Weekly-Up: The One With a Model

In My Life This Week:

This week we had some improvement with someone's attitude.  We still have a ways to go but there has been progress.  Baby steps.

In Our Homeschool This Week:

We were busy, busy, busy this week.  We had some hands-on activities, lots of review items, plus our normal activities.

We are still studying China and Mackenzie got to try her hand at some Chinese calligraphy.  We received a really nice set with our Sonlight Core F.  She had a lot of fun with that.

  

Every few weeks we read a chapter from Exploring Planet Earth.  This week we were reading about Columbus and his attempts to reach China.  I learned something very interesting about Columbus. One would think that will all the years that I studied him in school, that there would be nothing left to learn.  I mean we were blasted with Columbus projects every year around Columbus Day. lol   Well, apparently one of the biggest reasons that he wanted to make this voyage was because he had a huge passion for missions.  Never in all my years of making Columbus crafts in school did I ever hear this.  Fas-cin-ating!!!  I'll add this to my ever-growing list of things that I didn't learn in school.

We were studying the heart in science and today we made a model of the heart.  Out of graham crackers, marshmallows, and frosting.  Fun!!!  It wasn't an exact model.  It was mainly to help her recall the parts and the route of the blood.  It was pretty cool!

 

What's Working/Not Working: 

Mackenzie had to do some extra review this week for grammar and math.  She was making ri-donk-u-lous mistakes because she was rushing without paying attention because she was anxious to play on the computer.  I don't think she'll be doing that again.  Not only did she have to review those  botched lessons everyday for a week, we also instituted a new rule that states that computer play is no longer an option on school days.  She is now allowed to play on the computer only on the weekends, starting on Fridays if her school is finished.   Ha!  And double ha!

My Favorite Thing This Week:

Normally I don't care for the guinea pigs because I have issues with creatures that have more (or less) than two legs (butterflies, ladybugs, and dragonflies being the exceptions).  But this morning they were cracking us right up.  We let them run loose in Mackenzie's room and they had a grand old time.  At first they were cautiously exploring but soon they were running wild.  They would run with their legs stick straight and then randomly pop straight in the air.  Like popcorn.  Or a seizure.  It's actually called popcorning and they apparently do it when they're happy.  I tried to get it on video but they weren't cooperating.  I did get this picture of them acting out E.T. though.