Week 18 Overview

We all enjoyed one of the many benefits of homeschooling for week 18: a laid back, at your own home, traveling kind of homeschool! Before Christmas break, we worked hard to get ahead in a few subjects. So over the holidays, separately (with our own families), we read, traveled, played math games, played word games, measured in cooking and baking, and experienced lots of other  things together. There are still a few workbook items we will complete from week 18, but it was a fun break to do things differently for a few days.

Here is some of the academic learning we covered:

• Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther (Life in Babylon and captivity, God protects his people even among their enemies, God uses even our hard times for good, and there are godly people who have become famous because of their importance)
• The Rise of Islam, Muhammad, The Koran, Islam becomes and empire, the fight for Mecca, the spread of Islam, Baghdad, Sinbad in the valley of snakes (fiction), The great dynasties of China, Yang Chien, and the Tang dynasty.
• Multiplication and division facts
• Daily math and math fact practice
• Science 3- Inside the human body, stomach, brain, muscles, and bones
• Science 6- friction, oiling machinery, Newton's 3 laws of motion, physics and machines and work, simple machines, weight and mass, moon's gravity and Earth, velocity and stability, and binoculars and night vision cameras.

We are now right in the middle of the school year. 90 days completed and 90 days left to go. We look forward to an interesting second half of the year. We will still be working hard, but plan on letting go of a few traditional learning routines and adding in more real-world learning (cooking, sewing, fishing, field trips, gardening, service projects...lots of good stuff!). We are able to do this for a few reasons. One is that we have made a lot of learning growth already in just a short time. Another is that homeschooling allows us the chance to learn in a variety of ways, as we see fit- not just the traditional textbook and workbook options. Both books and experiences are important in the learning process, so we are happy to try out a little more experience in the next few months.

Remember to save the date for our homeschool banquet this spring: the evening of Friday, April 20th. More to come about this as we get closer. This is always a wonderful evening of showing-off and celebrating our co-op learning and experiences from the year. It seems far away now, but it will be here before we know it.

Enjoy our Week in Photos ~ Week 18 (coming soon!) and we'll be back with more updates in week 19. :)