I don't know what it has been about the past couple of weeks, but we have schooled "without incident" and really enjoyed ourselves as well. I think it is a combination of mom relaxing a whole lot and the kids finally falling into a groove, and just being so excited about learning! My husband and I have said so many times over the past several days just how glad we are that we got up the courage to pull them out of school and do this ourselves.
Most of our activities this week have been centered around Fall and Halloween. We did a lot of crafts, recipes, and activities - they can all be found in this post from a link up with The Homeschool Village yesterday.
We did start a great read-aloud this week - Imprisoned in the Golden City, which is another excellent title from our Sonlight curriculum. The story takes place in Burma, and I'd like to extend that somehow next week - we have already finished our study of China, but we can certainly go back and pull in this country as well.
Miss B listens intently and would be happy if I read aloud for hours at a time (She loves a great adventure story, especially if it involves compassionate people). I have been proud of GMan, as well - he is really listening to this story with us. He usually listens and plays, which this week consisted of building the pagodas from the story out of blocks.
GMan is going to be an astronaut for Halloween, and during our trip to the planetarium last weekend we learned a lot more about astronauts and the Space Shuttle. We also learned that the pilot for the shuttle that goes up this Monday is a native of our area - my little guy even had his picture taken by his cardboard cutout at the planetarium! This will be the last shuttle mission ever, so we are eager to watch on Monday. In addition, GMan has been reading a book Living in Space to add to his love of the subject.
Miss B is still in her Harry Potter phase - she read all of the books last spring, and is rereading them now! She will be Hermione for Halloween and I'm thrilled she loves to read the books. I know there is a lot of debate over the books, but when my child reads books this difficult and discusses them with me and obviously knows the difference between good and evil, I am all for her reading them - we all love a good fantasy/magic story and I want to fuel her love of literature. (Ok, I'm off my soapbox now.)
Yesterday the kids picked out their pumpkin at a local fire station - they will carve it with dad this weekend. We had never been to this place to pick out our pumpkin and I must say the selection was great and the money was for a good cause, too.
The highlight of our week was by far our field trip today - if you have never seen or heard of Slim Goodbody you are really missing something!
Hop over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers and visit other people's Weekly Wrap-Up posts, as well.
