A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

Sunday Christmas Day Presents. Church. Family. It was joyful from beginning to end. Monday Our preschool book of the week is Room for a Little One .  The preschoolers are fine with it, but one of the older kids asked, "Christmas?  Why Christmas when Christmas is over?" "Because we worship Christ at all times," I answered. There wasn't much she could say other than, "I guess that's true . . ." Though changes are coming next week, Morning Meeting continues much the same in this last week of 2016.  It was our review day for The Living Christ , and now that we have it memorized, I find myself grieving that we won't be singing it every school day in the coming year.  I've found some new songs to memorize, but even though they are scripture, they don't have the same beauty and grace of The Living Christ songs . We had friends over to visit--former neighbors whom we love.  We hadn't visited in over a year, but when th...

It's Christmas week. Something is very wrong with my back (how old does that make me?). And we are all tired. So we are on a break . . . sort of. Rose Red is required to write 1000 words a day as we seek for enough credits to get her through her junior year. We'll call it a creative writing intensive. Pixie is going to finish her photography course. It's no hardship 😊. Super Star is going to work on her French course. Belle is continuing with Latin. No one else is required to do any formal school, but Nature Angel will probably do some art lessons. We'll have morning meeting each day because that is our devotional time, and there's more than enough memorization, singing, reading, and critical thinking to keep our brains alive, alert, awake, and enthusiastic. Monday We started the week with Santa's Favorite Story as our preschool book of the week. While I lived on prescription strength ibuprofen, Super Star led the littles in a half hour of ...

Sunday We made "gingerbread" houses after church. Then we went for a walk.  Then we started reading The Best Christmas Pageant Ever .  I know the story of Christ's birth should be my favorite Christmas story, but it's really The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. It's about discovering the power and love of Christ's birth, so that's pretty good, isn't it?  Monday Lots of folks are on Christmas break, but my big girls still have seminary until the 21st, and I don't really know what to do with the kids that prefer routine to break, so we're sticking with our school routine until inspiration comes. Honestly, my crew NEED to be outside a lot, and they NEED structure to their days, so dumping it all in favor of "relaxing" into holiday activities is an absolute joke. Our summer days were long and free, but we had the luxury of 10 hours of outdoor play available to us then. Right now we're looking at 1-2 hours of successful out...

( Note:  I can't keep up with Pixie's photo credits anymore.  If the photos are awesome, they're by her.  If they're mediocre photos of stuff we do, then they're by me .)   Monday Why, oh why, did I sign up to review homeschool products?  I spent all of Monday in a state of tight stress over how to use the December practice review product, SchoohouseTeachers.com .  Who would use it?  How would it be used?  How could I get it to even work?  I spent hours studying the site, and a long time communicating with customer service, while simultaneously trying to work through our regular school day.  I thought perhaps I should just send in a resignation immediately and open up a spot for someone who would enjoy this more. However, Nature Angel was perfectly happy to work on one of their art lessons, and as the day passed, I realized that was all that needed to be done--one child interacting with the product in a way that blessed our family....