His Treasure Seekers

 Anyone concerned about homeschooling and socialization would have their fears alleviated by what our past week looked like:

• Monday: play date
• Tuesday: writing class, play date, and wrestling
• Wednesday: ballet, church, TrailLife
• Thursday: gymnastics and wrestling
• Friday: music classes (choir, handchimes, composer study, and more)

I can definitely say I am NOT concerned about my children’s socialization.  Having all our activities in full swing has made it challenging to do any “extras” when it comes to school work, and then throwing in a couple play dates this week meant we really didn’t do much beyond the basics.

Science

We finished up Our Planet Earth this week, so we’re now two-thirds through the God’s Design for Heaven and Earth curriculum we’re using this year.  We learned a lot about caves during our visit to Carlsbad Caverns back in October, so we didn’t linger on that lesson, just reviewed what we’d seen there.  I also let the boys watch Buddy Davis’ Amazing Adventures: Extreme Caving, which is a great DVD for learning more about the subject from a biblical worldview.

Read Alouds

I must admit I rushed through Ian’s choice of chapter book (Stanley in Space from the Flat Stanley series by Jeff Brown).  Even as a kid, I liked books that were either pure fantasy (like Narnia) or could really happen, and this series blurs that line too much for my taste.  I was glad when we finished it and got to move on to my choice: Pollyanna by Eleanor Porter (no pun intended).  My old childhood copy was so tattered I decided to get a nice new one for our family library.  Ian’s been enjoying it more than I anticipated, and he begs me to read more each time.

Math

I’m really happy with the decision to switch Elijah to Mathematics Enhancement Programme (MEP).  It’s just challenging enough to stretch him without being frustrated.  When I decided to use it with him I printed out all the practice book pages for the rest of the year (from lessons 96-175).  I’ve been stapling together 6-8 pages that I want him to try to get through in a week, and hopefully we’ll have no problem finishing out the year on time.

Ian is still thriving on Teaching Textbooks Math 3, making me glad that we have so many options to choose from to find a curriculum that works well for each child. They both continue to practice facts each day on xtramath.org.

A few final thoughts

We had a lot of good family time this week.  Our church is going through a study on the gospel of Mark, so we’re using our evening Bible time to go a little deeper.  We finally broke out our flannel board set, and the kids had a lot of fun using the pieces the tell the story of Jesus’ baptism.

We also spent a couple evenings playing games together.  Daddy and the boys had fun with Sorry, and then the boys and I played several rounds of our new favorite, Qwirkle, which we also taught Daddy and Grandma.

Upcoming Reviews

We’re enjoying several products right now, so watch for these reviews in the next few weeks:

• The Dragon and the Raven from Heirloom Audio Productions
• Plug n’ Play Hub by Securly (helping provide safe wifi for kids)