Weekly Wrap Up: The One after Christmas Break

How is it possible that I have not written a weekly wrap up post since September?!?  That's just crazy!  It's certainly not from a lack of wanting to blog- I love documenting our great homeschool experiment here.  It seems, though, that  my free time and energy level has decreased exponentially with the addition of our third test subject.  

The first week of January seems like as good a time as any to get back to writing a weekly wrap up, so here goes:

Our (almost) two week Christmas break included the typical frenzy leading up to Christmas as well as family gatherings for Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.  

Christmas Eve

Christmas Day 

Kid's Table 

Jesus's Birthday Cake 

 Christmas Day Attire- The difference in the way the boys and TS 3 dress makes me smile!

Some of the cousins on New Year's Eve

Cookies and Milk for the Kids' Toast

We started back to school on Wednesday, and although we have not yet gotten back to our pre-break schedule in terms of getting up on time and finishing on time, we were able to fall back into a full work load.  

We treated ourselves to a play date after our first day back to school.  While the kids played, the moms learned to crochet.  I felt like an old lady, and had resisted the trend for so long.  When I saw this blanket on my friend Vanessa's blog, though I succumbed to the peer pressure.  

Here is my first piece of work!  Isn't it cute?!?

Thursday morning we hit the books again.  We are wrapping up our Tapestry of Grace unit on Colonial Times.  It has been an engaging study for all of us!  We are hoping to join with some homeschooling friends for a unit celebration in the near future.  The kids are excited about the idea- we had so much fun at our Medieval Feast last year.

We are in the midst of a media fast this week for the kids.  I am convinced that there is much more peace in this home when we power down the iPods, iPad, TV and computer for an extended period and remember how to interact with one another and play creatively!  

After dinner, this little lady pulled out a workbook to "play" with last night.  

Co-op does not resume until January 18th, which gives us another day at home this week and next.  We are treating them as normal school days and following our regular routine.  

We have another play date scheduled for this afternoon.  We have been trying to have these friends over for months now!  (We are a bit over-scheduled after-school this year, but that is for another post.)  

Our weekend holds a basketball game both Saturday and Sunday for TS 1.  TS 2's team has the weekend off.  On Saturday, TS 3 and I will make our annual trip to the American Girl store with my sister, her daughter and our mom.  We are looking forward to an afternoon of browsing the store, wrapping up with dinner in the cafe!

I hope your holidays were filled with joy and peace and you make a smooth transition back to school, friends!

All Dressed Up for Christmas

Welcome to our home!  Come on in and have a look around...

Merry Christmas to you and yours from the research team at Our Great Homeschool Experiment!

Weekly Wrap Up: The One with Thanksgiving

The Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers are taking the week off, but not I!

This week, we started the heart of our Medieval studies!  For the next month, we will study life in the Middle Ages: learning about feudalism, castles, knights and daily life for people of all classes.  We are working on plans for a Medieval Feast to celebrate the end of our TOG study of the Middle Ages.  We brainstormed ideas for costumes, a menu for the feast and the guest list and collected household items to make a model of a castle.  


As we were learning this week, TS 2 remembered a book we received a few years ago called Medieval Castle.  It actually opens to a three dimensional castle complete with a lord and his lady, knights on horses and a dragon.  The test subjects had great fun playing it with during their breaks this week.

We also recently finished listening to the audiobooks The Castle in the Attic and Battle for the Castle by Elizabeth Winthrop.  I highly recommend both- they were so captivating, we often sat in the driveway caught up in the story long after we had arrived home!  They even held the attention of five-year-old RA when she was with us.  A word of caution: Battle for the Castle did have a few gruesome scenes not appropriate for very young listeners.

We have two exciting field trips coming up that will complement our history studies!  Next week, we will be attending a Medieval Times Meal and Tournament with our homeschool group.  The boys can hardly believe that they will see a joust live and in person!  In two weeks, we will head to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to explore their extensive collection of Arms and Armor.  The Met is actually a wonderful place to take a family since they offer free Family Guides for several of their permanent collections that guide families through the exhibits in a fun and age appropriate way.  We plan on using the Armor Family Guide to structure our tour of this collection.  Depending on everyone's mood and energy level, we may head to the Cloisters on the way home to see a rare exhibit of Medieval Chessmen from the Isle of Lewis. 


I think I am as excited as the boys are about the next month!


The other interesting topic for this week was TS 1's final project for his Gizmos and Gadgets class at co-op.  To culminate their hands-on physics study this semester, the students were assigned to create their very own Rube Goldberg Simple Machine.  


If you are like I was and have no clue what I'm talking about, here's a little YouTube video of a Rube Goldberg Machine.  This is NOT our Rube Goldberg machine- just an example :)  

Dad and TS 1 have been working on his a little each night and they are making good progress.  I promise to post a video when it is complete.  For now, a few shots of the process:

We had a short school week because we took Thanksgiving Day off, of course, as well as the Friday after.  Thanksgiving was wonderful!  We did something completely different and went out to lunch with Tom's family to a beautiful mountain resort.  After a scrumptious meal, the kids ice skated in the beautiful pavilion.  Then we took a short hike to see the breathtaking views of the grounds.  (I know- me hiking?  Don't tell my co-op friends, they think I LIKE the outdoors or something ;)  The weather was absolutely perfect and we thoroughly enjoyed the day with family.  

I pray you had a pleasant Thanksgiving Day with the ones you love and remembered to express your gratitude to the One from whom all blessings flow!