Our homeschool mostly stayed the same through January and February and into early March. We finished the book of Acts and started Romans. We completed The Mystery of History Volume I. We studied Schumann and Tchaikovsky. We continued on in our study of Post Impressionist Artists and worked on some drawing assignments. We covered Honduras, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Brazil, and Venezuela in Geography. The boys finished King Arthur and started Adam of the Road and learned how to write a newspaper article. Emmie has continued on in AAR Level 3 and Lightning Lit. Lily finished The One and Only Ivan, Gone Fishing. and started Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. We started Visual Latin. We have not started back into Botany since Christmas but now that we finished history and the weather is warmer we are planning on getting back into it. Everyone has been working diligently on their math assignments.
Other Activities
There were quite a few exciting things going on for us up until the state shut down the weekend of March 15th.
In addition to all of our regular activities each week (dance, gymnastics, music, trap, church, soccer, and 4 H) we....
were able to take a trip to Florida to see my mom and dad over Mid-Winter break in February (I am so glad we went ahead and went when we did!)
We spent a day at Hollywood Studios.
Went to the beach.
Visited an aquarium.
And did some shopping and went to the movies. My dad, Art and Nick also went to a hockey game.
A few weeks after that we competed in the Arkansas SeaPerch Competition. I took 3 teams: 2 seniors and 1 junior. I was so proud of all of their hard work! One team with Nick, Anthony, and Christian won 1st place in their Technical Design Report, 3rd in their Obstacle Course and ended up being 2nd place overall! Our other senior team with Alex and two others won 1st in the Challenge Course. The juniors did not place. This year only the top senior team and top two juniors qualified for Internationals so we did not qualify this year. ( The International contest ended up being cancelled anyway.) It was a great experience participating in this and I was very proud of everyone!
Alex was selected as a State Record Book finalist in 4 H in Animal Science and he won!!
Nicholas participated in the National Honor Society Induction Ceremony inducting the new members. He was also offered a paid Internship at the radio station broadcasting the high school softball and baseball games (this has been put on hold until schools go back and sports start back up again if they do this year at ll.)
After the 1st person tested positive for Covid -19 in Arkansas, the state basically shut down as it is in most states right now. Schools are all closed until April 17th, all activities cancelled, even some parks closed. So Nicholas has been home doing AMI work one week and spring break this week. But the Arkansas Department of Education issued a statement saying any senior in good standing is considered to have met the graduation requirements for this year. We are waiting for an official announcement on that from the district. Art was sent home last Monday to work from home through Easter. Right when things started shutting down everyone started panic buying at the grocery store. I was absolutely shocked and wouldn't have believed it if I had not been there to see it. This week when I went to the store it was much calmer and seemed more normal. I hope it stays that way.
We had two baby goats last week!
Long story made short but we had been watching one goat closely for over a week and that sneaky goat managed to have her baby when we weren't looking even though we checked her every hour. The other goat we were not watching as closely she was a first time mom and we thought we had a few more days and she managed to show no signs of labor at all. We did a goat check at 8pm she was fine, eating, not acting like anything was going on and at the next goat check at 10 pm she had a baby in there with her. We were disappointed that we weren't able to see them being born but thankful deliveries went well. Both babies are little boys and are doing well!
We are in the process of changing our goat pens into a livestock barn so Art and the boys have been working on that in between bouts of rain. We had some beautiful weather this week and snuck away a couple of times to enjoy the weather and do some fishing.
I hope you are all doing well during this strange time. We are trying very hard to stay positive and not focus on all of the things that were cancelled while figuring out some kind of new normal.
Happy Homeschooling!
