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Our main theme for this week has been literally “wrapping up.” This marks the end of our first 8 weeks of school! We’re doing a year round 8 weeks on/1 week off, with 4 weeks off for Christmas-4weeks off in July-and 5 weeks off “as needed,” schedule. So next week we’re off! Of course we’ve got trips planned, our homeschool group meets and we’re having friends over, so it can still be counted as “lots o’ learning!” I made sure the kids finished up any loose ends, math books, bible copy work, printing book etc. Zion finished another chapter book and started reading “The Swiss Family Robinson.“ Just had to give that little shout out since he is six! We finished reading “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” on Wednesday during an 8 hour read-a-thon (which also included other books ;D ) On that day daddy has class after work, and the boys don’t have football practice, so we usually exchange our evening family activities for finishing up any good books we’re pulled into. We still have another book on George Washington that we’ll finish up this weekend.  We also researched our local state representatives, read their websites, discussed our upcoming Governors race and read at www.Whitehouse.gov about the 3 branches of government (since no one there does, tee-hee). We also researched online about the Lcross probe that will be hitting the moon on Friday in search for water. This led to reading about the moons craters, crater names and moon orbit. To celebrate the boys successes they went ice skating with their Grandmother this afternoon. Tonight Jadin is getting his special sleepover at her house and tomorrow Zion get’s his. Jadin and I also started practice this week for our churches Christmas play that we’ll both we in together.

This week, while the kids have been finishing up their goals, I’ve been “writing down the vision” for our next 8 weeks. We’re doing a Unit Study on Leonardo Da Vinci and will top it all off with a trip to PA to visit the Da Vinci science center. Check out http://www.leonardoshorse.org/  You can just imagine how “deep” we can go with a Da Vinci unit study…the Renaissance, Art, Art History, Science/Inventions. I feel like this 8 week Unit could take over our year, I’m excited!  I’ve found a wealth of Da Vinci resources, lap books etc online for free (http://www.homeschoolshare.com ). I love our homeschooling virtual community! I’m ordering several books, I saw on the Sonlight reading list and the Rainbow Resource Catalog, off www.half.com for 80-90% less (some 0.75 cents). I also have decided not to shill out the money for the next Math-U-See levels. Nothing against their product, and I may order from them again. My goal is to homeschool for as little as possible. Jadin is doing really well in his math and I’ve found even more, free, resources online that I can print out for him to meet his objectives. Zion is memorizing his addition facts now and I will bet that after our break when Jadin's working on memorizing his multiplication facts, little brother will be right there with him.

Also, I started another blog. “Keep Your Children” http://keepyourchildren.blogspot.com/  I plan to dive into many issues on there that I don’t always get into thoroughly on here. “By His Grace” is more our family updates with a little homeschooling politics thrown in here and there. “Keep Your Children,” I pray will become more of a resource for families questioning homeschooling vs. public education, womanhood and family topics etc.  I'll gladly take any input and ideas.  It just makes me so sad that 85% of Christian families send their kids off to the world everyday. Of course even though there's not much on there yet, it took me hours of setting up the site and working out the basics.

That is our weekly wrap up. To check out more go to Weekly Wrap Ups!