Weekly Wrap-Up: the home stretch

Somewhere along the way this year, we got behind schedule. There is no way we’re going to make it eight more weeks of doing what we’re doing (without somebody — like me — going bananas), and we have an out-of-state wedding to shoot at the end of May, so I’ve decided to double-up on what we’re doing with the goal of finishing our school year before the end of May. Technically, we will still have a few more days to make our required 180, but we can do those here and there with different non-curriculum-ish sorts of days. So we’re on the home stretch!

Our studies this week took us to Iraq and to India. We learned a bit more about oil and gas production, read about child labor in the rug-making industry in Iqbal, and read about Muslims in the Encyclopedia of World Religions. In India, we began reading The Biography of Silk, and read a little about Hinduism and Buddhism. We did some map work, read about missionaries in both of those countries, and virtually toured Turkey and India on the Time for Kids website.

Kathryn had a little help with math from Lacy the Wonder Dog. We are convinced that Lacy is smart enough to do math; she just can’t hold a pencil to write.

LacyMath

We’ve all been battling pollen in one way or another. I feel like my throat is three times it’s normal size. Kathryn has had another flare-up of asthma because of it (and another doctor visit this week). Lindsey battled it in a different way: she earned some money by working hard to help our neighbor scrub down all her outdoor furniture, which has been coated yellow for weeks from the worst of the pine tree pollen.

We didn’t do an official nature study, but we did see a pair robins mating in the yard, and have been watching a mocking bird carrying twigs and such into a large holly bush to build a nest. It’s springtime!

I had plans to do our standardized testing this week (CAT), but with Kathryn not feeling as perky as usual, I decided to wait until next week.