Week 14 - Ready for the new year...

Here are a few highlights from our week...

Week 14 actually took us 2 weeks to get through, but it felt longer than that :/ We had our church choir/drama production (which took up a lot of time the first 2 weeks of December), a few mild cases of the flu, a few doctor and ER visits, AND the normal holiday craziness...I was ready to go crazy! Too much stuff going on...we ended up splitting the school week up and completed a few days of school one week and a few days of school the next week.

I learned from that though. It was crazy trying to do a little bit of school here and there with so much going on, so around New Year's week, we are going to take the entire week off, regroup, get our school room and supplies in order, and just relax a little.

We finished up Twice Freed. It was a great book. All of the books so far this year have been really good. We are looking forward to the next book :)

We skipped art this week. It was about mosaics and we did a lot of that earlier on in the year so we didn't feel a refresher was needed yet.

History

We watched a few videos to go along with MFW Week 14. Don't know that the kids learned much from them, but they were somewhat entertaining. Here is one about the Byzantine Empire and another on Theodora.


Science

We completed a really light week in science. We added the lungs and diaphragm to our paper people, the kids played a lung game, and watched a video about lungs and breathing.

I don't know about you guys, but I am ready to begin a new year. I've never really been much of a New Year's resolution type of person, but LOTS of changes are in store. I am bad about overloading my schedule and pushing to get school in on any spare day we may have regardless of doctor visits, illness, or other unexpected things during the week. What I should be doing is slowing down, taking it easy during those times, being selective with the things I put on my plate, and just enjoying everything more.

There's just something about a New Year that gives you that extra motivation to reevaluate everything and try to make things better.

I hope you all have a wonderful New Year's Day and a better 2014 :)

MFW-ECC - Week 14 - France, Monet, bats, and fall fest fun!

Our Week in Review

Art/Music

Given our last artsy *fail* with the soap carvings, we opted for something NOT dealing with soap. Since we are in France, we decided to try our hand at making reproductions of Monet's, the French artist, Lily Pond instead. The kids had a blast! It took us at least an hour to complete our works of art though (and yes, I got in on the action too), but the kids loved every second of it!

A's

S's

J's

For directions on how to make your our kid-friendly Monet's, click here.

Science

On Saturday, we went to a Bat 101 presentation at our local State Park. We learned all about bats, what/how they eat, where they live, etc... We also learned about caves in this week's required reading in Properties of Ecosystems. We opted not to do the little plant experiment because we are just about plant-ed out right now, so we did a fun little flapping bat craft instead.

Pull the string and the bat's wings flap up and down :) To find out how to make your own flapping bat, click here.

Geography

I was excited to enter into France this week as I have lots of fun things planned for the kiddos. Their passports were stamped, stickers stuck, and in we went. The kids took turns reading the various pages required this week in Illustrated World Atlas. Aleeya is fascinated by all the castle (chateau) talk ;)


For lunch on Friday, we had Ibex quesadillas. The kids loved them!

To find out how to create your own, click here. 


 

Bible

I don't know about the kids, but I am learning so much! Menno Simons' story is very interesting. I had no idea just how overpowering the Roman Catholic church was at that time and the lengths they went to to keep the truth of the Bible from being preached.


We are also enjoying George Muller's story. Man! He was a pretty bad kid when he was younger and even on up into his teenage and young adult years. We were so excited to hear, in chapter 3, how God took someone like George, completely turned his life around, and used him for His will. 

Here are a few other pictures which highlight some of the fun times we had this week!

Good times with mud bricks!

It's-a me-a....Mario!

Howdy Partner!

I'm-a Luigi!

Mario, Luigi, and Popstar Cowgirl

I hope you had an awesome week as well!

(This post has been linked up at 2 Ladybugs and a Lizard and Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers)