Week 6

This week deserves a "I survived week 6!" t-shirt. 

Kaelee and I are REALLY working on time management skills. Her very laid back, mellow approach to life is fabulous. However, it means every assignment can drag on for HOURS. And not productive meaningful hours, just distracted, all over the place hours. 

We decided that next week we are going to try a "timer approach." I'm going to pick up some timers during our Walmart run this evening. We are going to set the timer for one hour at the beginning of each subject. Her goal is to finish WITH time remaining so she can study and review the material. 

Xman is reading Adam of the Road. This week we got to the conflict which he says makes the book much more interesting!

He was excited to be the discussion director in Literature class this week. That meant as we prepared for his class, he had to record possible discussion questions to lead his group in answering. He took his role very seriously and did a great job.

Each week he writes a "reader response" paragraph for class. I'm really proud of how well thought out his responses are. Here is his choice for this week:

        My favorite scene is when Adam goes back for Roger. Roger and Adam were both looking for Nick in Guilford.  Adam sees Nick and then runs off after him. By the time Roger could turn his head, Adam was already gone. Adam chased Jenkin, who had Nick, for a long time until they got to the ferry. He then jumps in and swims until he falls on land. When he wakes the next morning, he goes to look for Roger.

 This was the most interesting part of the book to me. I think Adam went back for Roger because he is caring and did not want to leave his dad behind. It would have been easier for Adam to keep going after Nick, the dog. I enjoyed reading this scene because it was exciting.

We are working on Lyndie's napping skills but she's not a fan.

This week Kaelee is studying trees in science. She chose two topics to investigate - "how do you identify trees?" and "what is one tree that is significant to me?"

She used the Field Guide to Trees of North America to research how you identify different types of trees.

For her significant to me tree, she chose the Banyan Tree. When we visited Legoland, we saw one within the portion that used to be Cypress Gardens.

In history, Xander created a salt dough map of the Byzantine Empire focusing on the location of the Dead Sea and other key features.

A big part of our week is baseball! Xman is enjoying playing for the Angels. He had two games this week.

His biggest fan chose to wear her new batgirl costume to the game to cheer him on!

We found this treasure at our local thrift store - new addition for recess!

 We make at least one trip to the library each week - this week we went 3 times. Yes, 3 times. My readers were racing through their books!

Lyndie does school right along with us - she's a natural homeschooler!

For Science this week we talked about how perfectly we are made. Xander was challenged to tape 3 of his fingers together on both hands and go about his daily activities. How did this change how he approached his daily chores? I heard the word chores and immediately thought - wow, I love this experiment. Find the vacuum!