Our Homeschool Journal - May 21, 2011

Hello friends!  I am linking up this post with my friends at The Homeschool Mother's Journal and the Hip Homeschool Hop.  Please check out some other great blogs by clicking these links! 


In my life this week...
We began putting our basement back together! Almost a month after our flooding, we were able to have school in our "classroom" again!  We have not put the foam floor tiles back down, but it was SO nice to have things almost back to "normal" this week.

Classroom in progress

In our homeschool this week…
We have completed our final week of Creation to the Greeks from My Father's World!  It always amazes me that we have learned so much through the year.  We played a game this week to review all of the 37 Greek vocabulary words that we learned this year and the children had fun trying to remember the meanings of all 37 words!  

We have become scholars of Greek vocabulary!

This last week, we studied Alexander the Great and Alexandria.  I am reading aloud The Magic Treehouse Hour of the Olympics.  Instead of creating our own backyard Olympics, we participated in our annual homeschoool group's Track & Field Day on Friday!

We are almost finished with all of our curriculum.  B was excited to complete her Spelling End of Level Test with 100 % accuracy for Spelling Power Level C!  She is done with all of her English, handwriting and spelling and has one more lesson in her math book.  J has one more lesson in his math book and a couple of more pages in his handwriting workbook.  This week, we discussed the fact that he has to continue his Barton Reading and Spelling over the summer and he was upset, but I tried to explain that he has to work on it continuously until he completes Barton Level 8 and then he will be able to read anything! 

Places we're going and people we're seeing...

We went to a matinee of the ballet Alice in Wonderland that B's dance studio performed.  We went to an elementary school to see it and my children were surprised at how noisy and loud the school children were.  The ballet was fun, colorful and fast-paced which made it an enjoyable performance.  B knows many of the older girls that were participating and one of her dance teacher's performed, too.  We also got to check out a new indoor playground at a local mall that was torn down and rebuilt.  It was really cool!  B finished her year of Ballet II at her studio this week.

B in her last Ballet II class this year

Cool indoor playground!

My favorite thing this week was...

Track & Field Day with our homeschool friends is always a highlight of the school year!  We had crummy weather earlier in the week, but by Friday it was gorgeous, sunny, and in the 70's!  We enjoyed the sunshine and being outdoors with friends.  The children competed in races, a three-legged race, long jump, obstacle course, jumping rope, football kick, and softball throw and I helped run the jump rope station.

J and his good friend prepare for the 3 legged race!

The grand finale Egg Toss event

What's working/not working for us...

We rearranged the classroom in the basement and I think this new arrangement will give us more space and still give each child an individual work area.  The children's desks are far enough from each other that they cannot touch!  This is helpful to mommy!

Homeschool questions/thoughts I have...

How do you motivate students to review math facts over the summer? I am planning on using the Times Tales dvd curriculum that I purchased and probably more math games and computer drill.

And how do you motivate students who have to continue remediation, just like going to a tutor over the summer?  I am thinking we will need some rewards here!

A photo, video, link, or quote to share...

S, B, and "the last egg standing" - First Place Egg Tossers!