It's an Early Spring

 My teens turned in their thesis paragraphs for their "History of Anything" essays.  They both write so well.  I helped with an edit or two for each of them, and then I began pondering how on earth my kids write as well as they do.  

Several of them need help with spelling, grammar, and punctuation, but their ideas and their expression are so good.

Then I remembered that we're a reading family.  Even the ones that refuse to read much on their own are read to every day.  They're exposed to the best written language possible, and it has influenced how their minds have developed.

I love it.

Anyway, Nature Angel and Little Princess both have solid thesis paragraphs to work with, and this week they are developing their outlines.

We have fewer than 2 dozen lessons in this volume of The Mystery of History, and I am looking around for what we will work on next.  

Perhaps some more Shakespeare.

Little Princess is over halfway through Algebra I, and she's made really good headway with Geometry.  She really didn't like geometry at first, but she's catching the rhythm of it, and she says she's starting to enjoy it.

Which is good.

Considering the kind of math she's going to have to learn to work with in order to work with whatever space program is available by the time she grows up.  (The whole dismantling of the ISS is quite discouraging.)

Nature Angel has increased her academic schedule until she is doing 8-10 subjects per day.  We had some talks about her future (she's nearly 17!!), and she says it's blank right now.  Any imposing of visions or plans feels wrong.

In my opinion, that's nothing to worry about.  She'll just keep studying what's interesting until she gets a sense of how to narrow down her options.

As for the youngest 6, we had a solid school day on Monday, doing all of the things that were on last Friday's schedule--a folk song, a poem, a scripture, an art piece, copywork, spelling, Ocean Anatomy, Carry on, Mr. Bowditch, and starting The Burgess Seashore Book for Children.

Then Tuesday got away from us when I took longer to make jam than I thought I would.  Though I had the kids help me crush berries, so . . . life skills. :)

This is just a scene of regular creative life around our house on a regular sort of day.

I know I read aloud to them all, and they did math, but we didn't sit at the table for any written work.

Then it was so beautiful on Wednesday that I took them on a walk.

Only Baymax didn't want to go.

He threw a tantrum rivaling Beowulf's kind of tantrums.

When Sir Walter Scott made zero headway (I asked him to deal with Baymax), enough time had passed that I was emotionally able to talk Baymax through it all.

But it took an hour.

Eventually, we had a mini-walk and play session at the playground.

Mister Man quite enjoyed applying his pocket knife to this cattail stem.

"fishing"
The Munchkin said he caught a giant shark, and Sugar Bear said she caught a teeny tiny fishy.  My crew were happy to find a crawdad that they could study and poke a little bit.

Lola's hand and a found shell (above)
Beowulf's hand with found shells (below)

We heard several bird calls and tried to identify them.  We failed.  But I was super-impressed with the suggestions Ladybug gave me to look up.

She knows a lot of birds!

There are cattails in our nature museum on our dining room table, and Brother brought home a bunch of new cattails that exploded in our van.  When I drove home from grocery shopping with the windows open, I ended up scattering cattails over several miles.

They blew up and around, whirling past my face, into my hair, into the van upholstery, and out the windows.

I assigned cleaning the van as a Saturday chore.

Sometime this week, we finished The Magician's Nephew and started The Treasure Seekers (Edith Nesbit).

It's hilarious!

There's not much of a plot so far, but the narration is genius (in my opinion).

We also finished The Long Winter as an audiobook and started 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

Little Princess is enamored of this book that she's using for her astronomy unit study.

Lola and Baymax started fighting when I had the kids line up for a spelling bee.  

Here are the older 4.

Once the fun got started, they chose to cooperate, and all of the kids seemed to really enjoy reviewing their past 5 word lists.

Baymax has been immersed in The Dangerous Book for Boys.  He's been borrowing pocket knives and whittling a homemade bow.  He did such a good job.  He's frustrated right now because the notches he created at the ends keep breaking off.  

He may have to start over again because the bow is growing too short to work with, but as I write, Rose Red gave him some advice from her bow-making days, and he just might take it.

Ladybug made this cute jellyfish!

I'm finding kids out on the deck swing, reading library books while soaking up sunshine more and more often.  

We're having April/May weather in February.

It's fun (and worrisome).

Several of them were out playing in the creek this week, too.

Lola and Baymax had a super fun church activity in which they got to learn about the Missionary Training Center by pretending they are already missionaries and rotating through learning stations like eating exotic food, writing letters home, life skills, teaching the gospel, learning languages, and service.

They were given "mission calls" and got to point to their place of assignment.

Lola asked for help crocheting, and is getting lessons from Nature Angel.

The somewhat sulky face is because Nature Angel won't do the work for her.

Brother's meds are working well.  He's angry less often, and when he does get angry, he's using his coping skills to work through it.

We're starting to feel a little bit safer.

Little Princess got the cadre position for CAP Encampment this summer that she really wanted!   She'll be organizing schedules and cadets for O-flights (I don't know what the term means, but I know it has to do with flying experience).  

Pixie has only a semester and a half to college graduation.  She's feeling the growing pains of coming to the end of one wonderful life phase and preparing for the next one.  

I've been tending to my cabbage and tomato sprouts.  (Basil is being tricky.)

I planted peas.

I cleaned up the garden beds.

I laid out twine for "square foot gardening" plans.

I bought some more seeds.

The kids want to do a unit on weather next, but I'm feeling the pull to do hands-on garden work instead of bookwork.

Maybe we'll do both.

After all, it's nearly tornado season. :)