This Month at Great Peace Academy: February Edition
I feel like I blinked and February is over. Not only is it a short month, but I feel like we haven’t been home for much of the month. With adding in more activities by family choice, it’s made us busier than ever. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not at this point, but, it definitely is bringing us closer as a family.
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So… this month at Great Peace Academy
I’ve watched this month fascinated with my young man, as we’ve purposed to spend more quality time together. Gone is the little boy who once was unsure of himself. He’s confident, he’s funny, he has an incredibly beautiful heart, and I’m ever more honored to be his mama.
Family Time This Month
For family time, this month we’ve shared some fun, exciting things with each other.
- Family TV – a few months ago we began watching the 80’s version of Macgyver on Amazon Prime. So this month we watched several more episodes.
- Family Movie Night – We went to see “Is Genesis History” an apologetic look at the earth and historical evidence for why the Genesis account makes the most sense. It was a limited showing premiere. It was really well done. It did so good at the box offices across the country that they’ve added two additional limited showings, March 2nd, and March 7th. So if you missed it the first time around, I highly recommend you take the chance to see it. Arrive early, we had to sit on the front row.
- Family Fun Night – We went out for a game night at the local arcade. We played Skee Ball (Young Man’s choice) and we did video racing. It was fun to watch my 13 year old, behind the wheel of a virtual car. His dad won, I won, and my son won races too.
- Family game night x2.
- Civitas
- Monopoly – This time when we played our Young Man, won! He beat both his dad and I, and he really, really beat us bad! It’s a bit embarrassing how badly we lost to our 13 year old boy. But really, we shouldn’t be too surprised because he is quite intellectually gifted.
- Mom & Son Time – Today’s the day for this mom/son date. We’ve been so busy that I think I’m going simple. We’re stopping by a local park for a quick picnic and walk. I really just want a chance to talk with him.
- Dad & Son Time – They went to an NCAA Basketball game… Kansas Vs. Oklahoma. KU won.
Family Kindness Projects This Month
We were honored to offer babysitting for a young couple at church this month so they could have date night. As it turned out, they also had to attend a funeral earlier in the day, so we offered to take their twin 3 y.o. boys for both times. We had a blast! They are the cutest little boys and they spent most of their time doing, well, boy things. Playing soccer in the backyard, playing with our Keva Planks, and playing with LEGO Bricks.
Family Hospitality
One of the things we wanted to add to our regular routine is opening our home for hospitable activities. This month we invited 2 couples over for game night. We played Dominoes, mexican train, laughed, and got to know each other better. One couple has 2 kids a boy and girl, one just a year older than Jonathan, and the girl a couple of years behind him. They get along well together and decided to login and play Minecraft on our Private Minecraft Server.
Date Night This Month
Date night, doesn’t always have to be flowers and candlelight. This month, beloved wanted to take me to a basketball game. Keep in mind that he does sports broadcasting. I think he wanted to give me a peek behind his work. It was KU vs. WV (my home state team). I’m a Mountaineer at heart and it was fun getting to sit just 5 rows behind Coach Bob Huggins and watch the game unfold. In the end my team didn’t win. I didn’t enjoy the opposing team fan atmosphere. But, I did enjoy spending time with my husband and I enjoyed watching the game.
I think however that we need to find a sport where we both can be on-board with who we are rooting for. I’m thinking Kansas City Royals baseball will fit the bill.
In our homeschool this month…
Since Young Man mostly works independently of my help he moves along at a fairly quick rate. I’m constantly surprised by things he randomly tells me. Sometimes, at this stage, you dont’ even realize what all your child is learning. I mean, I know the basics of what he’s doing, I know what portion of government he’s studying, or what area of math he’s exploring. But, the nitty gritty
Bible
Well apparently I didn’t order enough of the Bible Study Guide for All Ages pages for finishing out the year. So while we are waiting for the next set to come in, he is continuing his Bible Journibles, Romans, writing of the scriptures. Over the summer he did both James and Philippians. I find it incredible how patient he is when writing out the scriptures and it gives him a very good idea of what it might have been like for the scribes of old.
Civics
Uncle Sam & You and all of the resources from Notgrass Publishing are s excellent for teaching students to work independently. He starts his school day with Bible and immediately progresses to Civics, which incorporates Literature and other subjects as well. He manages the entire thing himself, and I simply check his work. I update my planner based upon what he accomplishes each week, typically 4 to 5 lessons depending on what we’ve got going on.
