December 2018 homeschooling month in review

Jeff was off for the month of December which made our usual habits a little different, and while I usually try to have December be mostly vacation, instead we had most of our Rome unit still to go. I also kinda kept the kids

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Week 1 and 2 of December

The first two weeks was a whirlwind of trying to get our Rome unit done because I really didn’t want to be doing school all of December.

I snuck in some fun stuff for that week. We made a new Roman road and remade our Roman mosaics, only this time we used beans.

We also finally made the Greek temple I’d been wanting to make. They had quite a bit of fun designing it using toilet paper rolls and cardboard. They got up to 45 pounds being held up, and eventually became a multi-level craziness.

Week 3 of December

Amusingly, these pictures are pretty much from the weekend. Princess helped with setting out wreaths for Wreaths Across America. Sadly we missed the actual ceremony, but it was a big deal to her to help get it ready.

I gave the kids their Christmas books early since we were driving up to Dallas before Christmas, rather Christmas day as we’ve usually done. Princess got Hook’s Daughter, a book my friend read and I bought in paper format for her to read (I’ve got it on Kindle), Superman got a Goosebumps graphic novel, and Batman got a King Arthur graphic novel.

Then we went up to Dallas and had a fun weekend with the in-laws celebrating an early Christmas

Week 4 December

Princess organized her American Heritage Girl troop Christmas party and they collected together 2 grocery carts of groceries during their Christmas caroling.

Batman used the wood-burning kit to make Jeff a cool cane based off a weapon in our game. It’s a cane that controls the weather. It’s quite cool.

Princess and I joined my Mom and we went to see the Nutcracker. The entire family joined together to watch a Christmas Carol radiocast by a local theater group. It was pretty awesome.

Christmas!

The kids got lots of matching outfits with their cousins. I made a dress for Princess and her two girl cousins (which is quite a challenge when they range in size from 12 to infant, so they’re not perfect matches). The boys all got somewhat matching Creeper jammies. It’s a challenge to find matches for the boys since my giant children are in full-grown men size clothes, and their 6-year-old cousin, is totally not.

Some highlights of Christmas presents: Batman got a scroll map of the World of Warcraft game, which he adores. Superman got several games, including Soul of the Empire, which he adores. Princess got a fun “So many books, so little time” shirt, and I got the super cool LEGO storybook set.

The rest of December

Princess and I went to Nutcracker and the Four Realms, it was surprisingly good. I want to pick up the movie because it was that much fun to watch. Notice my super cool “Mercutio drew first” shirt I got for Christmas. My Mom took my not so subtle hint in my Literary book gifts list and got it for me.

I got a pasta maker attachment for my Kitchenaid (this is what I’m probably buying to replace my current one), and then I think it might have accelerated my mixer breaking down. So, I’m saving up for a new mixer, and have researched better pasta recipes.

Every Friday we got to a local park with our homeschool co-op. This week the tween girls, there’s quite a mob of them, worked together to make a cool fairy house. As we left I was told to take pictures of their projects.

And the last two pictures in this are from yesterday as we got ready for our movie marathon of Mission Impossible with an occasional break to watch Crazy Rich Asians and Up. We’re halfway through the Mission Impossible movies, and they’re fun brainless silliness.

Well, that’s 2018 summed up. I’m looking forward to 2019 and what it brings.

All of 2018 Months in Review