Week 7: The Monopolies

The highlight of this week was the addition of The Men Who Built America series.  We watched the first three episodes and covered Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, and Carnegie.  Even my Level 1 group enjoyed the shows!

My oldest wisely suggested we play Monopoly as a "hands-on" accompaniment to the lesson.  Oh, he knows his mother well.  Of course we can spend the afternoon playing a board game!

At our house, we constantly lose game pieces.  We have fun choosing replacements too.  The turtle is my son and the rubber fly is me.  I'm obviously visiting my child in jail.  Funny times, I tell ya.

After much luck, I showed no mercy to my children once I secured the four railroads, Park Place, and Boardwalk.  With my earnings from the railroads, I built houses and then hotels.  And won easily.  History lesson complete!

Sixth Week Slump

This is right about the time homeschoolers start to feel the slump.  Studies become routine. Routine becomes boring. The excitement of the new pencils and new books wears off.  I have the slump.  I think I got through Day 3 of Week 6 before I needed to take a break.  The straw that broke this camel's back wasn't even homeschool related: a coyote killed one of our geese. I don't even like the geese, but I know my husband does.  I took Thursday off teaching to preserve some harvest and spent Friday, Saturday, and Sunday switching bedrooms around...and now we should be on Week 7, but....


....I've been way to busy with kids activities to catch up.  I lost the TV remote. My schoolroom is a mess of unfinished projects. The baby won't give me a break.  Six weeks was all it took.

BookShark Science 7: First Project, a Dancing Robot!

But never fear! The books haven't gone anywhere, the schedule is there for when I can dig myself out, and we will pick ourselves up where we left off... Besides, the local school district is having half-days for parent/teacher conferences, so this may be a good time for me to evaluate how we are doing!

Charlotte's Web

We are just starting Week 6 across all levels.  I am amazed at how well we are staying on schedule this year and I have to think it is all because of the 4-day BookShark schedules.  I've done the 5-day Sonlight schedule (and other plans), but this one seems to keeps us going. 

My 12 year old son exclaimed, "What? First you read history to us, then I read history to myself, and then you read some more history stories out loud? That's too much history!"  And that is the end of Week 5: an introduction to the Civil War, a biography on Harriet Tubman, and starting Across Five Aprils.  He'd much rather do science, not only because science is far more interesting, but having a strong background in science is far more important career-wise than a strong background in history.

Lucky for him, BookShark 7 Science came out.  I ordered it the first day, received the first five weeks of the Instructor's Guide, the books, and the science kit.  I think he has already read the robotics book, cover to cover.  I can't wait until Friday (experiment day) when he finds out he gets to build something!

Charlotte and her babies

My Level 1 group seems to need catch up on Thursday and Friday thanks to our ultra-busy activity schedule Monday through Wednesday.  We are in the midst of Charlotte's Web as our read aloud.  Most kids turn vegetarian and become animal rights activists after their first exposure to Charlotte and Wilbur.  My kids, however, have become spider rights activists and refuse to let me vacuum down the cobwebs in the corners.  They add that the cobwebs are perfect decorations for Halloween and why take down the natural webs and replace them with fake ones?  Why indeed?