Weekly wrap UP 9/27/19--Update on School work and Acceptance Letter!

It is diffenently  harder to write a post about homeschooling when your kids are in High School.  I guess that is why it is so hard to find bloggers at this stage in the homeschooling journey.  My kids are practically independent with the school work.  My oldest doesn't need any assistance with her dual enrolled college classes and seems to be balancing work and school just fine.  Now that she has a driver's license she is even able to get to some activities on her own leaving me with much more free time!

MarioFan (10th grade) is doing the majority of his work on his own with me overseeing the work and guiding him.  He needs the most help with writing as that is not his strong suit.

 MarioFan is continuing and enjoying working with the 42 electronic program.  I have been very impressed with the support team.  They have been quick and responsive to any questions we have.  That said 95% of the time MarioFan is doing this program independently.

 For US history we are working on the French and Indian war.  We are using the CC course but are adding in a few additional resources.

This is an excellent video that explains the war and how it made George Washington the leader he was during the Revolutionary War.  Although it does not paint him is the greatest light when it comes to dealing with the Indians after the war:(

We are also doing some additional readings outside of Crash Course

 For Literature we have begun our first selected reading.

So many homeschool curriculum include this book but I have to say it is a tough read and the writing style is not fun.  Since I haven't read the book I am reading it along with MarioFan.  Neither of us are fans of the book and we have been researching more and more about Ben Franklin and he was not very kind to his family in many ways.

Spanish classes have begun for Co-op -- however for several weeks we have been utilizing an online tutor to keep pushing actually learning the Spanish language on MarioFan.  I don't just want it on his transcript I want him to actually learn the language and hopefully converse in it one day.

We have been utilizing an online Spanish tutor to help push MarioFan's language ability.  He has been working on translating Spanish newspaper articles.  We are also having a weekly tutor help with more conversational Spanish as this is an area that is missing from our co-op experience or at least hard to do only one day a week.  We felt he needed additional Spanish tutoring.

 For Music theory/history and drumming we are using 2 great courses videos-- the boys aren't too impressed with the videos so far and we are finding them drifting off.  So we decided to make a quiz for each video that the boys have to complete.  It is our hope they will pay more attention, sigh...
We are also trying to learning drumming!

I had the boys decorate their bucket drums as a fun first day activity  

As you can see my idea of decorating and theirs is very different,  sigh

they did however enjoying learning how to hold  drum stick and we are beginning to practice stick work.


MarioFan is taking Kung Fu at Coop for his PE credit.  it is a small class of just 4.  MarioFan is not a huge fan of exertion so he is unsure of this activity so far, lol

Last night we got a call from one of the two colleges Firedrake applied too and they have accepted her application into their program!!!  They said a letter will be arriving shortly, fingers cross that a scholarship will be offered to help us with college costs next year.

Weekly Wrap Up 9/13/19 -- Pokemon and airplanes

We are in the thick of schooling but still finding a few fun things to do.   Our local science center often does a first Friday of the month activity with a theme.  It is free to attend and this month it was Pokemon.  My kids are huge fans so we spent the evening there.  It was crowded and since the kids are at the age to wander around by themselves I found that I was mostly just a seat saver for the activities they wanted to do, while they explored the booths.

Kids played Pokemon trivia--they were disappointed they didn't win, but some of those questions were HARD

Sat in on a lecture of Pokemon biology which is always entertaining.

 Then we watched a fashion show.  I have no idea who any of these characters are.

The kids and I lasted about three hours before the crowds started to get to us so we left.  It was a busy night.  Next month is Stranger Things.  Kids are still deciding if they want to go.  MarioFan is not a fan of the show (too scary for him) while Firedrake has seen every episode:)

We belong to a Co-op which is just for planning and attending field trips in our area.  Usually the first few weeks of school there are tons of field trips to go on and then it subsides in the colder weather.  We try to take advantage of a few of them if they relate to our school. They plan dozens of trips every year and we have been to most of them in the five years we lived here.  But occasionally there is one planned that we haven't seen and we go even if it is not officially a school topic.

