Friday 2 October 2015

weekly wrap up 10-2

This week things did not run quite as smoothly but we still got a lot accomplished!

For my daughters  Spanish coop class they were to go to a local Spanish festival in the city to earn extra credit.  Since my daughter is working on a country study (Nicaragua) we went to see if we could find any items from that country.  I have to say I was so disappointed in the festival, so much so I don't have a single picture from the time we spent there:(!  We struggled to find anything for Firedrake's Spanish speaking country and finally settled on a Nicaragua soccer jersey.  She is going to be doing a presentation so we thought she could wear that shirt.  We also bought two very small string bracelets that she can show although neither were made in her country but we know this type of bracelets are often made by school girls there.  Considering the large Chinese and Japanese festival we recently went too this festival was a dude in our eyes:( .  But the kids went and earned their extra credit so that is good.

Our other field trip for this week, a visit to Jefferson Barracks, was cancelled.  I was disappointed as it was to enhance our Civil War studies that we are hoping to wrap up next week.  It is to be rescheduled for next month, hopefully it will fit into our schedule.

So did you get to see the Lunar eclipse?  We were so excited as the weather the whole week had been clear skies and beautiful.  This is what rolled in on that day...

Yep clouds and they stayed the whole evening...again we were all disappointed to miss the big event.  Watching on the computer is just not quite the same

I still brought out the Moon pies that my Husband bought as a surprise for the kids to nibble on while we were suppose to be outside watching the eclipse...that sort of made the kids ok with the nasty clouds rolling in:)
My daughter and I took another painting class together.  I love when I can find these classes for half off!

Firedrake working with her Dad on biology Lab trying to figure out how malaria and sickle cell traits are passed on in each generation...I think my husband is taking over the biology labs from now on as it is easier for him to explain since I am not really keeping up with the reading instead concentrating on MarioFan's science

MarioFan is continuing to work on electricity and we pulled out a new snap circuit where he built a walking insect.  This was much more successful than last weeks activity!

He also pulled out his new circuit boards and did a couple more  products

For history we are watching the last few episodes of Ken Burns Civil War documentary and reading Rifles for Watie which is a book on the civil war.  Firedrake is getting quite a bit out of the Ken Burns series but MarioFan is really struggling with it as finds it very dry.  I also want to have them watch the movie Lincoln and possibly the movie Gettysburg but I am not sure the kids will want to sit thru a 5 hour war movie and we did recently watch the movie Glory and Gods and Generals.  I may have to watch it with my husband at a later date:)

Coop classes are going well, although Firedrake had a minor melt down at the amount of homework her Spanish and Literature class requires.  After a few tears we sat down and stream lined her work at home and again talked about time management skills.  Unfortunately this is still an ongoing process and we are still working on it.  These two classes need to be worked on daily and if she chooses to miss a day's assignment she can quickly get overwhelmed.  She is still learning how to break down assignments to make them more manageable each day.  She just looks at the list of what needs to be done that week and panics.  Once we sit down and break it down into more manageable sizes she has no problems getting the work done.  While the minor crisis is over I do expect to have a few more this year until her time management skills are up to parr.  It is hard for her to not have as much time to do what she wants to do this semester but as my husband and I keep telling her school is her job at the moment and if she wants to go to college these skills must be learned now in order to have a better college experience.  I don't want her to be the type to procrastinate on her assignments.   

That is our week in a nutshell, next week we have two volunteer activities scheduled!  My husband and I are celebrating our 16th wedding anniversary!

2 comments:

  1. I think we all spend our entire lives working on time management skills. Looks like a great week. I want to do a painting class and haven't been able to yet.

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  2. My parents are missionaries, and Nicaragua is the country where their heart is. They go several times a year. Also, my sister contracted malaria when she was on a mission trip to Africa, and nearly died. She has made an almost full recovery now, and is applying to med school this year! Just thought it was neat that I could relate to several of your topics.

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