We Got Out Our "Bin School" Again

 The kids and I call their workbook school "Bin School."

It's separate from math, reading, nature studies, and anything hands-on or real-life that we do.

After several weeks of not doing Bin School, we pulled them out again this week and had 4 mostly successful days.

Actually, she's drawing just for fun, but I didn't take any Bin School pictures, so this will do. 

In addition, we had lunchtime reading more regularly  (still loving The Lilac Fairy).

And I checked on math completion instead of just rolling with it.

While waaaay not perfect, it's sure an improvement in our academic schedule!

We're also really enjoying Tal: His Marvelous Adventures with Noom-Zor-Noom by Paul Fenimore Cooper.  It's like lots of fairy tales within a fairy tale. 

The kids groan every time I have to stop reading aloud.

We had our second and last dance performance for the semester.

The pictures are in reverse order of how they happened, so we'll begin at the end and work our way back to the start.

The "flyers" in our closing number love being tossed into the air.

My "Baby Bumblebees" run around buzzing all over the stage before they line up for the official dancing part.  Some line up more willingly than others. :)

9 to 5 is my favorite number to watch.  These three dance together beautifully.

Beowulf looks like he's floating!

Mister Man and friend Z-- sing Johnny B Goode while Brother and Beowulf are backup dancers.

Baymax and Beowulf are somewhat reluctant dancers in Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend.

Every time we perform, someone finds the girls and tells them about how she used to wear poodle skirts when she was a girl.  I will be so sad when that generation is no longer with us.

Nature Angel performs Moon River.

These are the skirts my mom and I made.  Every time the girls step forward in the wedding march as the song (Wishin' and Hopin') begins, the audience sighs with delight.  
I do, too. :)

I think we may need to work on precision in our dance steps!

Before the show began, I caught a few pics of life in the dressing room.

These two needed to hold their full skirts in order to see each other's feet as they practiced synchronization of their steps.

We sang birthday songs for this month and next, and The Munchkin was delighted to have Ladybug hoist him into the air.

Boys, conversing

The geoboards (that I was considering passing on because of lack of use) resurfaced several times this week.  Sometimes with our daycare littles, and sometimes just for quiet play.

The kids played a lot of ball sports this week:  baseball, soccer, football.

I'm usually indoors when they're playing, but as I walked out to go to the grocery store, I caught a moment.

And I think there are duets and various other groupings of kids singing every day.  Sometimes at the piano, sometimes absently in play, sometimes a cappella with lots of effort at harmonizing and adding voice effects.  

Find a choir for them?  Or leave them to their own musical explorations?

It's something I'm considering.

Brother started on a new med for anxiety this week.  Our psychiatrist put him on the lowest dose possible just for contraindications.  It is a med that has proven helpful for reducing anxiety in children with autism.  

It's hard to measure an increase in violence/aggression when his baseline is already violent/aggressive in waves.  He has good weeks and bad ones, good days and bad ones, and it's impossible to predict how any one day will ever go.  However, Brother went from making a clear effort to cooperate when he didn't feel like it and making a strong effort not to hurt people to being constantly argumentative with no effort to cooperate at all in only 24 hours.  Because he is frequently argumentative, I kept up with the med for a couple more days, but on the third day, he exploded every other hour including direct attacks at me and yet another broken window.

That is an increase from his baseline.

So I pulled it from his med regimen this weekend, and he's had 36 peaceful hours (his kind of peaceful) since I stopped administering it.

I'll be calling his psychiatrist on Monday. (sigh)

The kids are excited for Thanksgiving this coming week.  I'm trying to work up enough energy and courage to pretend I'm excited, too.

But the cranberry sauce and gf/df Oreo ice cream pie are already done!