A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

 The most important thing that happened in our family was Super Star's marriage to Mr. E.   It happened a week ago Saturday.  It was simple and sweet, but it still took time and energy on our part because we had to get ready for Pixie and Grammie to come stay.  Grammie's arrival meant moving bedrooms around so that she could be on the main floor (she can't do stairs) and near a bathroom.  This meant we moved lots of beds, lots of bedding, lots of furniture, and lots of kids around the house. This also meant that we didn't do a whole lot of what most would call "school" that week. We had Morning Meetings every day. We read The Elephant's Girl several days. We read from this book at least a few days: It's a chapter book with lots of pictures, so even though it looks like a brief story, it's taken us over two weeks so far, and we're not done yet. (But I'm not reading more than 2-3 pages a day, so, no wonder!) We worked at least 3 days on our ...

This week was a lot like last week. We didn't make any progress introducing new subjects, but we got better at what we are already doing. We got better at listening to music--3 times this week!  We don't much like Bach's St. Matthew Passion, but we are quite fond of the Brandenburg Concertos .  (This could be my influence, as I've always preferred a concerto to a cantata.) We got better at reviewing our bulletin boards. (Now I need to get new board information ready!) We finished How to Behave and Why on Monday, and we read this book several times during the week.  Along with our readings, we had discussions about the lessons taught and the values of the culture represented in the story.  I also began to pause in places and turn over the storytelling to the kids. For zoology, we watched a great video about elephants .   And we started this book. We're only 30-ish pages into it, but we're really curious about where it's going. I assigned the kids to resear...

It's time. It's just time for school to start. So that's what we did. On Monday I did so much organizing!  I filled the basket that we're using as preschool/entertainment for The Munchkin and Sugar Bear with a variety of activities.  I set up the new chore schedule.  I worked on our new bulletin boards.  I put away lots of baby/toddler things that we don't need now that we have only 2 preschoolers coming to our house. We also had a long visit with our case worker. (There was so much to document!) I've been crocheting a little bit lately, and it's true that Mom can inspire the kids by doing! These are Baymax's hands as he learns how to single crochet. Notice the Pokemon in the background. :) In the evening, we gathered for reading.  It was our penultimate reading of   In Search of the Castaways.  Everyone was predicting the end and literally jumping out of their seats with excitement as plot twists were resolved and predictions came true. Suddenly...