Learning Curve: Weekly Wrap Up–The Minnesota Edition

Well at least we had some excitement this week! Granted it wasn’t anything I planned, but seriously, how often does Virginia have a 5.9 earthquake?? It was pretty freaky. We had just finished up our school work and I’d gone into the bathroom to start cleaning. Just as I started to spray the shower walls the whole house started to shake and “groan”. I’m sure people who have been in earth quakes instantly recognize it for what it is, I didn’t. I quickly looked out the bathroom window then bolted to the kitchen where the girls were working on chores. They heard the noise, but didn’t pay attention to the shaking (how can you NOT notice the whole house moving???) Then I headed outside to look around, still not realizing what was going on. Yeah, I guess I’m slow like that. About 2 minutes later my elderly neighbor called “Did your whole house just shake??”….The thought popped in (and back out) of my brain, that maybe it was an earthquake…but this is Virginia we don’t do that here, so my next thought was there must have been an explosion, but no signs of that either. Face Book finally clued me in…duh!

So yeah, cramming 5 days worth of school work into 3 days can’t quite compare to such an event. However, since I’m leaving tomorrow for the Women of Faith conference, and since I already had the lesson plans written, I had to….I’m OCD like that.

Geography: Minnesota was our focal point for the week. The girls are still distraught over the Lindbergh baby.

Books we used:

Minnesota; by A. P. Porter
Minnesota; by Anny Heinrichs
Minnesota; by R. Conrad Stein
Minnesota; by Judy L. Hasday
Minnesota, the North Star State; by Neil Purslow
The Chippewa; by Christin Ditchfield
The Chippewa; by Alice Osinski
An American Hero, The True Story of Charles A. Lindbergh; by Barry Denenberg
Charles A. Lindbergh, A Human Hero; by James Cross Giblin

Reading: Olivia finished up “Caddie Woodlawn” and began reading "On the Banks of Plum Creek”. Lindsey is still working through her readers and snatching up books and magazines.

Math: Well this week went much better. It’s amazing how different an area of school work can be when you pray about it every night before bed and every morning before lessons begin!

Spelling: I skipped Olivia’s All About Spelling this week to save some space in my schedule. Lindsey started her first spelling list this week. Her first response was “oh no, I’m too little”…but she soon got over it. I also signed Olivia up for the local homeschool spelling bee preparation program.

Science: We studied various animal facts this week. We learned about classification, male/female titles (doe vs. buck for example), names for offspring and life spans.

Latin: Still working on verbs. This week we focused on “invisible verbs” such as love and adore. Both girls are enjoying our new program. Olivia is still excelling in this area, amazing, truly.

I’m also hosting a GREAT giveaway this week. The End of Molasses Classes – Getting Our Kids Unstuck – 101 Extraordinary Solutions for Parents and Teachers, by Ron Clark. (Seriously, the title is a bit much, but the book is really good.) Be sure to read my review and enter to win here.