Weekly Wrap-Up: Finishing Week 5

Somehow the month has slipped through my fingers without writing my weekly wrap-up posts. But I did write one Friday about our 11th grade plans and then next Friday was about our Friday discussions so I wasn't slacking off but just writing about other pertinent things.

We have been moving right along through our studies and with finishing week five we have hit our stride. We know what books we are reading, the schedule seems familiar, and we can sneak in some fun activities without disrupting our work too much.


Some highlights of the week include our work with The Joy of Chemistry. This little book is packed with awesome demonstrations that you complete *before* reading about the new concept for the lesson. All of us are really gleaning new insight by working this way through the book.


I created a notebook page where the boys can record what we did in the demonstration and then write notes from the chapter at the bottom that explain what we experienced in the demonstration.

This year I am juggling both ends of the timeline as far as history study goes. One son is working through ancient history and the other is studying 20th century history.

Ancient history this week included reading about the flood and comparing it in our literature study of Gilgamesh. I assigned a writing piece to compare and contrast the two accounts after we read about and discussed this together.

We found ourselves reading about and discussing World War 1 this week as part my son's history plans. Feeling thankful that we covered this period of time in middle school, we could move on to deeper aspects of this perplexing period of time.

If you have never read Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?....I would highly recommend it to you as a way to make sense of our economic conditions today. It is perfect for high school study and I am so glad we did not read it before now.

We are still plugging away with The Grapes of Wrath....enjoying the language and imagery of the book as we go along. We talked about so many character qualities this week.....the waitress in the roadside diner, the one-eyed man at the junk yard, the preacher, Ivy Wilson. The scene where they pick a scripture to bury with Grampa Joad is priceless. We talked about the humanity of losing your home and the making of choices where to go and what to take with you. This is great stuff.

Now for some fun projects.


I have a bulletin board where I hang artwork for a period of time before it gets filed away in portfolios. It is always a good sign when the board gets full! You can see a couple of Ancient Egypt projects and one Matisse project done with oil pastels. Mr. A is not afraid of bold color so Matisse has been a favorite of his this time around. The Egyptian projects have let Mr. B use the metallic gold Prismacolor marker a lot....perfect thing for making things look shiny.


This week Mr. B is making cinnamon bread which includes using yeast and kneading dough. Every week all of us eagerly await this part of his schoolwork.



Last week he made ice cream cake! This is chocolate cake with mint chocolate chip ice cream and whipped cream on top. (We use mint ice cream that is not green.) Talk about yum!

Of course we had all of our other subjects in our week: math, Spanish, PE, astronomy, robotics, videography and so on but I will leave you with the highlights.