Uncle Sam & You is set up for 4 weekly lessons, with a 5th day of doing a self-led holiday study. Sometimes we do those, and other times we just move on ahead, or find an outside activity to do. Progress through the material can go fairly quickly when
Science
Remember how I told you about First LEGO League. Last week they went to regional championship round. There were 43 teams competing for 2 chances to go to FLL World competition in St. Louis Missouri. To be eligible for the world round, they had to finish in the top 18 of the Robotics Table Games Competition. From those eligible the project presentation, core values presentation and their robotics presentation scores would factor in to determine which teams would move on.
It was a fun, yet exhausting day. The Show Me Legos team was prepared for their presentations and to the best of their abilities were prepared for their robotic table games comps.
They went into their presentation judging and the parents and coaches were left to wait until they were done. It made me so nervous not knowing how they were doing. When they came out, they all said, they felt they did well.
The robotics table competition was a bit more challenging for our eager engineers. The teams compete in 3 rounds and their top score from the 3 rounds is used to determine their ranking. Our team volunteered to run an extra round because the groups were unevenly matched and for a competition to happen their must be 2 teams running at a time. We knew going into the volunteer round that the score wouldn’t count for our team but that the other 3 rounds would.
Wouldn’t you know it, that round, the uncounted, volunteer, round was the teams highest scoring round. The other 3 rounds had difficulties during the table runs. Which meant, that the team would not be in the top 18 qualifiers.
Knowing that, we waited patiently at the end of the day for the award announcements. There are many awards given for all areas of the competition. Team Show Me Legos was awarded the Project Presentation award demonstrating their ability to fully explain their project to the judges.
Math
He’s progressing nicely through Algebra 2. We’re still using Khan Academy because it’s what works for us. I like having the video tutorials to instruct him because, let’s face it, I’m not qualified to teach him this level of math. He likes the interactive interface and is constantly taking math formula notations in his notebook. So that he’ll have a ready reference to those whenever he wants them. They remind me of Da Vinci notebooks.
Literature
He finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. He’s already asking for the second in the series so I’m thinking a trip to the library is in order.
English Language Arts
He’s doing well with his willingness to do his language arts. So that in and of itself is a huge accomplishment. He’s always done well with grammar, and he seems to be enjoying the note taking, even if reluctantly. He has begun writing a story. His own unique story and one not prompted by me. It’s something he’s working on in his spare time, so that makes my heart happy.
Music
He finished out his last lesson with his current piano teacher which is a bitter-sweet time for us. We really like her and she’s ignited a fire for his love of piano playing because of the challenges she has presented to him. He’s currently playing Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in C and Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca.
We had a preliminary lesson with his new piano teacher. He’ll be joining the Music Art’s Institute next month. This institute offers a different approach to piano lessons than what we’ve done in the past. No longer will his lessons be of a hobby nature. They’ll be geared toward learning piano for a potential professional approach.
His teacher was impressed with his form and fingering. She said he was doing excellent in that regard. She was surprised that he had fully memorized the Mozart’s Rondo alla Turca in just 2 months, and feels that he will be ready for his first competition in April.
Yes, that’s right, I said, competition. This institute participates in adjudications and competitions on a regular basis. All of which allow him to grow in his performance skills, and thus, possibly can earn him scholarship for music arts.
Here’s a short preview for you of him playing Prelude in C Major.
For Me this month…
I’m super excited to have bought myself a brand spanking new, professional grade, Dell laptop. My old one was smashed a while ago and the cord wouldn’t stay in to keep it charged. I’ve been using my husbands OLD laptop and it’s finally reached the end of it’s use. I tried to use my desktop but it’s processor was so slow that even the smallest task I could do took me 3 times as long to complete. That’s simply not a good way to be productive.
As a virtual assistant… it was not reasonable to work that way.
So this work from home homeschool mama is happy happy, with my new laptop.
On my blog this month in case you missed it…
I’m a week behind on my marriage series because of the computer issues I was having, so I should have the next Marriage Moment up this coming Friday.
What’s been happening in your homeschool and life this month? I’d love to hear how your family is managing life as a homeschooling family. Share your monthly happenings with me in comments. What was the highlight? What was your biggest frustration?
This post is part of iHomeschool Network’s Homeschool Mother’s Journal – March.
Available 3-3-17 you too can join the journal by clicking above and following the journal prompts.
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