A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

 We did nothing exciting in our homeschool this week.   Actually, we did do one exciting thing--the youngest ones (minus Lola who simply could not stay focused) illustrated their Owlets haiku books.  We all wrote the same poems together, and I printed a copy for each child.  Then they illustrated their individual booklets.   Beowulf's pages.  I didn't think to include his front cover!  :( Mister Man's booklet This one is by Baymax Ladybug's--such a cute nest full of babies! Brother's   Other than this cool project, all of my exciting energy was put into getting our dining room/school room walls mended, prepped, and painted and putting up the new interior window trim.     We moved along with Morning Meeting every day, book work time every day, read aloud time every day, and lots and lots and lots of free time.    . . . or Advanced Mathematics . . . that's almost as good as free time, right?   The weather was kind of forbid...

 It was a strange week--filled with milestones both joyful and aching.   In addition, I'm struggling to feel that book work school matters very much right now.   It does!   Even though a few of my kids are good at unschooling, many of my kids need explicit teaching in reading, writing, and arithmetic in order to progress in their abilities to function in the world.   Plus, there's that whole legal obligation to follow state homeschooling laws!   Sugar Bear came over one day, and we reveled in baby care.  Nature Angel reported that even with an extra baby in the house, she was able to get all of her independent work done. We practiced a lot of compassion for this sweet boy, whose mommy came home from the hospital after many days, and then turned around and went right back when her situation turned life-threatening again!  Poor Little Mister Frog doesn't know which end is up, and we've worked to pour extra love into him to make up for this separatio...

 We are cleared of covid, so normal activities resumed--therapy, work, and more babies. It made it harder to keep up our outdoor adventures. Before they came back, we still hiked 3.8 miles on Monday at Watkins Mill and another 2 miles on Tuesday at Longview Lake, so we added 5.8 miles to our total for the year. 10.5 + 5.8 = 16.3 miles this year We took our time, stopping to observe and play as much as we wanted to along the way. Monday There were hundreds of Canada Geese on the ice.  They are a typical sight here, but en masse like this, they were breathtaking.  Under this overlook, the river was frozen solid.  The kids went down and skated for half an hour or more.  Sir Walter Scott and I, along with Little Mister Frog, stayed off the ice. We were specifically on the hunt for Bald Eagles that migrate across our area this time of year.  It took the whole walk but as we reached the dam at the bottom of the lake, we spotted 2 eagles, flying so high it was ha...