The Weekly Wrap Up

It's Friday. So that means it's time for the weekly wrap up. Did anyone else feel like January took forever to get over with?  Luckily, the kids didn't seem to mind at all and have been hard at work all month with their lessons - surprisingly as usually getting back into the swing of things following Christmas break is pretty difficult.

Garrett and Alyssa were away at Barstow for a youth retreat (they were there at the time of the 4.6 earthquake) over the weekend.  This was the first time Garrett has been away from the family overnight.  The resort they went to, Ironwood, is set up like an old west trading post.  Garrett went as one of the participants but Alyssa was there as a chaperone for the female youth.  

Garrett at the Ironwood resort

While Alyssa and Garrett were We took Ashleigh to the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound to visit with the kitties. She had a wonderful time as always getting to see the cats and they finally had one of the snow leopards out for display.   We enjoy going to the EFBC as they are not a zoo and their purpose is the conservation of the various species of endangered wild cats.

 

Garrett has been having issues lately with paying attention to his history lessons lately.  To be completely honest, I don't know if he's paid attention all year.  I can read a sentence and immediately ask him a question in regards to it and he has no clue what I was talking about.  So I have decided to make the kids read the lessons themselves and fill out their question sheets while they are reading.. This has worked well for them, especially Ashleigh who does well with reading and no longer has to wait on her brother - she can just complete her lesson at her own pace.   Garrett has gone back to lesson 1 - Columbus discovering America so that he can understand the materials we have previously covered. 

Garrett reading his history assignment and filling out his worksheet

Our lessons have been pretty basic.. We're still working though The Nose Tree with IEW's Fix it Grammar.   Dad almost always comes home for lunch during our language arts lessons, which leads to him teaching  distracting our classwork. LOL

The kids began Year 2 of Let's Go Geography.   This is for an upcoming review, but we absolutely loved Year 1 of this product and so the kids were super excited to be reviewing Year 2.  This week, we did a bit of mapwork, creating folders for the work they will be doing throughout the lessons, and watching videos about the contienents and oceans.

Other things we have been working on this week - we are roughly 50 percent though reading the book Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson.  In science, we began learning about Meteorology and Oceanography.  We've also been studying the artwork of Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer and the music of Hildegard Von Bingen. The kids are also still using Smartick as a supplement daily for their math lesson, and of course practicing daily with their instruments.

This week was a bit hard for Ashleigh.  Being a military family, other families tend to come and go as they get orders.  Unfortunately, we had two families leaving this week, one of which is Ashleigh's best friend, Gabby.   The girls have been having playdates and will keep in touch with each other through the mail service. 

Ashleigh and her friend Gabby