Another Week Flies By

Wow, I didn't realize it has been a whole week since I posted. So, to recap what this week looked like...

Sarah was home on Spring Break this week. She spent a couple days with friends down in Wilmington, and then hung out here for the remainder of the week, writing a paper, working on a scrapbook, and catching up on earlier seasons of LOST on the internet. :-)

Monday afternoon Jason went to science class at his friend, Nathan's, house. He loves this time every week. Tammy teaches science for about an hour to Nathan, Jason, and one other boy, using Apologia's elementary science book on Botany. Then they get some play time for wrestling, racing, climbing, jumping, chasing, and all those things important to 9-yr-old boys.

Monday night I hosted a Tapestry Tea here at my house, with 12 ladies in attendance to hear more about Tapestry of Grace, the curriculum I use and love! Actually, TOG encourages this kind of get-together to introduce and explain the curriculum to new users, since it is quite different from most other curriculums out there and can be overwhelming because of its many components. Just seeing the big 3" binder and hearing that it is the material for only 9 weeks is enough to send the faint-hearted scurrying. Explaining the components - the reading assignment list for history, literature, government, history of fine arts, worldview, bible / church history, and philosophy; the additional suggestions for geography, time lines, hands-on activities ; the reproducible student activity pages for 4 different age groups; the discussion outlines; the many pages of teacher notes - helps to make sense of what they are looking at. We ( my friend Sabrina and I) showed the DVD that TOG provided, but honestly, I think that in the future our time would be better spent just going walking through the materials and explaining how our families use the curriculum, and then answering questions.

Tuesday morning Eric had Pre-Calc. at a local community college and Amanda had biology class, which is taught by a homeschool dad who also happens to be a college botany professor. This class meets once a week for 2 hours in a classroom at a local church. After Eric got home, he had an hour or so and then headed off to an American Literature class, another 1 hour per week class for homeschoolers taught by a former homeschool mom/former high school English teacher.
Tuesday night I took Jason to soccer practice and then ran out to a planning meeting for our homeschool graduation ceremony. There are about 20 families participating in graduation this year, and the parents arrange for all the details of graduation - reserving a church, ordering caps & gowns, taking group photos of the seniors, planning a reception following the ceremony, creating a power point slide show, etc. etc. After the meeting, my friend Eileen and I went out to Chick-Fil-A for some girl time - we talked until the place closed and the employees were leaving, and then stood in the parking lot and talked for 2 hours more!

Wednesday afternoon Amanda had choir and I taught art classes in my dining room - first for Jason and a couple of friends, and then for Amanda and a couple of friends. The kids seem to really be enjoying this! I am using the Artistic Pursuits art curriculum, but I also pull some ideas off the internet as well, from sites like Incredible Art Department , Dick Blick , and KinderArt.

Thursday morning Eric had PreCalc again. That afternoon I swung by the trophy & awards shop to pick up awards for that evenings basketball awards ceremony, and also stopped and bought a gift for our incredibly hard working AD, who schedules all the 150 or so games for all 6 homeschool teams! In the evening Jason's town league basketball team played in the semi-finals of their end-of-season tournament, and lost by just 2 points. Afterwards we zipped on over to the Awards Night for Lighthouse Basketball, for which Mark was emcee.

Friday morning was TOG Co-op. We just started Unit 4, "In the Fullness of Time", which is the study of the rise and fall of the Roman Civilization. That night Jason went to Owen's birthday party/backyard camp-out, and Eric and Sarah went to a friend's birthday party/dinner at Chili's!

Saturday morning I picked up Jason from the sleepover, then ran home for him to change into his soccer uniform and headed over to the soccer field for his game.
Can't imagine why he looked like he was sleepwalking out on the field... not much energy in the game this week. Afterwards he went to ANOTHER birthday party. ( are you seeing how unsocialized my poor homeschooled kids are?)
That night Mark and I put dibs on a car (!!) and went out to dinner at Carrabba's with our good friends Jim and Karen.

And today, Sunday, we went to church as a family, and then all took naps this afternoon!!! Mark drove Sarah down to Raleigh to meet her ride back to Boone.
I made homemade tortillas and served soft tacos for dinner.

And we are ready for the start of another week.....