December Notes

My weekend has no notes. I remember family time, advent activities, and Christmas-y fun. Then we rolled into a rainy Monday morning. We waded through new math lessons together, read books, and made different cardboard wheels to try on a box we turned into a small car for science. We also chatted about engines and gears, which brought us to the end of our mechanical engineering portion of our unit. Next up: Aerospace Engineers.

In the evening they painted pine trees or wreaths as part one of an art project. These were left to dry and be completed on another day.

Tuesday the temperature dropped slowly all day. We worked through the morning. In the afternoon the kids had piano lessons. In the evening everyone played games.

Wednesday we got to work pretty early on school because mid-morning we knew we would be interrupted by an appointment. After that we finished up school with lots of science. Today for the elementary group that meant discussing aerodynamics, flight, how a heavy airplane can fly through the air, and jet engines. We made paper airplanes in different styles and tested their speed, glide time, and distance in flight. We used a balloon, straw, and rubber band to see how airstreams move.
In the afternoon it started to snow.

For advent we finished our painted trees. Some kids chose to use stickers for ornaments, others used chalk pastels, and a few even cut scrapbook paper into ornaments. We hung them up around the house.

In the evening the youth had various activities, including caroling and family history work.

Thursday we had a slow and steady morning of learning. One fun thing was that Joseph and Emma were assigned a recipe in their language arts curriculum to bake today. It was damper bread, and went along with one of the stories they have been reading. They decided to make the bread in the evening to go along with soup for dinner. It was different than yeast bread, a heavy soda bread that almost tasted like biscuits.

Mason had his last physical therapy appointment for a few months. We are taking a winter break because until he has the next leg surgeries a lot of what we were going to physical therapy for cannot be done. His bones are not ready for that surgery and won't be checked again for 6 months. Instead of using up all the PT visits covered by insurance, we will continue PT at home working on core strength, and save the PT visits for after his next round of bone surgeries. Or until we find something we need help with before then.

Our advent activity was a simple reading.

At 9pm I started listening to a new book - Atomic Habits by James Clear. I headed to bed an hour later and then picked the audio book back up at 5am Friday morning when I got up for the day. It's a fascinating and enjoyable book, and a great way to prepare for Winter Break.

During Winter Break I spend time evaluating how the first half of the homeschool year has gone. I prepare lessons for the rest of the year, making any course corrections individuals need. Break also holds the beginning of a new year and I am a fan of setting goals to act on for the new year.

The school day went smoothly. Around the usual subjects we also had interesting discussions on the Olympics, presidential elections, underwater explosives, honeybees, and house sparrows/bird migration habits. It is now afternoon. Rebekah is napping, kids are playing, and I'm going to check on the pizza ingredients in the house and decide if we need to make dough or if we have something in the freezer (English muffins) to use as the base for homemade pizzas tonight. Today is also Emma's birthday, so we may bake something for dessert, as her party was earlier this month.

Happy Friday!