Unschooling Moments of the Week - 1/7/11

Becky's gotten into making these intricate snowflakes.

This won't be a good review here.  There are several reasons:

1.  My aunt is recovering from her leg amputation.  I spent Monday and Tuesday from lunch until dinner time in Washington DC visiting her and dealing with hospitals.  I'm going again this afternoon.  So I've spent a lot of time away from the house and the kids.  You know what that means?  The kids are running wild and the house is a wreck.

2.  I am fighting my annual, isn't-January-for- hibernating? feelings.  Which means I am running on empty mentally.  Which means my house is a wreck.

3.  My twice-a-month cleaners took a week off, which means, they don't come until the end of January.  Which means my house is a wreck.

4.  I keep forgetting to bring my camera to things, or when I remember to bring it I forget the little memory card that goes in it, or I have my camera with the card but I just plain forget to take pictures.  Or I go to take a picture but then realize my house is too much of a wreck.

The one on the bottom right is cut from paper towel!

However, some highlights:

Poetry memorization:
Mom - Soliloquy from Henry V "Into the Breach"
Josh - wanted to re-memorize/tighten up recitation of Jabberwocky and The Walrus and the Carpenter
Sean - started on The Duel by Eugene Field.
Becky - At the Seaside by R. L. Stevenson

Writing:
Sean started WWE 3
Both Becky and Sean got back to practicing cursive

Breakfast read alouds:
Per my tweaked new schedule - we read aloud Bible History Monday and Wednesday, Thursday we read about Hypatica from Mathematicians are People Too (forthcoming post on that one).

Silent reading:
Becky - still working on My Father's Dragon (she hadn't been reading it consistently)
Sean - finished St. Patrick's Summer Catechism and is now reading Gifted Hands, a Biography of Ben Carson.
Joshua - is reading Augustine Came to Kent by Barbara Willard

We are going to get back into math and Latin for Becky and Sean next week, I've decided.

Josh and I went to Latin class.  Becky went to art.
Josh and I started up again with literature and history after an inadvertently long December break from it.
Josh also started up Algebra II again.  He's almost done with the book.  He's going to focus on it a lot this coming week and hopefully finish!
Josh doesn't start back up with his Biology class until next Friday.

We actually did our Outdoor Nature Challenge on Thursday afternoon.  We went for a walk in a nearby park that we hadn't visited in a long, long time.  The parks consists of different gardens and they've added all sorts of different little sections complete with charming ornaments.  They had a new children's section with all kinds of whimsical animals at the North Pole and another section with teepees and scarecrows.  Yeah, it would have been good to have a camera!  We saw lots of different birds nests.  And we got some good exercise, even though it was cold outside!  I felt very virtuous!

Evening read alouds:
David Copperfield - everyone is starting to enjoy this and they are actually asking me if I'm going to read it to them at night.  We don't get to it more than two or three times a week because everyone in the family has to be present (excepting Hannah).  Rick is still reading the Westmark series by Lloyd Alexander to Becky and Sean.  Not sure where they are in that.  Next week we'll start back up with The Story of the Romans.

Hannah is still home on break waiting to go to Rome with UD on 1/24.
While waiting she:
Got another piercing in her ear
Sewed curtains for her room
Went away skiing for a couple of days in the middle of the week with a bunch of kids from her old high school homeschooling group.

Will started looking for a job.   Well, first he had to go buy new clothes so that he could go job hunting without looking like a homeless person.  He put in an application with Gamestop.  Today, he plans to put in applications with Trader Joe's and Music and Arts.  Will also had his piano jury last night.  Being a bad Mom, I didn't want to face traffic and drive into DC yet again.  Being  18 years old, he didn't really seem to care whether I was there or not.  He said it went great.

I love the crosses cut into the center.  I think they are quite beautiful!