Weekly Wrap-Up: Children Around the World

We’re traveling (virtually) in Asia now, in our “Children Around the World” program from WinterPromise. The girls’ travel notebooks and passports are getting quite full! After Asia, we have Oceania/Pacific Islands, and then we are done. That will still take about seven or so more weeks.

This week in our geography study, Kathryn labeled the major landforms and bodies of water on the Asia wall map, and we’re “visiting” Saudi Arabia, which necessitates learning about Oil and Gas. We’re also learning about the persecution of Christians in other countries, with the help of these two websites: KidsOfCourage and PrisonerAlert. We’ve started reading Iqbal, the true story of a boy who became sort of a poster child against child labor.

One day this week, we babysat for a friend, and Kathryn and Lindsey did a great job at entertaining the little ones. Having a toddler and a preschooler in the house livened things up for a while! I consider that a little lesson in home sciences. 😉

Lindsey finished her Life of Fred pre-algebra book last week, and was dreading what sort of evil math I might have for her after that. She was relieved when I had her start Money Matters for Teens, and says she likes it. She’ll do about two chapters each week, which should have her finishing it up right at the end of our school year. Since she has been focused on doing odd jobs to earn money for a mission trip this summer, I think she has a keen interest in the topic of money management. Kathryn is doing about four lessons each week in Horizons 4, but there is a Money Matters for Kids book, too, and she thinks she’d like to do it. I might get it for her to work through during summer, as she loves to have a little schoolwork throughout our “off” months.

For creative writing this week, the girls’ assignment was to write instructions on how to care for a pet (in this case, Lacy) while we were gone on an imaginary trip; the point of the assignment was to be very specific.

Kathryn finished up her little handiwork project, a stamped cross-stitch monkey. Lindsey is close to being done with her butterfly cross-stitch project.

Kathryn finished reading Alice in Wonderland, which she said deemed simultaneously “cool and creepy.” She’s also been reading through the rest of the Anne of Green Gables series I don’t have a specific book assigned to Lindsey right now, but she is enjoying reading a couple of novels by Ted Dekker, who is one of Ken’s favorite fiction authors.

Although we have been greatly delinquent in nature studies, the springtime is inspiring us a bit. This week we studied one of our garden flowers, columbines. We decided we’d study songbirds next week.

Honestly, my mind is already on next year. I’m doing research, trying to decide what will work best for us. Getting through the next couple of months seems like it will take forever! There are quite a lot of things I want to change about our curriculum, our schedule, our attitudes, and our school days in general. But we’ll get there!!

Jamie

Wife, mom, grandma. Introvert who finds joy in good books, sunshine, and authentic conversation. Fitness enthusiast and personal trainer. Often seen with a steaming mug of tea in hand.