Weekly Wrap-Up: The One Where She Meets a Famous Person

 

What’s Working/Not Working This Week…

It started off with the typical, and greatly unappreciated, pre-teen attitude.  Ugh!!!  It came to a head, as it often does, around Tuesday.  But, for whatever reason, this week’s lecture incited some change.  Usually I have to drag her out of bed and she’ll take FOR.EV.ER. to get ready to start her day.  Which always screws up the flow.  And annoys me.  A lot.  But around Wednesday she decided to do things differently.  I’d come downstairs after my shower and find her working on her school work.  A miracle!!!

And her doing that really set the tone for a better day.  She’d get praise and positive reinforcement from me and she’d finish school a lot earlier and have more free time in the afternoon and evenings.  I think she liked that.  We’re still continuing with our no computer Monday-Thursday and that is still helping her focus on her work and not on getting on the computer as fast as she can.  I have no plans to change that rule anytime soon. 

 

In Our Homeschool This Week…

There was a lot of science going on this week.  On top our normal study, Apologia’s Exploring Creation With Anatomy, we have two science items that we’re reviewing.  Thankfully, we like science. lol

We finished up our experiments and projects for Apologia.  We were supposed to check our pulse and heart rates and such.  For whatever reason, this freaks her out. lol  Funny how she did fine with the blood typing project. lol  Then we made a stethoscope out of rubber tubing, a small funnel, and a balloon.  Mackenzie was very skeptical that it would work.  Boy was she surprised when it did!

One of our review items also covers the human body, so we worked on a project from there.  Here’s a peek but I’m not telling you anything else until the review.

 

We are still enjoying our China study.  We just finished Young Fu of the Upper Yangtze and have started The House of Sixty Fathers. We have read several books by this author and, with her books, you either love them or hate them.  We’ve read some of both. lol So far, we’re really enjoying Sixty Fathers.  Yay!

To spice up our China study we played a couple of games that game with Sonlight’s Ancient China kit.  The first was called Piaji.  It’s similar to POG, which is played here apparently.  I haven’t heard of either game. LOL  Each player has 10 round disks made of cardboard.  You’re supposed to flick your disc at your opponents discs (which are scattered on the ground) and flip them over.  If you flip it, you keep it.  If you don’t, your opponent gets to keep yours. 

It’s really, really hard.  We didn’t play a competitive game, we just tried to flip the discs and we were only successful a few times. I even managed to catch a successful attempt on camera.  Good thing, otherwise we might not believe it really happened. lol

 

We also played a game called Tui-U which means “fishing.”  It’s played with this cards/domino like things.  The best was to describe it is as a complicated of “Go-Fish.” 

 

In Our Life This Week…

Well the weather was BEE-U-TEE-FUL this week.  So we took our friends out to see our “land.”  And it was exciting because they had staked off the area for the house.  Even the small things thrill me.  I can’t wait until October when we can move in.  Of course I took a picture for you. Do you like the SOLD sign?  If you look closely you can see the orange spray paint and, if you have really good eyes, maybe the wooden stakes with orange flags.  We let the kids “play in the yard” too. lol

In even more exciting news, Mackenzie got to meet someone she’s always admired….

The Pioneer Woman!!  She was so excited I thought she would pass out. LOL  Boy is P-Dub lucky to have met such cuties!!  And if that wasn’t enough, she then got to meet me.  Probably the best day of her life. =o)