We haven't been to the Boeing facility and found out they have a small museum.  MarioFan decided he wanted to go 

the majority of items on display are models of the history of Boeing planes, missiles  and space  shuttles

Of course the man that started it all

They had a neat time line of how planes and helicopters have evolved over time. 

Seeing the inside of a cockpit 

space capsule

not a lot of room in there 

gemini

The model of the first joint US/Soviet collaboration in space prior to the building of the space station

This is one of the few jackets that has actually been in space and worn by a follow St Louisan 

The first Presidential airplane that FDR flew in.

The many different Air Force ONE's over the many years. 

MarioFan loved the museum and it was a nice way of taking a break from all our high school studies for the day!  

Weekly Wrap Up 9/13/19 -- Family day at Husband work

Every year my husband work organizes a day where family can come in and see where they works.  I think we have gone almost every year.  This year was the first year I could go into my husband office as usually it is off limits.

They had a mini pet zoo there

They had lots of activities for the kids to do, but mostly for the younger kids.  This was the only thing MarioFan wanted to do cause the other stuff was for the younger kids:)

supplied lunches for the family

lots of military vehicles the kids could explore

It was a beautiful day and we got to meet a lot of my husband workmates.  The kids are getting to the age where they may not want to go anymore as most of the activities were for the smaller kiddos.

Weekly wrap UP 9/6/19-- Official School begins

We school year round and over the summer the kids have done a bit of school but it is more relaxed.  Now however School is officially started as College classes began last week and this week Coop classes began.

Firedrake driving off to her first day at College as a dual enrolled senior high schooler.  She is pretty excited and nervous to be on her way to adulthood.

Firedrake said after class on her first day they college had therapy dogs in the lobby for the students to meet to help with the first day of college jitters:). She loved it!

Firedrake is already noticing a drastic difference in how college professors teach. She is not at all impressed with her Math instructor (which is a worry since this is her one area of struggle).  We just  discovered a rating system online where other college students have rated instructors and this one was only average.  We didn't know that before classes began:(. We will have to utilize it for the next semester and hope we can find a better Math professor.  She has only attended two classes so far but says the Math professor doesn't teach anything, hopefully as the class goes forward it will get a little better for her.  For now I am strongly encouraging her to utilize the free math lab at the college to aid her in math class.  The Literature class, on the other hand, she enjoys.  This doesn't surprise me as she loves literature, her only complaints was she rented a college textbook for $60 and the instructor said on the first day of class they probably wouldn't use it.  Another lesson learned is not to buy or rent any textbooks until after the first class just in case they don't really rely on the assign textbook.  

MarioFan has begun his classes at co-op this week!  He has be been doing some of his 10th grade work at home since August so we are on a full load course this week.  Next week all the extra curricular activities begin.  It is going to be a very busy year once again.

For MarioFan's Official first day of school we went on a field trip to Junior Achievement.  They had a homeschool day for high schoolers and it is very educational.  We have done the middle school side before but this is the first time on the high school side.  It is run a bit differently.  I only have a few pictures as I was not needed as a volunteer so spent most of the time in the lobby.  I snuck in a few times for pictures then relied on MarioFan to tell me what went on.

the large business room

MarioFan was assigned a job at an entertainment center

The high school section is set up a bit differently rather than concentrating on job skills the kids were introduced to budgeting and more life skills.  They were given $2000 budget and needed to plan out their living budget which included housing, car, utilities and extras.  the goal was to have $ left over and not go over.  MarioFan was happy that he ended up with $36 left over but said several kids in his group went over budget.  He said the only way he managed to stay within budget was to forgo buying a car and taking public transportation to his job and to college.  This is a great introduction to the reality of having to make choices when an adult in order to live within your income.


Next week is the official start of Co-op class for MarioFan!