Week in Review Sept 16-21/2013

Wow what a busy week this was and it wasn't a focus on academics at all.

Monday we went bowling with our local homeschool support group. It is a rare treat to have time to attend these functions and the kids were quite thrilled.

On the way home we discovered there was a community health expo in the local school so we decided to check it out. There was several community clubs there plus booths about peer pressure, exercise, healthy eating etc. The kids really enjoyed the booth about the affects of drugs and alcohol and trying on the "beer goggles" showing how various amounts of alcohol affect their ability to walk straight, reaction times etc.

Monday evening was the teens first night back on the range with cadets. A shot so well he earned his cross rifles badge and is one of only 5 in his core to have reached this achievement. The CO was quite impressed with how well A did, especially since last year his shooting wasn't so hot and he has had no practice since then. What he did have was unwaivering belief in himself that he would earn this award. He talked about it everyday over the summer, how he was going to earn his cross rifles this year. And sure enough, first night back he did. CO believes he may be able to reach the highest level of shooting award by March if he keeps it up. A has so many strikes against him and struggles with everything he does but CO says he has the makings of a true marksman. C did not fair nearly as well. She is improving, her shots are in a beautiful line, but she has some work to do on her trigger pull so she shoots true and hits the mark every time.

Tuesday and Thursday morning C participated in her online Latin class. She feels her tutor is a bit of an airhead and is frustrated at the students in the class who at 14-15 do not even know english grammar, basic parts of speech etc. It makes it that much harder to progress in Latin when the teacher has to explain everything right down to what a noun and verb are. C gets frustrated because even her 6 year old sister can recite what a noun and verb are. She is determined to do well in the course however and has asked that I create a concurrent plan for her with LC1 to challenge her further without over doing it.

Tuesday evening was the open house night at cadets. Unfortunately we did not have anyone show up other than those of us on the parent committee and the dignitaries. The media did show up at the end of the evening as the new CIC officer was sworn into the Canadian Forces. The cadets went about their normal evening and we hoped at least the parents of the new cadets would come and see what was going on this coming year, hear about what the parent committee is doing etc but nope. Pretty typical, but still unfortunate.

Wednesday morning A had his online LOTR lit class and for the first time ever he stayed not only seated listening to class but actually participating. Normally I have to send him back to the office repeatedly to stay in his class. In the afternoon I had to attend a Dr's appt. More appts to come in the upcoming weeks.

Thursday we headed for the city to see a specialist for H's leg per his lawsuit. Only we got lost and by the time we found the place the specialist had left. So we have to wait for a new appt to be scheduled. We celebrated I's 6th birthday with gramma and poppa that evening, took advantage of being in town to go to the teacher store and then headed home finally.

Friday was a double field trip day. We went to the Museum in a town 1 hour from here and explored the new exhibits, the taxidermy/hunting cabin exibit (which wrapped up our study of Frontiersmen/tracking/predator/prey with konos quite nicely), and the travelling exhibit. The travelling exhibit was beautiful water color painting on silks. They were hung around the room and soft music and water fountains were running. The silks would ripple in the breeze and give a wonderful feeling of movement within them.



Following the museum we headed to our favorite Border City Petting Zoo and saw the new lemurs they aqcired in July. This was a family farm turned into exotic animal rescue and is so much fun to go to. The owners are a wonderful couple who do their best to care for these animals. The farm animals you can go into their pens to pet them, the exotics you can't. The wife remembers us from year after year (even if we only make it there once a year) and she and I usually have a good talk about the animals, future plans, teaching natural studies etc.

For fun before we got to the museum we decided to take some pictures at the border marker. The city we head to has the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan running right through the middle, so we parked in the Arby's parking lot and stood on the sidewalk in front and took pictures of the kids being in 2 places at one time which they thought was terribly clever lol They all have their eyes squinted shut however due to the sun shining right at them.

Of course after the field trips we zoomed back to town for the kids kuk sool won classes. This week they really got into it and are thoroughly enjoying their classes.

Academically we did finish a bit of work this week but not a great deal. As mentioned above we finished the Konos study of Frontiersmen/tracking/predator/prey. We discussed camoflage and ways animals protect themselves further such as through trickery. We discussed how the devil lies and tries to trick you into sinning and how he can camoflage himself to look like something is good when it is not. We discussed how bad guys can use trickery to lure you into danger and how to avoid those pitfalls. We read more about Daniel Boone, how polar bears hide their noses to blend in with the snow, and then played with th track rubbing plates and track rubber stamps.

A and C each completed a unit in spelling. H completed another unit in math, this one was about estimation and rounding. And of course the online classes and subsequent homework mentioned above. The teens missed their modern classics lit class this week due to my dr's appt but they got their homework assignment for next week and they will be right back in the mix.

So it was a very busy fun week. Next week will be back to being a regular academically focused week.