Week in Review - Drug Awareness, Sight

Overall, this week was quite productive, even though we had three afternoon doctor's/dentist's appointments this week. I truly dislike having afternoon appointments that interrupt our school day but they simply cannot be avoided sometimes. I always try to schedule appointments as late in the day as possible, but not so late that the appointment will conflict with the swim team practice schedule. Next week has several afternoon appointments as well so I will have to try extra hard not to feel stressed and snarky!

We finished our Drug Awareness focus and learned about stimulants, depressants, and addiction. Overall, learning about addiction was quite sad. I definitely think my children have a better understanding of the dangers of smoking, drug, and alcohol abuse now. One picture from the free curriculum that we used from NIDA will stick with me for a long time. The picture contrasted a brain scan of a normal person's brain with a brain scan of a 20 year heroin user. The link will take you to all of the color pictures for Module 6 - the one that particularly disturbed me is the last picture in the linked document.

After finishing up with Drug Awareness, we spent the rest of the week studying our eyes and perception. To go along with this theme, I have been reading Helen Keller by Margaret Davidson to the children for a read-aloud all week. While many read-alouds have flopped here, the Helen Keller story has held all three of my children's vivid interest. I can barely read the book without choking up. Helen Keller's life is so inspiring - what an amazing person. My daughter even commented that she had absolutely nothing to complain about with the read-aloud - high praise indeed!

We watched a bit of a hodge-podge of human body related videos this week as I needed to return them to the library. All were enjoyed and were found to be educational - Bill Nye is a big favorite with my children! I almost always learn some new tidbit from the videos as well.

• Bill Nye the Science Guy - Eyeball
• Bill Nye the Science Guy - Smell
• Bill Nye the Science Guy - Digestion
• Bill Nye the Science Guy - Forensics

My youngest has been enjoying the human body related age appropriate books that he has been reading each week throughout our unit. This week, he found the following titles in his workboxes:

• Seeing by Rebecca Olien
• Take Care of Your Eyes by Don L. Curry
• A Good Night's Sleep by Sharon Gordon

All of the children are moving along well in their independent work. Amber (7th) finished the first unit in Rosetta Stone Spanish this week (me too!) While we both have learned a lot, we need to spend more time working with the audio companion outside of the computer lessons.

Duncan (3rd) is almost completely finished with the grammar program he started last year, Growing With Grammar 2. Right now, I'm not quite sure if I will start him directly into Growing With Grammar 3 or wait until next year. I have decided to hold off on the decision for a while as I have found a lovely way for him to practice grammar skills that is Thanksgiving themed from Fortunately For You Books.

Mason (5th) finished his assigned reading, "Gregor the Overlander," and convinced me to let him read a Goosebumps title for school next. Since I don't have definite unit-themed book choices for each of them right now, I am somewhat flexible. I found a free book unit for "Goosebumps Deep Trouble" so he is currently thrilled to be reading a Goosebumps book for school. He regularly reads Goosebumps titles on his own so reading one for school is a treat for him.

Lastly, our weekly art lesson was a highlight of our week. This week, the focus was on media exploration and the children completed Rainy Day pictures. As usual, their art projects turned out great!

First, they painted their entire watercolor paper with water so that it was quite wet. Then, they added splotches of rainy day colors - primarily blues and black. They used a variety of techniques to spread the paint over their papers for a fabulous result.

While waiting for their paintings to dry, they drew and cut out shapes from black construction paper to make a rainy day picture. They spent a lot longer designing and cutting out their shapes than I thought they would but the pictures were still not quite dry when they were done. Mason ran upstairs for me and got my hairdryer and we quickly finished drying the paintings with the hairdryer.

Amber's (7th) painting most closely resembles the model given to the children by the teacher in the Atelier art video. I adore her little people with umbrellas and her excellent use of perspective to make some people look close and some people look far away. I also enjoyed that she used some shades of pink in her painting.

Mason's (5th) shapes were far more surreal in nature. I'm not sure I would want to be on the street during his rainy day! As usual, his creativity and artistic nature shines through.Duncan (3rd) completed his painting with his usual joyful exuberance. His painting has quite a story behind it filled with trees that are blowing away in the storm and lost frogs. Another week down - the days are going by so quickly this year! If you would like to see what other homeschoolers did this week, check out the Week in Review at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.