A Week, Briefly (3/2/20)

Less than 6 weeks until Pixie leaves us again to pick up her wonderful college life.  She's registered for classes, and she's got an apartment contract, too.  She's been working/dancing 14 hour days ever since she got home, but I caught her in a rare resting moment.

I got two good days out-of-doors, but the kids got six!

The calendar may say it's still late winter, but someone didn't tell the weather that because we haven't dropped to freezing all week, and the forecast says we aren't going back any time soon.

We decided to take a risk and do some early garden planting.  Nature Angel is working on it as a specific goal for the church Children and Youth program, and the whole family's involvement will work for the little ones.

That's Nature Angel's finger for comparison!

Our garden beds as of March 3, 2020.  On that first day, we planted lettuce, sugar snap pea, and spinach seeds.  I hope to post lots of awesome updates with growing plants!

We've all taken turns prepping the beds for planting, and the kids line up for turns to use the red watering can to water our tiny seeds.  But Nature Angel has worked hard at measuring and drawing out our garden beds, spending time researching with me, helping me build the planter box, keeping our garden journal, and being chief designer.

It wasn't all work though . . . kids had plenty of time for reflection and play.

Ladybug drew a picture of a Pileated Woodpecker.  Lola drew a Stinkbug.

Little Princess picked the camera up part way through the week, and didn't put it down again.

That's Ladybug on the green bike and Brother on the red one.

Well, Little Princess did share the camera long enough for Nature Angel to take a picture or two of her.

We're marching along with solid school routines.

In Morning Meeting, we've had some good gospel discussions.

In Symposium, we read the first 117 pages of The Histories by Herodotus.  He's a funny, funny narrator!

In Colloquium, we finished our study of Greek Mythology.

The extremely, super-fun part of finishing up this study happened when I showed the girls some pictures of archaeological sites around Troy.  Nature Angel is in her third year of studying Koine Greek, and in her first year of studying Modern Greek.  She looked at this monument:

And scanned it to see if she could read anything on it.

She could!

She found a word on the 4th line from the bottom that means "The Almighty."

Seriously, my 12-year-old kid was able to read part of an inscription on an ancient monument in Troy!

Sometimes homeschooling is incredibly exciting.

In Academy, we learned a lot of sparrow songs, read some chapters from The Burgess Bird Book for Children, and read a few fairy tales out of The Blue Fairy Book.

My Jr. Kinders only have about 14 school days left before they're done with their program.  I've been debating how to satisfy their need for formal school time, and I've considered modifying this for them.

The main modification I'm thinking of is substituting ASL or Spanish for the French.  I'm also thinking it would be a good plan to let the gardening project take the place of the handicrafts as long as the weather is so, so, so lovely as it is now.

Individual Studies progressed (mostly) nicely.  And Super Star finished Exploring Creation with Health and Nutrition.  That's one more credit toward graduation this spring.

Children and Youth night at church included a movie-watching party for the younger teen girls about The Restoration of the gospel.

The older teens had a lesson on time management.

The little ones played games, did a puppet show, and participated in a scripture scavenger hunt--depending on their various activity groups.

We had quiet time each day, and after a long hiatus, Legos are back at the forefront of creative play.  Mister Man made several original creations, and I think his coolest one was this one:

Everyone went to all of their therapies, and Super Star is finally done with her IOP.  She says it was very helpful for her, but I have my reservations.  I look forward to having her home instead of at those meetings.  We'll see how much they helped her as time shows us.

On Friday night, Belle, Nature Angel, Little Princess and I attended a dance showcase that included Pixie at her old studio.  It was a really fun show, and while I had to watch Pixie through her camera screen because I was in charge of filming her, I so enjoy watching my girl dance.

These are screenshots from the filming I did.

Saturday was filled with errands and outdoor play at first, but then it turned into a gardening afternoon.

Planting cabbages

Making seed tape for carrots.  We planted two rows and put away two lengths of tape to plant later.

Beowulf, Ladybug, and Brother rode their bikes for hours on end, but at one point I noticed they were out of sight.  I peeked around the house and found them with their bikes upside down, pushing the pedals with their hands to watch the wheels spin around.

I don't know what they were learning . . . but it was clear that something important was happening, so I left them to their experimenting.

Once we got the cabbages, carrots, and green onions into the garden beds, we turned to potting the bare root clematis we bought for Nature Angel.  We researched how to care for it, and did our best to follow the instructions.  It's now soaked, potted, staked, and sitting on the ground in the place we eventually hope to plant it in the ground.

I had to go inside to take care of dinner, and when I called the kids in, I found some fairy houses under construction.

This house is for a super hero named Atom.

This fairy house is far lovelier than my less-than-skilled photography can show.  Nature Angel didn't get to finish it, but I hope she will in the week to come.

 Though our van shows up in several pictures above, it is officially gone--picked up on Thursday morning.  We literally begged the insurance company to fix it, but they refused.  I mention it because taking care of the details has interrupted school in many ways, and it is going to continue to do so as we shop for another one.