Weekly Wrap Up-- summer schedule 5-27-16

So we have begun our much lighter summer school load.  While it may seem like there is a lot we are doing, please note we take a much looser stance on school during the school months.  We mainly concentrate on continuing Math and History and just reviewing the other topics making sure we don't lose any ground.

HISTORY -- We are continuing to study WWI and I put together the lessons myself using library
                      books, movies, videos and other resources that I find.

MATH -- Both kids have moved up to their new Math U See books
                Zeta for Mariofan (first we are going to look at Life of Fred decimals book)
                Algebra for Firedrake

ENGLISH -- Working on individual projects for reading, writing, reviewing grammar, vocabulary      
                and spelling

SCIENCE -- Biology for Firedrake and we are using EO Wilson's books
                      Periodic table for MarioFan and then we will move on on to simple machines (I am still
                      planning my resources)

SPANISH  -- Continuing to review Spanish so we don't forget what the kids learned at coop

GEOGRAPHY  --  I really dropped the ball on this topic last year so I want to really address it this
                       summer.  I finally broke down and bought 2 books off amazon and we will be looking
                       though them and working on a few assignments.

PSYCHOLOGY--Firedrake is very interested in learning about psychology and has on her own been
                watching some crash course videos on the topic.  We just discovered Coursera is doing a                                                psychology course and she wants to do it, so we are going to work on a .5 credit class
               for this topic that we can include on a high school transcript.  

ADDITIONAL ACTIVITIES

Piano lessons both kids

Fencing class for Firedrake

MarioFan signed up for 2 weeks of camp (one week in June and one week in July)

Volunteering at the World Bird Sanctuary for Firedrake -- Firedrake is averaging 4 hours a week

Firedrake will be visiting my parents for a week on her own in June since she wasn't interested in any summer camps

I am still trying to round up some art lessons for Firedrake for the summer with her coop teacher or possibly looking elsewhere as we aren't sure he is available this summer yet.



We will also include lots of fun trips to the pool, zoo, amusement park, beach and other destinations, all of which are still being planned:)


This week we had a field trip to the Islamic Center in St Louis.  We missed several of the religious field trips this spring to to coop but we hope to do the next few schedule this summer.

Due to the request of the facility I can not show any additional pictures.  we learned a great deal
and as always we enjoy learning about other's beliefs and discussing as a family similarities and differences to our own religious philosophy.

Weekly Wrap Up 5-20-16 8th Grade Graduation!

Saturday our local coop had a graduation ceremony for all 8th graders.  My daughter was selected to perform her favorite piano piece I Giorgi by the Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi.  My parents drove up just to attend the ceremony and to celebrate with us.  Here are a few pictures from the ceremony.  I can't believe next year I will be homeschooling high school!!

My parents drove up for PA to attend the graduation ceremony

There were 21 graduates and it was a lovely ceremony 

Firedrake was selected to play a piano piece 

My husband and I both went on stage to give our graduate her certificate  and a short bio was read for the audience.

Afterwards there was a small reception of cake and punch for all the families to get together.  A photo booth was provided for the graduates:)

MarioFan also performed his play with his drama class.  The play was called the 'Hysterical Story of the Trojan War'

MarioFan played Zesus

All the kids did awesome and the play was a huge success.

Coop is officially finished and within the next month most of our extra curricular activities will stop which will free up a lot of time.  I think we are all looking forward to a little slower pace around here:)

Weekly Wrap up 5-13-16--Last day of Coop

Firedrake graduates tomorrow from 8th grade!  She is now officially in 9th grade, my how times flies.  My parents are in town so they can attend the Graduation ceremony with us, so I have a full house.  I won't have any pictures until the next weekly wrap up.

This week was the last week of coop I tried to talk the kids into letting me take their picture for the last day but they weren't interested:(

We attended a Cardinals baseball game.  Firedrake opted not to go as she isn't much of a baseball fan.

