Weekly Wrap Up 1/25/19-- Mid year review of progress and birthday!

This week my oldest, Firedrake turned 17!!!  OMG I still remember the baby I brought home they grow up so fast.  We are very proud of the young lady she is becoming.  Next year she will be dual enrolling in college!!

For her birthday this year in leu of presents she ask people to donate to a charity that she chose and she raised over $200 said charity.  She came to this decision on her own and I was so proud of her to state she didn't need anything but others did, so she wanted the money to go to those in need.  

I always do a mid year progress report to keep me accountable and identify any areas where we are ahead or behind and determine if any changes need to be made in our homeschooling.  Since we just passed our official 100 days I thought I would take a look at where we are.

Firedrake 11th grade Public school (part time) 7 credits 

Completed her 1st semester with A's and only one B!  We are noticing she need to up her game on studying skills which we are working on.  This semester in school she is taking the following courses:

Geometry
Chemistry
AP literature
American Government (last semester she took Economics)
Mythology (last semester she took Drama)

At home she is continuing on:

Japanese with a private tutor

Piano with a private tutor

Driving--Working on getting her driving license by springtime

Volunteering monthly at animal shelter approx. 4 hours

Cooking one meal a week and improving her kitchen skills

We are making a family decision to send Firedrake to community college for her Senior year next year and are working on getting her enrolled at the local college.  We meet with the admissions coordinator next week to begin the process.

MarioFan is 9th grade 7.5 credits

Algebra -- Teaching Textbooks we are about at the  1/2 way mark ---- ON TARGET

World History -- We have completed unit 3 of Crash Course World history.  We are doing additional readings as needed.  ON TARGET

Literature -- Lightening Literature at co-op with friends.  ON TARGET

Vocabulary -- Wordly Wise -- 1/2 way through the book.  ON TARGET

Grammar -- IEW Fix it -- 1/2 way through the book.   ON TARGET

Health -- Lifetime health by HOLT on chapter 15.   AHEAD OF SCHEDULE (WOO HOO)

Biology -- Biology of Life completing book 2.  ON TARGET

ART and art history --  Co-op with friends.  ON TARGET

Piano -- Private tutor weekly.  ON TARGET

Spanish 1 -- Co-op class.  ON TARGET

Programming -- Completed Arduino online course with Out schooling-- COMPLETED
I just purchased a new program called 42 Electronics which is a high school program for electronics and python programing.  I am just waiting for the program to arrive so we can delve into it.  I am hoping this programs works for us, fingers crossed

Volunteering -- 4 hours a month at a local animal shelter continuing. CONTINUING

Cooking -- attempting to cook a meal one night a month we started off strong here and then have fallen off the wagon, sigh.  Keeping it on my schedule in the hopes we can get starting again!

This is the second year in a row where we are on target with everything -- WOO HOO!  It is so much easier when the kids can do independent learning so when life hits you with appts, emergencies and the kids can keep going on their own without me.  That has made a huge difference in how we can progress with our schooling.  It was a lot tougher when the kids were younger.  So hang in there if you find yourself a bit behind, as I often did when the kids were younger :)

Weekly Wrap UP 1/18/18. Mary Cassatt and Les Miz play

For Art we are learning about Mary Cassatt-- and for the first time this year I completely forgot to take pictures of the art project:(

some of the books we looked out to get to know the art better

learning about her art and life.

For the art project we did Monoprinting and it was messy, hence the reason I forgot to take pictures.  we had rollers, paint, papers flying everywhere.   We also try a little bit of styrofoam printing as I could not find any linoleum blocks cheap.  Not one of our better art assignments but they can't all turn out great!

Here are a few mono printing videos we looked out before attempting it ourselves







If you try this at home you have to work fast because paint (at least ours did) dries out quickly so even our finished projects were less than spectacular :(.

Our local Co-op was able to get student priced students to see Les Miserables at the Fox theater in the city.  Tickets were only $60 a piece so we grab four and went to the theater one evening.  My husband was suppose to go but ended up out of town for a business trip so I took a friend with us.  It was an amazing night.

We are getting back into the swing of schooling.  Firedrake did excellent in public school and is now starting a few new classes, which I will document a bit later:)

Weekly Wrap Up 1/11/19-- Visiting family

Over the Christmas holidays MarioFan and I drove to my parents house which is over 12 hours away.  I am not a great long distance driver so for me this was huge!  My husband and Firedrake join us a week later by plane and we all drove back together.  We took our dog Luna with us in the car and found a college student to house sit and care for all the other animals at the house.

Luna loved my parents property where she could run and chase the squirrels

unfortunately she also like to roll around in deer poop too.  

Kids spent two afternoon baking various Christmas treats

Luna spent most of the visit sitting next to my Mom ignoring me.

Christmas morning she got her very own stocking from my parents

she took to the toys right away and by the end of our stay had chewed it apart and removed the squeaker toy inside.

My favorite photo of my parents on Christmas morning:)

Christmas dinner

We visiting the local Museum and say the train exhibit, which they do every year

For New Years eve the town drops a man holding a cigar.  The town was built on cigar making way way back.  We did not go out to see it New Years eve as we had to head back home the very next day

family picture of the kids with my parents!

Since the kids stayed up to greet the New Year they were both tired on the way home 

We made it home safely 

Public school resumed this week and we are slowly getting back into our normally hectic schedule.