A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

 I made a lot of mistakes this week. I learned a lot. I hope next week is better. But I'm grateful to be learning, and I think we're on track to find our joy. This week: 1.  We started Bud, Not Buddy. 2.  We started The Book of Virtues (We'll call it citizenship). 3.  We started The Witches (Too young? Yes.  Fun and comforting? Also yes.). 4.  We kept reading Gilgamesh . 5.  We started daily writing prompts.        100 words for the non-high schoolers/250 words for the high schoolers. 6.  We did our daily gratitudes 7.  We had our Morning Meetings. 8.  We did formal math. 9.  We had our American Rhythm dress rehearsal--first show next week! 10.  We started a project called Life Odyssey--more on that later. 11.  We started a family service project -- The Crayon Initiative . 12.  We went to the gym once. 13.  We went on a walk and picked up trash around our neighborhood--7 grocery bags FU...

 After our mostly-break, I decided I could not go back to where we were.  It almost frightened me when the kids asked why we were changing, and I blurted out, "Because I'm miserable.  I hate school right now, and I hate our days, and I can't go on hating everything the way I do!" My goodness! That was probably too honest an answer to give my children. There was a great deal of silence in the van after that. As long as I'm being honest, I certainly must admit that some of it must have to do with the fact that I am a rather old mother, and I'm dealing with quite a few physiological changes in my own being. I'm working on that. Things that are certain: 1.  We are required by law to do school (our state focuses on hours per subject). 2.  I have older children that need to satisfy academic requirements in order to keep their educational/career options open. 3.  My children have a lot of needs to meet. 4.  This season is this season.  It will end, and t...

 It's Tuesday of the week following, and I knew I should have kept more careful records, but I didn't. And now I regret it. We got out on a hike only one day. He's pretending something is attacking his arm from the hole. I love that someone set up a fairy/dwarf house in this hole! Hands down the best part of the day was this field of clover that we stopped to hunt through. 4 leaf clover! Everyone found 4 and 5 leaf clovers!!!! She turned around to tell me something . . . I don't remember what! Before we walked, we explored the nature center. Everyone is so big. They all used to be so small. This was such a funny experience!!! The sign said the pack was 45 lbs.  Ladybug, who wants to be a firefighter tried to pick up the pack and put it on. She couldn't!!! She almost fell over trying to. We were dying--why couldn't she pick up a 45 lb pack??? It was chained to the stand. With a 12" chain. 😂😂😂 Lola slid down this slide for over 2 minutes straight. Just the...