Unfortunately the Cards lost:(

Firedrake has worked two 4 hours  shifts at the World Bird Sanctuary and has come home very excited! volunteering 4 hours a week for the rest of the summer and we will see if she can continue once school resumes.

She was excited because she helped feed the birds and is learning all about the wild birds.  Won't be long before she knows more than her parents:)

Kids got their reports cards from coop and got A's in each of their four classes!I am very proud of them as this was the first year where they had weekly homework, quizzes, mid terms and even final exams to do for classes.
Firedrake was taking Literature, Spanish level 1, drama and watercolor painting
MarioFan was taking art, intermediate Spanish, computer, and drama



At home we are learning about the Progressive era in US history and comparing it to the Guilded Era.

Learning about the legislation that was passed  during this time

Comparing the the two eras...at some point I hope to have the kids make a poster to hung up in our school room.  We  watched videos from Crash course on the Guilded age and the Progressive age. We are also reading several books, researching the eras on the internet to get a better understanding how one era lead to the other.

My own project this week has been to fixed two of our kitchen chairs which had broken seat bottoms. Luckily while I lived in England a very dear friend  (Waves to Rebecca) helped me recover my dining room chairs and that gave me the needed skills and confidence to tackle this project!

This was not an inexpensive kitchen set so I was quite annoyed when after only two years the seat bottoms were breaking.

After removing the seat bottoms and removing the fabric I could see the chairs were made out of inexpensive pressed board.  The chair frame was still intact.

I bought some 3/4 inch plywood and drew the shape of the seat on it and my husband cut them out.

Luckily I could salvage the foam as it was not in too bad a shape.

I also carefully removed the fabric and was able to save it to reuse.

Once the new boards were cut I placed everything together to make sure it would fit properly

Then began stapling the foam, fabric to the new seat bottom.

The new seat back 

And now my chairs look as good as new.  I am thinking about redoing all the chairs soon, since the original seat bottoms are very poorly constructed.

Weekly wrap up--Art Show 5-6-16

The kids have officially met all our state's homeschooling requirements last week! YAY!!!  We only have 1 week of coop left and then we move to our lighter school summer load!  To be honest we are already slowing way down on school week so we can enjoy the outdoors a bit more.  Next week my oldest, Firedrake will be participating in a 8th grade Homeschool graduation ceremony, sniff sniff.  We are so lucky to have a inclusive homeschooling community near by, although it took me ages to find it!

This week we are mostly concentrating on wrapping up Coop classes, finishing coop projects , taking final exams and preparing for graduation.

Fire drake sent in an application to volunteer this summer at the Wild Bird Sanctuary that is near us and this past weekend went to their orientation.

She is looking forward to learning more about the birds and the other small wildlife animals they have there.  She will be volunteering 16 hours a month for the summer and while we hope this can continue during the 2016-2017 school year it  will depend greatly on her school work.

We also attended the homeschool art show this week.  Firedrake entered one piece.  MarioFan declined to enter a piece.

Firedrake piece.  She worked really hard on it and is self taught and learning graphic art on the computer.

There were over 150 art pieces submitted from K to 12th grade.  I took a few pictures of some of our family's favorites.

We all loved this one, done by an 10th grader and it won second place

One of the photography photos and I was surprised that it didn't win 

I think this was a first grader 

A mother board cake which won an honorable mention ribbon

Called Dumbledory, my daughter loved it.

This one won best of show and first place for 12th grade.  Titled The Queen of Jakku--Rey

They had a lovely presentation and every artist won a participation ribbon.  The art pieces were judge the night before the art show by local artists and ribbons were provided for honorable mentions, third, second and first place.  The night of the art show the kids all got to vote and there were ribbons provided for those who won based on the kids vote.  It was very interesting to see that what the kids thought was the best in each grade.  It was often not what the art judges thought!

Firedrake won Honorable mention in her grade!

Another great and busy week has flown past!  Hope you had a great week too.