Homeschool Highlights: Weeks 29 & 30

What have we been up to the last couple of weeks?
Highlights: Mali started Kindergarten. I will share what we have been up to soon. We are almost done with the book of Genesis. Hard to believe that we have covered so much history in one book! I just posted our lessons on Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and we have moved on to the life of Joseph. Since we will soon be on the Exodus, I am reading Tirzah to the boys. I pulled out our Sonlight 3+4 Language Arts for Nathan and Dylan. They are mostly doing the dictation/grammar exercises and not the readers (since we are not covering American History right now). I have been reading Grammar Land to the boys and creating notebooking pages to go with each chapter. This has been a fun review and lesson time on the parts of speech. I will share more about this when we finish it. We are on chapter 8. We finished up lesson 19 in All About Spelling Level 2 today and should finish the book by the end of this week. I finished section 5 of the Madsen Method with my older boys. I will be revisiting portions of section one with Malachi while working on my review. Jordan has been working on Unit One in Artistic Pursuits Jr. High Level Book One. As much as he loves to draw, I thought he would be excited to be doing this review. However, he is being challenged and only does this when I sit him down and do the lesson with him (even though they are written to the student). We are reviewing an online adventure game called The Travels of Wiglington and Wenks. It is a pretty cool interactive virtual world. Right now, we are using the free trial version and I have a hard time pulling my boys away from this game! Luke is reading book 4 of the Terrestria Chronicles, The Crown of Kuros, to the boys. I received books 4 and 5 for review and have already pre-read the first one. Luke has the greatest voices when he reads. I can't help listening in (even though I have already read the book). I will start the 2nd book, while he is reading the first one to the boys. Nathan and Dylan have two lessons left in their Apologia Zoology 3 book, and have almost finished Unit One in R.E.A.L Science Odyssey: Chemistry, by Pandia Press (review coming soon!). Jordan is on Module 4 in his Apologia General Science book and after this module I will share a little of what he has been doing. I know now that we will have to stretch this book out to the next school year, so I will probably pick Nutrition 101 back up as a supplement when he gets to the human body. Which will be perfect because then it will count as a Health credit for high school. We just received a few books in the Seasons of Faith series by CBH Ministries (formerly Children's Bible Hour ) for review. We are listening to these as a family after our bible reading at night. Nathan and Dylan have been using another software program called Math Galaxy (a program that I am reviewing). So far, they are enjoying the Whole Numbers Riddles. (They play it like a "Wheel of Fortune" game). Chess: The boys are full swing into their chess tournament at chess club. Dylan and one other homeschool boy are in the winner's bracket in this double elimination tournament. Jordan and Nathan are in the losers bracket, but they are looking good. They both still have a chance at the final game as the winner of the loser's bracket will play the winner of the winner's bracket. Dylan is actually tied for first in the rankings so far and chess has been a source of excitement around our home lately. Sports: I mentioned what we have been up to in my Sports Edition post. I had to laugh later that I forgot to even mention a few things. Here is an update:
  • Jordan is coaching his first ever team of 3rd, 4th and 5th graders. He was a little nervous about calling all the parents for practice, so Luke and I helped him. But he is doing a great job about communicating with the parents now and is even emailing them practice times.
  • We are mid-season in floor hockey and we finished our last week of swimming lessons for this session. Jordan has 2 weeks left of swim camp, and Nathan and Dylan passed level 4. (Nathan was so hoping he would, but Dylan was surprised.) They can move on to swim camp . . . another time. Mali and Elli are doing so well, that they will do one more 3 week session (hate to interrupt their momentum).
  • Nathan and Jordan both passed their referee training and are certified refs! Nathan can only ref U10 girls which means girls 9 and under (which makes sense since he is only 11). Jordan can be an AR (assistant ref) for any game and as a CR (center ref) for U12 boys and girls (under the age of 12). As soon as they mail their certificate in, they will start refereeing games on Sundays.
Luke is hosting a volleyball camp during his break between floor hockey and soccer. As hard as it seems, things are actually slowing down for a couple weeks. I have been updating my attendance records and we just finished our 153rd day of school. Which means we technically could be done with this school year the middle of April (6 more weeks). As much as I would love to be done, we have so much more I want to cover! I will have to carry our Ancient History study over to next year. I also plan to take two weeks off in April for the Spring Feasts. The boys are already finishing their independent work for this year and Nathan and Dylan have already started their math book for next school year. I have to laugh because Dylan got so mad at me today because I would only let him do one chapter! We are also moving from 6 days down to 5 days this month. (We have been doing school 6 days a week for 5 months). If we school 5 days a week, we will be done the end of April, so I may move to 4 days a week once soccer season starts. The weather will be nice and the kids will want to be outside more (and so will I).

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