We ended up taking a three-week hiatus from school during Christmas. It wasn't what I planned, but sickness leading up to the week before Christmas made it a bit inevitable.
During our last week of break, I used some of my down time to do a little Professional Development and started working through several books. I am really loving Project-Based Homeschooling, and also Teaching from Rest, and When Children Love to Learn. I haven't wrapped them up yet, but they have some really great nuggets of wisdom between their pages.
Last week all of our public school friends went back to school, and we finally got back to our books as well. I was a bit apprehensive since we had a rough start in the fall, but it turned out to be a really good week for us.
Monday afternoon ended up being a bust because we were stranded off the mountain due to road closures because of an overturned garbage truck and construction, but even so, we were graced with lovely weather and ended up spending a couple of hours at a playground with friends instead.
Tuesday Jack put together a rolling cart for me. By himself. He really takes after his daddy in this!
That night we met Daniel for dinner and then took the boys to hear the Harding University Chorus at a local church. At the conclusion of the program, they invited alumni to join them in singing “The Lord Bless You and Keep You.” It was kind of emotional to stand up and sing that song with current students. This song spans generations and is tied to so many memories from my time at HU.
On Wednesday Jack and I did our weekly hike (hoping to get back to this more consistently). We tried our hand at geocaching and it turns out we are terrible! It took us forever to find the cache. But we didn't give up and eventually found it (with some extra clues!).
Thursday is Jack's co-op day at the Y, and his age group started swimming. He was pumped to be back in the water. Thursday night he started basketball and we can tell a tremendous difference from last year. He even managed to score the first goal of the game with an assist from his good friend. They were both ecstatic.
Friday was cold, but the boys spent an hour outside in the sunshine, playing in their hammocks and kicking a soccer ball around.
We finished The One and Only Ivan, and spent part of the day taking a deep dive into the world of apes, and Africa. We read several books about Jane Goodall, watched a National Geographic documentary called The Urban Gorilla, and helped count animals via Zooniverse and their Wildwatch Kenya program.
For writing, Jack had to write two acrostic poems. He can struggle in the creative department because he is so literal, but I thought he did a great job with both.
As for other reading, we started The Secret Chicken Society and The Playbook. We are still reading 50 Ways to Be Happy, and Words that Built a Nation, and so many other books (we currently have 76 items checked out from our library).
Jack is learning to tune the Ukulele he got for Christmas, and is starting to pick out some super basic chords thanks to an app. He will be starting monthly group lessons next Sunday and he is really pumped about that.
We ended our week with a quick family hike to Green Gorge. The week started out sunny and warm and ended cold and wintry, and we had a great week back in our everyday routines.
