This Week… New Year Games

Winter Learning

This week Great Peace Academy is shrouded in snow. It is a beautiful site to behold, but with the snow came cold, bitter cold, temperatures. Today I woke up to 2 degrees. Little Man hasn’t even asked to go out and play which is surprising. He’s not one to play outside much, but he usually asks for at least one venture out.



We celebrated New Years with a quiet family night. Jonathan and I played chess and backgammon. He is getting better at chess and I had to really think this time round. I guess those chess club instructions from Coach Kyle are proving fruitful. Can I just take a moment to say what a pity it is that you can no longer turn on the New Years celebration in Times Square and watch a family friendly version! It really is disgusting what they will put on TV these days and call it “family friendly.”

He is a natural at backgammon, this was the first time we played and already he could see that there was strategy to be played. I look forward to watching him grow in this game.
We did school this week, at least 2 days of it. Here’s our line up.

Bible

Continued into 1 Samuel with the Israelites asking God for an earthly king. Through Bible Study Guide he was able to see how they were trying to be “like all the other countries” and that this is not pleasing to God. He learned that God desires for us to seek after Him and to turn aside from worldly things. I love how beautifully BSGFAA weaves the new testament principles into the Old, in this example he looked at 2 Corinthians 10:2.

“But I beg you that when I am present I may not be bold with that confidence by which I intend to be bold against some, who think of us as if we walked according to the flesh.”

Seeing the parallel between God’s desire in the Old Testament as well as the new to not walk according to the flesh he can see that seeking God’s will is for our own best good.

Language Arts

Worked on a bit of grammar, writing and his proofing book (affiliate) “A Sentence a Day.”

Math

Khan Academy changed up some things again. This time they have added in grade levels. You can still just work in the World of Math, or you can choose a specific grade level. On the one hand, I like that I can choose a specific area to work on with the click of a button, I like that he can go do mastery challenges and be more specific about them, although the program limits the number of master challenges per grade level per day. That’s frustrating to me and Little Man, because he had mastered most of those grade levels in previous years and repeating them is redundant. I know, I know, I could just have him skip it all and only work at the level he needs to be doing, but he doesn’t like seeing the empty boxes in the Mastery Summary. So he’s working to fill those in. On the other hand, the grade levels is just one more sign to me, that Mr. Khan is trying to mainstream his program to fit public school standards which are far inferior to the product he has produced. But, I digress.

Science

We finished up Lesson 4. He completed his mini-books which were eggs with aquatic herps inside. Let me just say, my son is not a hands on kind of learner. Oh, he will do them, but these cutting/pasting mini-books cause him anxiety if they aren’t cut just right, or glued just right or match up just right. I may ditch the rest of them, although they look super great in the notebook when he gets done. We read “Sea Turtles” by Kay de Silva. We watched a turtle dissection on YouTube.

Not too involved this week, but wanted to keep his momentum going.

On a side Note:

We have becomes big fans of Dr. Who thanks to my good friend Amy. We started watching season 1 and are now more than 1/2 way through season 2. It’s a lot of Sci Fi fun if you are into that sort of thing.

Looking back over 2013 I find the blessings to be bountiful, unexpected and joyful. Looking forward to seeing what the new year holds for us. Happy New Year Everyone. What are your highlights for the week? Did you homeschool or are you still on break?

Join in “This Week” for your Homeschool week in Review.

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