2010 2011 Week 4

Weird Unsocialized Home Schoolers has a nifty little Meme called Weekly Wrap-up. I started writing a wrap up post a the end of each week at the beginning of this school year. Posting these wrap-ups on her meme is a no-brainer. This is good because by the end of the school week, I have little to no brain left.

This week we started our home school co-op meets on Mondays. This leaves me 4 days to do the rest of school. I am very glad for our co-op, CWF, (Christian Workshops of the Fox Valley). Each child takes 4 classes per semester and the parent teaches 1-2 classes assists in 1-2 classes and has 1 class off as a break in the day. I had offered to teach a preschool class on Dr. Seuss and a blogging class this semester. The preschool class did not get offered due to another teacher offering a similar class to 1st through third graders. Each semester it seems that some classes don't get signed up for. This was the case for my blogging class as only my daughter signed up for it. So as the semester began I had no classes to teach and 2 to assist in. I wasn't really thrilled about the prospect of not pulling my weight. I shouldn't have been worried. A new family decided to not join at the last minute, leaving the board two assistant positions and 1 teacher position to fill. I now am assisting in 3 classes and have 4th hour off.

Here are the classes my family is taking on a period by period basis.

1st Hour

Bunny Girl : Sketching with Pencil and Pastel

Spider Droid: Drawing

Princess Puppy: Animal Safari

Home School Dad: Toddler Class assistant

2nd Hour

Bunny: Scrap booking

Spider: Robotics

Puppy: Kid's Worship

Dad: Gym Assistant

3rd Hour

Bunny: Skit's and Plays

Spider: Missions Geography

Puppy: Kid's Concoctions (cooking)

Dad: Skits and Plays Assistant

4th Hour

Bunny: Christian Yoga

Spider: Robotics Lab

Puppy: Linking Language through Travel

Dad: Off

The robotics class is part of the First Lego League, a combination of science and problem solving for 8 to 14 year olds (All team members had to be between 9-13 sometime this year). This years challenge is a biomedical one. Spider Droid is way psyched about it. I'll let you know more as I do.

AWANA

Monday makes for a very long week. After CWF we have Awana. This means that besides about 2 hours at home in between, we are out of the house from 9 am to 9 pm. They both began this week. This week was just Awana registration and fun fair. Next week there is no actual club, as the volunteers will have a dry run. We have decided not to volunteer as a family this year. Amy will get some down time at home and I'll set up shop at a bookstore near the church and get ready for my coming week.

Stations

When I started teaching the home school 2 years ago I had a 2 year old running around while I attempted to teach soon to be 7 and 9 year olds. Wherever the 2 year old went, disaster followed. As she got older the disasters got worse. She also stopped taking naps so I was either teaching or clearing.

After about a year I needed a change or a ticket to the funny farm. So I decided to try having little mini activities called stations for princess puppy. Coloring station, reading center station, computer station, and the like. Things have gotten a little better since then. This year history, handwriting and science are done at the table with everyone, So there is less need for stations. She does still have some stations, for example she gets computer station where she uses either Pbs kids or Starfall while I work with one of the other kids. She also has an art station almost everyday where she creates masterpieces like this:

Well I spent a lot of time on CWF, Awana and Stations today. Here is a sentence or so on a few other subjects:

History:

We studied Stonehenge. Egypt and Minoan civilization this week.

Science

We are finishing our study of the skeletal system.

Typing

We started the Mavis Beacon Program this week.

Every 4 weeks I am going to make my updates available at my main blog Home School Dad. Click here to see Weeks 1-4. You can head back to Weekly Wrap-up by clicking here.