A Week, Briefly (9/24/18)

This was officially week 4 of our 2018-19 homeschool year, and we are still struggling.

Quite simply, I can't do so much out of the house stuff.

Some of the kids can't do so much out of the house stuff.

Some of the kids really need the out of the house stuff.

You'd think the give and take would help us develop an atmosphere of blessing one another and thriving, but I feel like I'm dying, and a goodly portion of the kids are falling to pieces, and while I'm truly trying to believe that we'll find our rhythm . . . I just want to give up.

But I haven't.

And good things are happening.

Mister Man as Osiris.

We got Pixie an ACT prep book and got her signed up to re-take it officially in October.  I think she'll need to take it again in December to get her score to a comfortable level, but she's taken the first practice exam, and now we have a record of what she got right and what she needs to work on.  We're focusing on math . . . because we thought that would be her strongest area, but it's not, and that's pretty disconcerting.

Ladybug's early morning school is going well.

We've completed 3 weeks of co-op.  (Only 5 to go!)  Belle says her favorite, favorite class is the college writing class.  The instructor is a retired community college English teacher (30 years), and she's marvelous.  She knows how to bring out the writer in kids, and Belle is joyfully blossoming under her tutelage.

The Storytime teacher and I share a number of students, and I lead my Sensory class right after Storytime.  We both had the great idea to use shaving cream on the same day.

The kids loved the shaving cream . . . for a little while, but 2 hours of it was too much, so it's a good thing I had food coloring and plastic bags for color mixing experiments as well as all kinds of old sprinkles for extra texture and color.  It's also a good thing that lunch is right after my class, so we went ahead and cleaned up early and headed to the lunch room.

The teens took their second Spanish quiz, for which I thought they were perfectly prepared.  I was wrong!  Two scores of 75% and one of 56% have led us to start Unit 2 all over again, and we'll be increasing our memorization activities.

They did all do just fine on their first language arts Unit Check, and we're well into Unit 2 of that program.

One morning a squirrel used our empty garden bed to bury some nuts.  We had a perfect view out our dining room window.  These two came scampering into the kitchen to tell me about it and they used their hands and squeaky voice to mimic the squirrel.  We laughed and laughed, and I made them recreate the moment so I could get a picture of it and remember.

We started week 6 of history, but we'll be slowing down a lot in the coming weeks with Beowulf's assessment appointments and Brother's intake meeting.

Pixie is still earning excellent grades in her geography class.

Academy is moving along slowly.  We worked hard on Monday and Wednesday, and we had abbreviated meetings on Thursday (for dance) and Friday (to take advantage of a perfect fall day and go for a hike with Daddy).

Using nature as inspiration, these two have been prolific producers of poetry.

We read a number of Greek myths, but the D'Aulaire book started to feel soooooo loooooong, and I moved it from the school shelf to the library shelf for free reading and exploring.  The kids have all voiced sorrow about the change.

We have The Usborne Book of Greek Myths.  I wonder if I can read that one aloud instead.

Individual school for Mister Man, Brother, and Beowulf is still a total fail.  They get anywhere from 0-2 turns at school in a full week, and I don't feel that is right for any of them.  I do not yet have even an inkling of a solution for that problem.

He's done with book 4 and has started book 5--all about our senses.

Nature Angel continues to be a diligent, growing student.  I love to review her work and listen to her talk about what she's learned.

By Nature Angel--created in her co-op drawing class.

Little Princess and I have had several sit-downs about accountability.  She's a social learner, and she thrives in a group setting.  When she has to buckle down and just do the work on her own, she hems and haws and disappears and makes excuses upon excuses.  One solution has been to allow her to sit quietly at the table during Symposium.  The teens don't love it, but since I've begun allowing it Little Princess has trebled her school productivity, and she's happy listening to the discussions all around her.

The cooler weather has brightened the young ones' attitude about being out-of-doors, and they spend happy hours climbing trees, catching frogs and toads, and building in the sand pit.

The first sesson of MOCSA was an utter waste of time for me.  (Why they went over the exact same material they already went over twice in our individual meetings is incomprehensible.)  I'm not sure what it was for Ladybug, though.  It's an 18 week program for both parents and children that takes 2 1/2 hours out of every Wednesday, and I'm hoping it will be worth our while in the long run.

Tired of waiting for Mommy to finish a Spanish lesson with the teens, these two took bandaging their owies into their own hands.

Today the teens will be gone all day--first at a church youth volleyball tournament then to the local amusement park for an afternoon of rides and an evening of haunted houses (blech!).

I will be on my own with 10 kids ages 2-11, and that is why I'm trying out Walmart's grocery pick-up for the first time today.