thanksgiving & homeschool weekly wrap-up

Last week as most of the United States had a holiday, we continued on with life and [mostly] kept to our routines. We schooled normally Monday through Wednesday. Thursday we had some friends coming over in the evening, and another homeschooling family came to help cook. The kids and I compromised and they each did a special writing assignment in the morning.

I found this great pack of writing prompts from TeachersPayTeachers centered on Thanksgiving. Each of the kids chose a different prompt.

Tori:

She was worried that she could not fit her story in just 3 squares, but my creative girlie solved this by drawing a fourth square on the back.

She wrote:

First I will make a turkey out of paper.

Next I will go outside and catch a turkey.

Then I am going to hide the turkey in my bed.

Last I am going to put the paper turkey outside.

I particularly enjoyed the fact that she is going to hide the turkey in her bed. Becca was trying to explain that turkeys are really big and it might not fit. After a few minutes, I told B that she was missing the point of this whole exercise, which was to be creative. It does not matter if the turkey will not fit in real life, let your sister have some creative license. 

Josh:

His words (in case you can't read them):

First, fly back to America and catch a turkey.

Then fly back to China with it.

(Get your parent's permission)

Next, make a bed for it and provide food.

Make a leash so you can take it for walks.

Last, you have got a new pet!

Don't you love that he wrote that you need to get your parent's permission to make the trip, but not to get the pet in the first place?

Becca:

Her words (and for this assignment we didn't stress about grammar):

First, climb up a tree while holding the sticks,

then when your up, ballance the sticks into a pyrimid

shape and tie them together.

Next, spread the teepee skirt around the sticks,

this is difficult so it might take a few tries.

Last, move the teepee carefully away from the tree on a flat surface.

This was a fun break from the normal day. I think I will check back to see what kind of fun writing or other projects I can find for Christmas!

While we were hard at work at home, Andy worked a full day and that evening we enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner (with both turkey and pork). Then on Friday, we went to Andy's work to have a 差不多 (cha bu duo - meaning approximately) Thanksgiving. But since turkey is hard to find and expensive to buy, they served chicken for the cafeteria lunch. But somehow my boy didn't seem to mind. . .

He is such a carnivore! I particularly like how he is picking up that big chicken leg with his chopsticks.

There was going to be a company outing, but due to the rainy weather, they decided to cancel. We went home, made our first batch of Christmas cookies, and got ready to decorate our tree. But more to come on that in another post..... Finally, on Saturday night we had another get-together (yet another turkey) with friends. We are so blessed by our friends here.

I hope that you had a great Thanksgiving holiday. Even though ours was a bit unorthodox, we had a great week.