Weekly Wrap-Up: Fitting it all in

figures the only clear shot of the mirrors included my antics

We had another week of trying to "fit it all in"!!

Seems like since September our weeks have been getting crazier and crazier. I desperately want a week when I don't feel FRAZZLED to get through everyone's basic work...

last week was the same:/

It's good though...

if my kids attended public school, we wouldn't have been able to take the road trip with Brian or have his parents over like the week before last. And last week we wouldn't have been able to pack-up again and head to my parents while Brian was at another conference.

I know it's one of the blessings of homeschooling... being flexible. Hitting the books hard while at home and then taking advantage of the flexibility to visit with family and take field trips;) But it definitely takes some discipline on our part to really focus on schooling on those ONLY-school days!

We did complete a simple Science experiment showing how water could separate the molecules of the food coloring... enough to see some of the different colors that made up the food coloring.

A drop of food coloring on a paper towel... on a few we made an ink pen mark first... that was cool because the water "carried" food coloring off the original mark, so the pen mark was used as the original point.

I didn't take a final picture of the paper towel and marker... but let me warn you to keep the paper towels over the sink!! I was scrubbing food coloring off the counter because the water had "carried" the food coloring  off the edge!!

We also tried different colors of food coloring and different brands of paper towels... there was a noticeable difference in the absorption of the "name Brand" over the generic! I was surprised!

Math
The kids also completed 2 or 3 math lessons before our "mini trip"...

Language Arts
Lydia and Chris completed a couple of Grammar lessons.  I love them doing these lessons together!! So thankful that we tried it and that it's working;)

Chris read through another Piggie & Elephant book as well as started working some Dr Suess books. Lydia completed a lesson or two from Ordinary parents Guide to Teaching Reading (OPG) and started working through a classic Dick and Jane reader. I'm not a huge fan of Dick and Jane only because it is only sight work based... the kids HAVE to use sight words not much can be sounded out. But I do like using them in addition to our reading "program" because it is teaching and reviewing sight words:)

Lydia continued with the same spelling word unit of You Can Read because she didn't know them from the previous week:) And Chris moved on to some new sight words as spelling words that he'll work on the next two weeks.

Anna worked on Grammar, Spelling and Individual reading each morning we were home;) I"m soo thankful that she's usually a very diligent worker.... makes it easier to balance all the other choas happening around the house on schooling mornings :)

History
We have been pouring through the crazy pile of Thanksgiving books from our local library!! It's been nice not to have to rush through a topic to get to the next... so very fortunate that our history lessons have been about the Plymouth Plantation during this Thanksgiving season;)

While away we hoped to make a trip to the Jametown Settlement which is a easy drive from my parents... but the cold, wet weather last week changed our plans! Would have been very fun to visited the settlement as we study this time period... but oh, well...

we went to the Aquarium with a little cousin instead... so more Science:)

It seems like we stick around one exhibit the most each time we go... this time it was the Sting Rays:)

I had to include Anna bravely touching the starfish;)

It was a fun trip and it worked out well since our passes expire in early January, so it was probably our last trip for a while!

Back at Grammie and Pey's we stayed busy, too!

• organizing Thanksgiving food pictures into the food groups (something I made out of magazine and label notecards for Anna when she was in pre-K... always good to pull them out and use them again!!)
• we made our thankful turkeys, 
• read more Thanksgiving books 
• and watched The Sound of Music into the night;)

Another busy week of trying to fit everything in;) And it was back to the grind this week preparing for some more visiting at the end of this week, Thanksgiving and a birthday to celebrate;)



Picture of the Week

Chris and the fish checking each other out

Contributing the last picture to Tuesdays Around the World @ communal global and Sweet Shot Tuesday!
Linking up to Weekly Wrap-Up @ Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!