A Week, Briefly (2/25/19)

We had some really high highs and some really low lows.

Monday was hard, and if I could erase Tuesday from our lives, I would (Ladybug has been hard).

But Wednesday was better, and Thursday and Friday were keepers.

Nature Angel went to her room one afternoon and made this bear.  She let Baymax hug him when he got hurt on his scooter board outside.

We had productive Morning Meetings--continuing our study of The Sermon on the Mount and several stories of Jesus.

We had 5 Symposiums.  We finished the biography of John Greenleaf Whittier and studied a number of his poems.  We found poems we liked, poems we didn't, and I led by (accidental) example what to do when you don't understand a poem at all.

(Just ask my kids about Mary Grew and see what they say!  Hello, Google!)

Fortunately the kids are forgiving of my teaching mistakes, and they laughed it off and promised they learned.

Super Star revealed that history is her favorite part of Symposium--I'd never have guessed that!  But then I watched what happens during our history lessons, and really all three teens are totally engaged during history--asking questions, starting discussions, and generally helping our lessons last for a very long time as we look up photos, facts, and information to expand on what we learn from our text.  Friday's lesson about the first man on the moon took nearly an hour and a half to complete as we explored the science and culture around the event, and then the girls came to me later asking me to find YouTube videos.

That's a blessing that I'm counting this week.

This flower is growing from the seed Brother planted in my co-op class last summer.  His is the only seed of the several seeds my kids planted to have sprouted, and we've nurtured it for 7 months.  The whole family is proud of this flower!

We had 3 full Academy sessions and a couple of half sessions.  We're almost done with our anthology of children's literature, and we've read remarkable stories together.  This week we studied the artist Jacob Lawrence.  The kids really liked his art and the story of his life.

The most interesting experience of the week came during an art appreciation lesson as I paused to explain to one set of my children that they can be called African-American.

"What?!?!?" they exclaimed with surprised looks on their faces.

I could barely not laugh.

They know there's a difference (they refer to themselves as "brown-skinned" and the rest of us as "peach-skinned"--totally their own terms), and we've explored slavery, discussed civil rights, looked at differences in people's appearances, explained that eczema can happen to people of all skin colors, read books that glory in kinky, curly hair, and have talked about the miracle of us being a family at all.

But somehow the designation African-American had either never come up or never been on their radar.

We paused in our lessons to have some fun with our world map and talk about biological families, adoptive families, and ancestors.

This is Mister Man's best effort at building a cathedral with flying buttresses.

The kids did lots of individual school.  Mister Man is totally in love with the new science book that came in the mail last week.  (It turns out that the missing hands-on activity instructions are in the answer key!).  He's managed to complete 31 lessons on his own--minus a few of the hands-on activities.

When he studied meat-eating plants, he was encouraged to build a simple trap.  It took him a long time to find just the right stick!

He finished the whole thing.  He says he wants to read it again before he is baptized at the end of the year.

And Little Princess has written every character in this book--each character gets written 30 or more times!

I'm a little bit worried about Beowulf as he seems to be losing fluidity of movement and some of his small-motor skills.  He's drooling more and having more temper outbursts.

I wish I knew why.

But we had a show at a nursing home/memory care facility that was one of the most joyfilled shows we've ever had.  The people in this home were so engaged in the songs and dances, and their energy filled our kids with light and more energy.

It was just magic.

I wish everyone could have seen the sweet lady in red who tried to sing and dance along to every song and every step.  I cried every time I looked at her--good tears.

Thursday night, Brother said during his bedtime prayer, "Thank thee that we got to sing and dance for sick people and make them happy."

We did make them happy.

And they did the same for us!

Friday, we presented Rose Red with her diploma.

And Nature Angel got to have a special date with Dad at the Daddy-Daughter dance at church.  The three teens went along to be servers, so Pixie sent me this picture:

Oh! My heart!

And Pixie signed a contract for college housing--her first apartment.

It's getting very real . . . her leaving . . .