Weekly Wrap Up - April 29th

So I decided to go back to my usual "story mode" of my weekly wrap up. Some weeks we don't cover all subjects and then I get anxious that I missed something. I know our eclectic homeschooling works for us and the kids learn all they need to, so stressing myself out about unnecessary stuff seems counter-productive.

Saturday was the Great Cloth Diaper Change. Joshua took part (probably his last year unless I can squeeze him into a cloth trainer next year) with his twin friends.

Joshua in Magic School Bus

Brianna has been reading a lot with Olivia. Olivia really likes it (cause I guess if it's not reading with mommy, it's not "school" lol). Joshua loves all things books so he's joining them often too. Olivia has also been enjoying learning to spell words with ASL. I figured she's learning both the sign language alphabet AND general spelling. BONUS!

The girls have been helping my niece, Tanya, build a lean-to. Brianna spent Sunday helping another homeschooling family trim trees and doing general yard work.

Joshua decided he wants some preschool. He has started his own cutting practice whether anyone wants to do school with him or not.

On Thursday, the girls took part in Cornwall's City Clean Up Week.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and The Practical Mom

City Clean Up Week

Every year, the City of Cornwall runs a City Clean Up Week where various groups get together to clean litter and debris all around the city. Every year, the girls and I take part, cleaning the 2 streets in our neighbourhood and a portion of the bike path along the waterfront.

I was actually fairly impressed with how little garbage we picked up this year! Last year we had a full over-flowing garbage bag, the year before we had 2 bags! This year was barely a half a bag. Yay for cleaner streets!

World War II and The Holocaust

Brianna got a gift card to the local book store for Christmas. She's been enjoying these Dear Canada books so got another one, Pieces of the Past, for her collection. The book is about a little girl who immigrated to Canada during the 2nd World War. It talks about her struggles with her new life and about the event of recent past that lead her to where she is now.

Once she was done reading it, not surprisingly, Brianna had a lot of questions about the Holocaust. As we do not censor real life from our kids, I answered her questions as best as I could. As usual, my answers weren't enough. She wanted more. So I found her a bunch of documentaries and based-on-fact movies (since she's a great visual learner).

A couple of favorites:
The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. It's a fiction film based on historical fact about a young boy who's family moves as his father is commandant of a concentration camp. The boy, exploring, meets a young Jewish boy on the other side of the concentration camp's fence. A very moving story that shows a child's side of the Holocaust.

Schindler's List. Another fiction film, based on fact. This one is a little mature for most kids as it is more graphic than most. It is about a German business man who essentially turns his factory into a refugee camp for Jewish people to save them from Auschwitz. Brianna came up with lots of great questions with this one.

Auschwatz: The Nazis and The Final Solution. This one was a surprising like. I thought after a different one that she watched, she would be bored with this one also, but nope! She was full of questions and wanting to rewind to show me various clips. This one is fairly self explanatory as being about Auschwitz and The Final Solution (which Brianna was thoroughly disgusted with).

Weekly Wrap Up - April 22nd

Sunday and Thursday went up to a glorious 22C (72F) and we spent the days outside. The kids examined all the new growth of our perennials and Joshua dug in the dirt and everyone got thoroughly dirty.

We had a very laid back quiet week (read: mom didn't feel like school). Spring Break? Yes! That's what it was, Spring Break! The kids certainly didn't object. We all learned a bunch of new sign language thanks to friends and family helping out with getting Joshua's Signing Time back ofter Netflix cancelled it.

Learning still happened

I got a bunch of sewing done

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and The Practical Mom

Weekly Wrap Up - April 15th

Joshua has started asking for food occasionally with the word "eat"! It is long-sounded out as he learned in speech but it's something!!

Math: Brianna's on her break week (a couple days of Khan Academy though) while I do marking of her series of test to see where she needs the extra help. Thus far, some things have been obvious (areas I knew she needed help), others have been surprising (areas I thought she knew or swore she would need help with, it was the opposite.

Olivia worked on measuring in inches and centimeters and 3D shapes. She had fun finding 3D shapes around the house.

English: See History.

Science: We finally got to make our cell model! The girls were super impressed that playing with candy was schoolwork! After that we worked on learning about the skeleton. Olivia was amazed that we have over 200 bones in our body.

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History/Geography: Brianna is a wee behind on her Mystery Class so she can finish up on her Holocaust study. She is now done with her videos and is working on her essay. She has a bunch of notes and library books to back her up.

French: Olivia has been attempting to create sentences with the words she has picked up from Brianna.

Phys Ed.: Brianna biked once this week, and went for a long (2 miles) walk with Olivia.

By the end of the week yet ANOTHER bug hit my house and kids were dropping like flies. I am SO over all the colds this year!

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and The Practical Mom.

Weekly Wrap Up - April 8th

Math: Brianna finished up the last of her tests to see what she's missing. Next week she'll kinda have a week off, only doing Khan Academy a couple times (while I mark everything and see what she needs extra work on). Olivia finished up learning about halves, quarters and thirds and is now into measuring (I love that Math Mammoth uses both Imperial and Metric!).

English: Olivia has been working hard at her reading and seems to be picking out new words every day. I'm quite impressed!

Science: Due to this course requiring a lot of me reading out loud and a sudden hacking cough hitting me mid week, we did very little of our biology classes.

History/Geography: Brianna is finding her new series for WWII very interesting. While watching Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution she is actually asking questions and wanting to show me stuff, unlike the last one (World War II: In Color), where she kinda just zoned.

French: Olivia loves to listen to Brianna do her Rosetta Stone and DuoLingo and try to copy what she's saying. Of course, Brianna's speaking sentences and Olivia's just picking out words, but learning is learning, right?!

Phys Ed.: Brianna did one general workout and ran twice.

Other: Joshua did his last speech therapy until August. Because we're in a small city, our Speech Pathologists are WAY over booked (that and way over used but that's a whole 'nother post!). So his therapy stops while another group of kids are seen. We'll reassess in Aug (and since we KNOW he'll need more therapy), then re-start seeing the therapists.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and The Practical Mom

Weekly Wrap Up - April 1st

Math: Olivia got quite frustrated with needing to learn to hold a ruler and use it correctly for drawing shapes. "It keeps moving!!"

English: Olivia completed her Phonics book. Now we will again start 1+1+1=1's You Can Read! program.

Science: This week we started our big Human Body/Biology unit. In order to give Brianna a sneak peek at the high school level courses, her side of it will be quite intensive. This week we covered the Immune System, Skin, the Endocrine System and started on Cells.

History/Geography: Closer and closer to the end of Mystery Class! Only 2 weeks left and Brianna gets to turn in her guesses.

French: Brianna has completed the first half of Year 1 in Rosetta Stone French.

Phys Ed.: Brianna ran twice this week.

Linking up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers and The Practical Mom