before the trip on exactly where Little Buddy would be in his work to make sure I had everything we would need during the trip. I am so glad I did! Preparation is definitely the key to quality homeschooling!
Each morning, Little Buddy and I would sit on the bed in the RV with the containers on the counter top at the foot of the bed and work on his school work. While we were traveling, it really was the perfect opportunity to get our work done and prevent any boredom as well. We started our day with our Bible study, then reading, grammar, writing, spelling, history, science, and math. Then, we would add a craft at the table after lunch.
For our reading, we read Hamlet for Kids! I was a little nervous Little Buddy would not enjoy this book. I was very pleasantly surprised at how much he loved it! We learned about couplets, plot, character development, and Shakespeare to boot! All great lessons in one great book. We enjoyed the book so much, I went online to Amazon and ordered the rest in the series of Shakespeare for Kids! They should be at our house when we get back home. I also ordered another copy of Hamlet for Kids! to giveaway to a lucky reader of our blog! Be sure to enter to win.
We also had great living lessons this week.
We enjoyed visiting one of the largest dairy farms in the United States at Fair Oaks Farms in Indiana. I wrote a review of the farm for Chic Galleria magazine. Click here to see the full article.
In Traveling and Living Math with Navigation, I wrote about how my husband worked with Little Buddy on calculating distance, speed, and time. The end result, Little Buddy now looks at the navigation system and works on calculating the time until we get to our next stop rather than immediately asking, "how much longer?" He then asks us if he is correct in his calculations.
Now to the learning we really loved this week - aviation!
This week was just like a science or aviation camp for us. We spent a lot of time with the great folks at NASA and they had wonderful takeaway educational materials. We also enjoyed seeing the debut of the Airbus A380 landing in North America. My husband and Little Buddy toured the plane, but I was a bit of a wus and didn't stand in line to go through because it was raining. Surely something I will regret.
We were able to see the White Knight 2. A few years ago we were able to see White Knight 1, so we were very happy for Little Buddy to be able to have seen them both.
We also enjoyed living history! We also met two of the Tuskegee Airmen and had the opportunity to shake their hands and thank them for their service. We saw tons of vintage planes, warbirds, and record-setters. We were able to hear Sully Sullivan, the hero captain that safely landed the airplane in the Hudson earlier this year.


My favorite of all though, was the the time to spend with family and good friends. We were fortunate that my husband's parents were able to go on this trip as well. My son thoroughly enjoyed spending time with his grandparents. I know these will be some fond memories when he is older. For that, I am thankful.
Head on over to see what other folks were up to this week. Thanks Kris at http://www.weirdunsocializedhomeschoolers.com for hosting this great weekly event!

We Heart Planes

Had you not already guessed that much? Probably so. My family loves planes. I guess it's only natural since my husband is a private pilot and we live on a grass airstrip. This past week at Oshkosh, I realized how bitten with the airplane bug that I am as well.

When my husband and I first started dating, I decided to take ground school with him to learn to fly. At the very least, I would be able to help him when we were flying with such things as navigation and trip planning. Well, two weeks into ground school, the instructor pulled me to the side and told me that I would make an excellent passenger, but most likely was not cut out to pilot a plane. I whole heartedly agreed. Passenger material, I am. Pilot material, I am not.

I finished ground school. I am far from a quiter. And months pass without me flying. But when we go to an event like Oshkosh, that little bug nibbles on me again and makes me want to go for a "flight around the patch." I even picked out the airplane I want. It's a warbird of course. Loud, sleek, and beautiful. I know I'll be the perfect passenger flying along with my favorite pilot.