Weekly Wrap- Up: The Week We Started our Gameschooling Challenge

We had a wonderful two week vacation from homeschooling while enjoying our holidays.  We spent a lot of time with family, played so many games, and the boys had a great time putting together all their new Lego sets. The boys and I went shopping a few times to spend some of their Christmas money.  The younger boys bought themselves some new stuffed animals and we all enjoyed a nice leisurely lunch out together.  We got a new gaming system for Christmas and the boys have been having a great time playing all their new games that they bought to go with it.  They've done a pretty great job of taking turns too!

We've taken on a few new challenges for our homeschooling year.  We're participating in a Gameschooling challenge to add more games and play to our day.  We're still working on our 100 Days of Art Challenge and we're taking on a challenge to get up, get out, and get moving!



Saturday:  Ian went to work with my husband; they're taking out and repairing a turbine for a hydroelectric plant.  The younger boys and I spent the day at home cleaning house, reading, relaxing and playing games.  We had no plans for New Year's Eve since we prefer to stay at home.  We had dinner and played Phase 10 Twist together instead.


Sunday: We went to my mother's house to get together with our whole family to celebrate a birthday. Then my mother in law came over to visit and we played Trivia Crack and Head Up! together.  Evan, once again won while playing Trivia Crack-- I just don't know how he does it!


Monday: Ian and Evan spent the morning working at the wood shop with my husband.  They made their own wooden swords that they designed themselves!  Alec and my husband spent their evening playing Pokemon Monopoly and Alec was thrilled to finally best his father at Monopoly.



Tuesday: The younger boys had karate and we decided to ease into our schoolwork.  The boys worked in their spelling books, did some reading and worked in their math books (though Alec still prefers to work with Khan Academy).  I did print out this Year in Review sheet for the boys to fill out; it's always fun to look back through the year and plan ahead for the next one.  Alec and I played his new game Sumoku-- working on our math facts the fun way!



Wednesday: We started our day with a read aloud.  I read a bit more in Vespers Rising.  The boys immediately dove into their art project for the day-- Origami! You can read more about that here.  All three boys worked in their cursive books, worked on another page in their spelling books, and worked on some more math.  Ian has been working on his own and then correcting his two pages using the answer key.  Alec worked another 15 minutes on Khan Academy and is just rolling through the work.  Alec read The Midnight Ride of Flat Revere.  Evan and I read a few more chapters in Never Swim in Applesauce and Ian started reading Double Down; the latest Diary of a Wimpy Kid book.  We read Fly, Cher Ami, Fly as the start of our World War I unit.  You can read about the other books we'll be using here.  We also played a few games of GeoBingo.  The boys and I worked to clean the whole upstairs.  Alec and I cleaned out his fish tank too.  Ian settled down to watch Finding Hitler-- a show he is just LOVING.  Ian and Evan headed back to the woodworking shop to make some new swords that they designed and drew up plans for using Design Cad.




Flat Stanley's Worldwide Adventures #13: The Midnight Ride of Flat Revere by [Brown, Jeff]

Roscoe Riley Rules #4: Never Swim in Applesauce by [Applegate, Katherine]

Double Down (Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book 11) by [Kinney, Jeff]

Thursday: We cleaned a bit more of the house and went for an invigorating 2 hour hike with some new homeschooling friends.  Before heading out the boys worked on a bit of schoolwork.  They each completed another page in their spelling books.  Ian worked on two more pages in his math book while Alec worked on Khan Academy.  Evan had a mystery grid to color in and made a picture of a penguin.  We all played around with the Mad Libs for a bit making up silly stories.  Alec read the book The Story of Diva and Flea.  Ian read a bit more in Double Down.  Evan read another chapter in Never Swim in Applesauce and I read another few pages out loud from Vespers Rising.




How was your week?  Did you take a long holiday/ winter break?

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Comments

  1. I love their wooden swords! My boys would love to do something like that. My kids also have all of their Christmas Lego sets put together. GeoBingo looks interesting!

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    1. Mine are definitely hooked. They sat down one night this week and designed another sword each on the computer then went to cut them out the next night. Pretty soon we're going to have a whole collection of them I think.

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  2. Awesome week. I love all of the games. The challenge will be fun. You do such a good job of bring school alive. Any ideas for a book that brings math alive for the junior high/high school set?

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    Replies
    1. My oldest son LOVES the Key To Math workbooks. They're broken down into 3-4 small workbooks per subject area-- measurement, fractions, decimals, geometry, etc. and are set up to be a very simple step by step process. He had been really struggling with traditional books until we found those.

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  3. Awesome swords and AWESOME game challenge. That sounds like something we should do here. We do not play near enough :). Have a great week!

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    Replies
    1. It has been a lot of fun. I enjoy shaking up our routine a bit; especially in winter when we tend to turn to more video games, movies and TV to keep us occupied indoors. It's been great trying out new games and playing old favorites.

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  4. We've been doing more games around here lately, too. I played Risk for the first time last week! And Katie beat me at Connect 4, because I was distracted by my phone (bad mom!).

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    1. I often loose at Monopoly because I am too distracted to sit there and actually pay attention... but I rarely loose at Connect 4. :)

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  5. Nice collection of games! Great post! Thanks for sharing at #familyfriday link up. Please come back next week.

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  6. I love the mix of activities - and the game selection looks great too! The wooden swords look especially cool! My daughter had some inflatable lightsabers for her birthday last week so we've been having some epic battles with those. I think she'll love to make her own when she's older!

    Thanks so much for sharing over at Friday Frivolity :)

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    Replies
    1. Inflatable lightsabers are lots of fun! We have a few of those too.

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  7. So many fun games and books and activities! Phase 10 has been one of our favorite games for a few years, but I'm not familiar with Phase 10 Twist. Hmm.. may have to look for that one.

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    Replies
    1. It's a lot of fun and adds a new twist. We played again this past week with the whole family and even my youngest enjoyed it.

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