A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

The weather is so odd--so full of spring confusion--that we're trying to go out on cold days and then find that we've spent a lovely day indoors.  We're still plodding along through our school books, but we're hungry to drop it all and get out of doors.  There is much to learn--more perhaps than from our books, but we have some goals that can only be reached by sticking to our books. We're struggling to find our balance. But we're happy. E14 is playing soccer. M12 is trying to start a church choir nursery.  She's so very good.  The mothers are starting to trust her--little by little.  The children are coming. S11 has finished her 5,000 word "book."  I'm editing it with her.  She's learning about the agonies and ecstasies of revising. J10 is a world unto herself.  Withdrawn into her reading and introspection.  As I sang to her and kissed her good night last night I found myself thinking that I need to get to know her better. A7 i...

We did it! We dumped preschool at letter "V" and started kindergarten yesterday. The box from Sonlight came on Friday evening.  I found it on our front porch while the littles were in the bath.  I carried the box into the bathroom and held it triumphantly in the air.  "It's here!"  I shouted.  H4 nearly leapt out of the bathtub with joy. On Saturday I found a big binder, some plastic sheet protectors (for holding drawings and art projects), and found our copy of Language and Thinking for Young Children (long ago cut and drilled for storing in a kindergarten binder).  I assembled the whole thing and showed it to H4.  She danced a happy dance. On Monday morning she was dressed, bed made, and teeth brushed almost before she was awake.  At the breakfast table she sat primly, with a cat-who-ate-the-canary smile on her face and raised her hand.  "Yes?  Did you have something to say?" I asked. "I'm starting kindergarten today," s...

Early mornings (before breakfast) at our house are for personal hygiene and chores.  The ideal we're working under is that we establish order first and then we have room to learn, explore, and grow. But my 'tweens have discovered that if they get through their early morning work quickly enough, they can also get through their independent school work which gives them a vast quantity of free time. This morning I called upstairs, "Breakfast in 2 minutes."  I heard a chorus of, "What?  That's not fair!  We still have 5 minutes until breakfast.  We're trying to finish our school!" *Beat* "Okay.  You can have 5 more minutes.  That's fine by me." Phases come and go.  I don't expect them to always be finished with all of their required work by 8:30 am, but right now it's kind of funny.

Linking up with Tristan at Our Busy Homeschool. It is Tuesday at 10:03 am. I just finished getting dressed.  (However, in writing that sentence I realized that I still need to brush my teeth.) I have been productive all morning in spite of my late wake up at 6:45 am.  I did wake at 5:50, but I rolled over to just rest my eyes for 10 more minutes. Oops. Between 6:45 and 10:03 . . . *I've read from the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. *I've recorded some thought-provoking scriptures and the thoughts that go with them in my journal. *I've checked the older kids' schoolwork from yesterday. *I've made new assignments for today. *I've fed my three littles some graham crackers and milk. *I've checked my email--including the daily digest from forum for our new homeschool group.  We're still trying to make some new friends in our new area, but none of the activities on the calendar have worked so far. *I've checked craigsli...

My H4 is ready to learn to read. But I've been putting her off: --We are not done creating her preschool ABC book.  --I'm in no hurry to push her. --It's the end of a "school year." --I'm busy helping E14 get ready to start high school academics this fall. --I'm busy helping everyone paint/redecorate bedrooms so we can move kids around to make room for the adoptions we hope are in our future this year. She's been practicing on her own.  "What does this letter say, Mom?"  "How do you spell 'Happy Birthday,' Mom?"  "C-C-C-Cat.  Does 'cat' start with 'k,' Mom?"  All of it is endearing. All of it equals clear signs that she is ready. But still I've put her off . . . there's plenty of time . . . she's just a very small girl. My conscience is getting the better of me, though. Why do we need to finish the ABC book?  So I can say we've done it?  So we can have a keepsake t...

Thursday night we went to the opera! Just the 4 big girls and me. It was the final dress rehearsal, so the tickets were super-duper cheap, and we got to see a working rehearsal in action.  The conductor stopped the performance several times, gave instruction, repeated scenes, and generally kept us fascinated. The bummer was that Mimi, the star soprano, didn't sing because she had a cold.  She was saving her voice for opening night.  It was very odd to watch love scenes in which Rodolfo sang his heart out and Mimi only mouthed the words. (What was even funnier was when we could hear the conductor singing along to keep everyone's place in the music.  Her face, his voice.  It was hilarious.) It was sung in Italian, but the theater had tiny screens for each seat on which were shown English translations.  Sometimes the music was powerful and soaring and gorgeous, and the singers' voices were powerful, soaring, and gorgeous, too, but the lyrics were mun...

