A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

  Here are my oldest four girls. My first set of babies. Looking so beautiful! A childhood friend got married this weekend, so Pixie flew out, and Super Star drove over, and all four of them attended the wedding an hour or so away from here. Pixie's arrival was a complete surprise (she loves to do that!).   And we have just laughed ourselves sick having all of us together. As I write, I have a ham in the oven, pumpkin desserts on the counter, side dishes to prepare, and dinner with all 13 kids (12+1 son-in-law) and Sir Walter Scott to look forward to. The weather also finally decided to be fall today. It's such a happy day!! As for school and all . . . after taking a kind-of-break while Little Princess was gone, I'm having a hard time finding our rhythm again. It doesn't help that I'm making getting outside with the kids a priority. And I know that the outside time counts! I do! It's kind of ridiculous that I feel guilty about doing bookwork because we need the ...

These are the non-textbook books we read together in our two groups for school.  For the teens, we could add in their various texts--especially the American Lit book--but I choose to keep the list as-is with living books. I can say with complete honesty,  that I recommend every book on these lists.  If it wasn't worth our time, it didn't make these lists. With Teens The Scarlet Letter -- Nathaniel Hawthorne Macbeth -- William Shakespeare A Comedy of Errors --William Shakespeare The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave The Last of the Mohicans --James Fenimore Cooper The Old Man and the Sea -- Ernest Hemingway The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- Mark Twain Of Mice and Men --John Steinbeck To Kill a Mockingbird -- Harper Lee With Kids The Story Girl -- L.M. Montgomery  The Interrupted Tale -- Maryrose Wood Super -- Matthew Cody  Powerless -- Matthew Cody The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh -- A.A. ...

  I have no idea why this is such a tiny picture.  I took it with the same camera as the rest of the pictures in this post, and I did not edit it.  If I enlarge it, it is nothing but huge pixels.  I'm including it because, even though it is tiny, it has about 3 of my kids during one of our Couch to 5K running sessions. We've now run consistently for 2 weeks!!  Several of the kids and I opted to repeat week one, and if we keep that pace, we will complete the 6-week program in 12 weeks instead, but I don't care about taking so long.  I'm just happy that we're getting out and being consistent. The kids have the 50 states and capitals memorized (not Lola, though, I hope she's absorbing what she can by listening), so I printed blackline maps and assigned the kids to trace the shapes of the states.  Over the course of the rest of the week, I had them fill in all of the states and capitals. Lola was working.  Beowulf was struggling. Working on their map...

 In many ways, it was a typical week for us. Morning Meetings Daily school readings and oral narrations A written narration An art project A hike A show Time playing outside Chores Bedtime reading Church activities The weather included a blizzard, 60-degree sunny skies, ice, and fierce wind.  I got out into the garden and the kids got some football and basketball in on Monday after school. I ordered raised beds because our garden beds are hard to work in.  It reduces the planting space, but it's already making the space more accessible, so I think it will be good for productivity. Helping me dig out compost We spent Tuesday and Wednesday indoors because of the weather, and we finished The Taming of the Shrew .  Because I love the Zeffirelli version so much, I rented it quickly, and we settled in for some good fun. Interestingly, it doesn't translate well for our modern sentiments.  This batch of younger kids watched Petruchio's abuse with very serious faces, and...

It's so cold outside. And it's so cozy inside. And we have uninterrupted hours in which to do school. I am very happy. The teens and I finished up our American Literature text with a few modern poets.  When I finally find my copy of To Kill a Mockingbird (or borrow it from the library), we'll read that and call our American Literature course completed.  We plowed through several more lessons in Mystery of History vol. 4.  My favorite is when the lesson reviews are games/activities that allow the girls to get up and move around and go through their notes really thoroughly. This was one of those reviews. The younger kids and I finished Across Five Aprils, which wrapped up our study of The Civil War.  I feel like the kids learned and thought a lot about the issues--we certainly had both lively and sobering discussions! We also finished Charlotte's Web .   It never fails to touch our hearts. So worthwhile to reread! We read King Lear from Shakespeare Storie...