Friday Wrap-Up ~ A Banner Week

Our week has been great so far. We have spent many hours at the dance studio this week preparing for the show. This weekend the kids will perform the show four times and then four more times next week. I treat extra busy weeks like this in the same way I treat our vacations. We have three blocks of time in a day (between breakfast and lunch, lunch and dinner, and after dinner). I make sure that one of those blocks is mostly restful so that the other two can be filled with intense activity. This week, our mornings have been filled with school, afternoons with rest, and evenings at the dance studio. I do as much prep work for the day before breakfast so that when we get home from dance we can all truly relax and get to bed. This system works very well for us.

School ~ We did math, language arts workbook pages, and CNN Student News daily. The main focus of our school this week was literature and science.

Photos, clockwise ~ 

• The City of Ember ~ We LOVED this book and can't wait to listen to the sequel. I hope to get it for our trip this summer. 
• Drawbot ~ The latest Tinker Crate box arrived and we started exploring it. Tom Sawyer made a drawbot. There are some great projects to explore next week.
• Poetry Tea ~ We had a quick poetry tea this week and learned about alphabet poetry. Then the kids made one of their own. We had bread pudding, popcorn and strawberries. I love that a poetry tea can be elaborate or simple, depending on the time allowed.
• Solar System Model ~ We made a model of the solar system this week. The kids painted the balls and added lots of glitter to the Jovian planets (Jupiter, Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn). We then measured and assembled the kit per the instructions.

We also explored moon craters and did an impact demonstration with flour and spices (to look like the moon's surface), plus different size stones and marbles (to simulate meteors). Can you see the crater?

If all goes well, we will complete Focus on Middle School Astronomy and The American Story 100 True Tales From American History today. I like to see subjects being checked off the list!

Dance ~ The kids will have 24 hours of dance under their belts by the end of the weekend. Tech week and opening weekend are always extra busy. Here is a sneak peek of some of their costumes. Little Red Riding Hood is a crab soldier, seahorse, and dark water (pollution). Tom Sawyer is a crab soldier. The crab soldiers and seahorses go on several times during the show, so they are both busy and not backstage too much. There are some really fast costume changes for Tween Company this year and they all handled it really well.

Seahorse Costume

Crab Costume

Tom Sawyer (without his crab hat)

Dark Water

Little Red Riding Hood (third from the left)

Rest ~ The kids spent their block of rest time playing on the computer, listening to extra chapters of The City of Ember, and playing on the trampoline. I spent my rest time doing laundry (not really rest) and pulling books off the shelf to plan for next year. I love planning our school years, months and weeks. It was fun to see what I already have and to start formulating a plan.

Happy homeschooling!

Blessings, Dawn