Activities ran long. The teen girls wrote letters to recently called missionaries.  My girls wrote their letters ahead of time so that they could just copy them when they were in a group setting.  This helped them settle on spelling, punctuation, line spacing, and grammar in private, so they could laugh and talk and be comfortable in a group. The tweens sewed aprons.  Enough sewing machines and helpers were found so that every girl had her own machine and helper.  S11's helper made sure that S11 put in every stitch of her apron herself.  I'm so thankful, especially because it took a full 2 hours that way.  Other girls, whose helpers "helped" more, were done in an hour.  Though it was hard to stay for so long, and I2 was begging me to take him home and put him to bed, I consider S11 the most blessed of the girls.  J10 had a helper with a fancy sewing machine that did embroidery stitches.  Her apron is finished with swirls and curlicues a...

We haven't had "school" this week. Instead we painted E14's new room--she's doing much of it in order to accomplish a Personal Progress Project.  Patching, sanding, cleaning, taping, priming, sanding again and so forth and so on . . . she's learning a lot about household projects.  Her ability to stick to the job is growing, and she's proud of what she's accomplished. I'm proud of her, too. There is still some work left to go--2 more coats of paint on the shelves and the wall-mounted clipboard, lots of clean up, curtains to make, closet rods to install, electrical covers to remount.  She still has much to learn, and she'll have more than enough hours credit. If only she'll write about it in her journal! M12 is getting credit for helping E14 with the work--she's not doing a project yet, just a value experience, but she's next in line for home repairs and will complete her first project when she helps build a set of triple b...

Yesterday was a field trip day.  We went to a gem and mineral show at the expo center.  It was fun! We had to leave I2 home with Daddy because he wasn't feeling well.  But the rest of us hurried out the door early in the morning to make the drive to meet our homeschool group on time.  There was an educational room set up for anyone who wanted to explore it.  We found information about rocks, gems, minerals, fossils, earthquakes, volcanoes, dinosaurs, and more.  My two little girls so enjoyed touching the beautifully polished examples of quartz, agates, amethysts, and iron pyrite.  They laughed at the fossilized dinosaur poop.  We spent a long time at the table that had dinosaur jokes.  Their favorite was:  What do you call a dinosaur than never gives up?  A try-try-try-ceratops . :) Of course there was an abundance of opportunity to spend money.  They each chose a polished rock for $.50.  A6 got a moss agate....

I grew unusually irritable as we finished preschool yesterday.  It was a bigger-than-usual project (making cardboard box turtle shells the kids could really wear) for "T is for Turtle" day.   H4 threw at least 2 full scale tantrums at the end, and I was unable (unwilling?) to put on a happy face.  I growled my way through lunch time, recognizing that this would not be a good way to continue the day, but still stuck. As I cleaned up the lunch mess (I did not make the children stay to help as I was actually trying not to scold them unnecessarily) I had to go downstairs to put something way or find something--I'm not really sure.  Either way I walked past the "library" and caught a glimpse of J10.  She was curled up on the couch poring over The Encyclopedia of Country Living . I don't know what she was reading about.  She was just silently reading . . . that's nothing earth-shattering--she's a good reader--she reads often. But something in...

A6, H4 and I2 have been into Signing Time lately.  It it their current love. I'm encouraging it. Today A6 had a spelling "test."  It is part of her Sonlight Language Arts 1 program.  Honestly we don't treat it as a test at all.  We just have fun seeing what she can remember. Today she spontaneously asked, "Is it okay if I spell the words with my fingers?" "Okay," I answered. She then proceeded to practice fingerspelling every word on her list as she read and spelled the words aloud.  After that she wrote the words down. She had 100% recall. It was amazing. I've known about visual-audio-kinesthetic learning modes for a long time.  I  know that the more of these we use the more likely we are to remember something. I know this. But watching A6 today blew my mind. My oldest struggles, struggles, struggles with spelling.  I wonder if she'll try fingerspelling . . .