Several Weeks in Review

I haven't done a week in review in several weeks but we have been doing schoolwork! We are actually at that time of the year where the children are beginning to finish some of their textbooks. My fifth grader finished Teaching Textbooks 5 this week and my 7th grader finished Growing With Grammar 7 this week as well.

We are also getting prepared for standardized testing at the end of April so each of the children has been working through a test preparation workbook. The test preparation workbooks are definitely not a lot of fun or particularly interesting but I do think they are good practice for the upcoming tests.

We completely finished our Ancient Greece and Greek Mythology unit and have been working on our Astronomy unit study. We are making good progress in our last unit study of the year. After we finish our study of astronomy, we will not be starting on another unit study until mid-August.

Over the past few weeks, we made a really neat scale model of the solar system.

Each of the children also made their own styrofoam model of the solar system. Building the models was a fairly big project which we completed over two days.

We also took advantage of the warmer weather and took a hike at a nature center. My boys really enjoyed the hike and my oldest easily finished the hike, often leading the way. I, on the other hand, struggled on the hike as my feet kept slipping on the snow-covered trails!

In art, each of the children completed a self-portrait watercolor painting of who they would like to be when they grow up. This project was completed over two weeks. The first week's lesson focused on how to draw faces accurately. Then each child sketched their drawing. The second part of the lesson focused on painting techniques with watercolors and then the children painted their self-portraits.

(See, there's proof - we do have fun sometimes during school!)

I was very pleased with their final portraits, both for the art itself and the thought that went into each portrait.

Amber wants to be an Olympic swimmer. With her long hours in the pool each week, she is actively working towards her goal!Mason would love to be an artist when he grows up. Hopefully, he can work in a field that allows him to express his artistic side!Lastly, Duncan wants to manage our family business when he grows up. Yes! There IS hope for my husband's retirement someday!

We've been super busy with the end of the short course season in swimming. We spent ALL of last week-end at Gold Championships for our daughter. The week-end before that we spent ALL of that week-end at Silver Champsionships for our middle son. They both performed very well and we are so proud of both of them.

Now, we have this week-end off and then Amber and I leave on Wednesday for an out-of-state meet, USA Sectionals. Amber was thrilled to make the time cuts in the 50 Free and 100 Fly. She will also get to swim two bonus events and be part of 3 relays with the other 4 girls who will be attending from her swim team. USA Sectionals will be the fastest meet she has competed in yet and we are both quite excited. It will also be fun to take a girls-only road trip with my sweet teenage daughter!

That was our several weeks in review! If you would like to read about what other homeschoolers did this week, check out Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers for the Weekly Wrap-Up.