Weekly Wrap-Up

I would definitely call this a successful week of homeschooling. We had three days at home to do all our bookwork and two days out in the world.

I finally found Evan's motivation, which is both good and bad. He just picked out a Nintendo DS Star Wars game as his birthday present. Since he's not allowed to play video games until after his schoolwork is finished and he really wanted to play his new game, he was highly motivated to finish the boring bookwork this week. He took the initiative to start on his own each day and even rushed me along when he was ready to do the subjects that require some mommy help. What's so bad about that you may ask. And that's a good question to which I have a good answer. Why is it that it took much longer and much more whining and complaining to get schoolwork finished pre-Star Wars game??? Okay, that looks more like a question than an answer but the point is still valid. The kid was capable (which I already knew), just lazy... or I guess I could say unmotivated, but I won't.

Tuesday found us at our homeschool co-op. The co-op has almost doubled in size this year. We're having a few issues with space and class sizes but it's great to see so many families with similar values and goals for their kids. The older boys are taking a new class based on The Dangerous Book for Boys. It's so much fun for them, though it hasn't yet eclipsed gym as their favorite class. They also have a cooking class that's lots of fun and very useful. I wonder how long it will be before I can turn them loose in the kitchen to fix dinner.

Thursday we had our first field trip of the school year. We drove about an hour up the Ohio River to visit Pt. Pleasant, WV. It was a fun and educational trip. Details and pictures are here. The problem I had was trying to get my kids to realize they were still supposed to be learning! There was so much historical information and it was presented in new and interesting ways and all they wanted to do was talk to their friends about FOOTBALL, my nemesis, football.

Speaking of football, I guess I should mention that I only have two kids involved in fall sports! So, we only have practice and/or games on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. Adam is playing competitive soccer with the YMCA Middle School League. This is the league set up for middle schoolers b/c the public schools don't sponsor soccer. I guess the $9,677 that our state spends on EACH student only stretches so far. But it works out for us b/c Adam gets to play and he loves it. Ryan is playing flag football through Upward. It's so much easier (on my schedule) than the Little League tackle football he's played the past two years. And he loves it too.

I've probably written way too much already so I'll close with a Happy Birthday to my honey. He loves DQ ice cream cakes but this year I decided to try making my own ice cream cake. It was so easy and yummy, definitely one of those dishes where the end result is much greater than the sum of it's parts!

• Layer unwrapped ice cream sandwiches in the bottom of a casserole dish


• Spread with a layer of whipped topping


• Sprinkle crumbled Oreos across the whipped topping


• Add additional layers of ice cream sandwiches, whipped topping, and cookie crumbs


• Cover and freeze for 1-2 hours


• When ready to serve, top each piece with hot fudge (this step wasn't in the original recipe and I didn't do it, but I'm definitely doing it next time!)

For more Weekly Wrap-Up, visit Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.