A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

  . . . we are just enjoying the summer days. Nature Angel must have liked this pile of cut watermelon. We started Lad, A Dog as our final comfort re-read of the summer.  We only made it through 3 chapters this week because there's been too much going on in the evenings for the regular evening reading that I best love, but we're doing our best. We went swimming at my sister's house. And then we went swimming again with friends, but no one took any pictures that day. Some of the kids even went swimming a third time for their youth night activity, but Ladybug got to decorate cookies, and Little Princess went to CAP instead. Beowulf was delighted by a tiny egg laid by one of our chickens. I saw the shell--it really was a tiny egg! Lazy days . . . long legs! We went to the library. And Sugar Bear turned 5!!   But the kids played 13th birthday. 🤷 We had a drop in heat so that the days became sweet and lovely.  We couldn't help spending time outside. There was a lot...

 It didn't have any problems last year. But this year, our van refuses to run if the temperature drops below freezing. We've checked the anti-freeze. We've done a fuel-injection treatment. We've tried jump-starting when the weather is super cold. We've put a heater under the van. All to no avail. So far our best results have come from the temperature rising above freezing for a long enough time. But we're in the middle of a cold spell. So we're home. Most of the time. I'm not complaining. It's just taking some creative planning and some practice adapting to less-than-ideal circumstances. Our teen car is in the shop. Which means we have one car that seats 5 to share between 4 drivers and 7 other passengers. The good part of it all means we're doing a lot of good reading together! The teens and I finished Huck Finn , and we're doing a good amount of world history. All of the kids are doing math every day. The teens are working on time managemen...

 I'm resting a lot. We're being lazy about bedtimes and meal times and waking times. There's a lot that's good about that . . . but . . . *sigh* . . . I'm ready for a more regular life. We still have our Morning Meetings. We still sit down as a family for dinner and family prayer each evening (at least most of the time). We still do chores and math and read together as many evenings as possible. It's time for more. I realized this week just how absent I've been from my children.   Physically present. Mentally absent. Planning, choreographing, resting, organizing, studying, errand running . . . they're all things I do for my family.  (Yes, even the resting!)  But I don't interact with them as much when I'm doing these things as I do when we're in our school routine. I'm glad I have lots of reading together and activities planned to do with the kids, so that I'm more mentally present with them. More eye contact. More listening. More lau...

The teens and I had a very productive school week.  History, The Scarlet Letter , and their research papers were the school we shared together.  On their own, I saw them spend hours each on science, math, languages, and elective subjects. One of my favorite moments with them was when Nature Angel needed to blow off some steam concerning her health text .  Neither of her older sisters who used the book ever talked about the attitude the author has about modesty.    We use the book because of the Christian perspective toward respecting our bodies, but I have not ever read the text on my own.  Nature Angel pointed out that the book puts sexual purity completely on young women.  It's all a young woman's fault for dressing provocatively if a young man behaves in a sexually inappropriate way. I was mad, too. The three of us talked it all out.  Our conversation meandered up and down and side to side as we explored the ins and outs of taking respectful ca...

 After I posted last Sunday, Brother got angry over a Lego.  Long story short, violence happened, and he ran. It was a long, tense evening of searching, calling 911, and finally finding him. He was not happy to be home, but he chose to be home, so we settled in the best we could. We were tired, sore, and on edge, so we all went to bed by 9:00 pm. When we woke up, it was the first day of 2024. Our study theme for January is astronomy, and even though it was not technically a "school day," we went to the downtown planetarium and caught a showing of Destination Solar System . No pictures were allowed during the show, but before it began there was a slide show of various pictures from outer space.   Awe set in almost immediately. The actual show was silly and fun.  We managed to learn a few things we didn't already know, and I was happy to start the month in a joyful manner. We got started on official school on the 4th.  Just history for the high schoolers and ...