A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

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...

Little Princess sprained her other ankle, too.  She was just walking to her seat at the dining room table to do some math when she lost her balance on the boot and tried to catch herself by putting out her healthy foot.   It rolled. It popped. It hurt and bruised. When we took her back to the orthopedic office for her 2-week follow-up for the first sprain, they confirmed the second one.   It's not as severe, but they offered her another boot because with neither ankle working correctly, she needs support. She refused. With the doc's approval, she's wearing a simple drugstore brace that has hard support. She limps all over the place, but when she doesn't think I'm looking, I see the strain of pain in her face. I am having to remind her often to rest with her feet up. That injury took place on Tuesday afternoon. On Friday evening, Lola came screaming into the house, clutching her face, blood seeping between her fingers. I cut butterfly bandages out of regular Band...

I spent hours and days and even weeks pondering what to do to help our school days run more effectively, meaning:      * Meet varied needs      *Bring some math back into our schedule      *Keep everyone fed--on a budget      *Need to make fewer on-the-spot decisions      *Leave Mom and teens with some energy at the end of the day. With research, prayer, and planning, we dove into a mostly full school week, and we came out mostly successful. Our strengths this week included (1) having a rotating schedule of activities that allows us to repeat some fun gross motor and sensory experiences and (2) reading by firelight in the evenings. Our weaknesses included (1) failing to meet the teens' academic needs and (2) feeling overwhelmed in my efforts to feed everyone. We finished Moominland Midwinter and started Hans Brinker, or the Silver Skates .  The Moomins charmed the kids from beginning to end.  Hans and G...