A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

 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...

 We already had our church Fall Festival and Trunk-or-Treat. We're down to 6 kids at home wanting to dress up and celebrate (though my adult kids do dress up and celebrate, too). Ladybug as Princess Tiana was my great triumph of creation this year. I took our curtains down to wash them, and even though I was so careful, the fabric backing came off in places, rendering them useless as curtains. With the help of a set of thrift store curtains (the green) and 13 hours of work on my part, they became Tiana's ballgown!! The little girls at the party asked, "Are you Tiana?" with stars in their eyes. And then they followed Ladybug all night because they thought she was really Tiana come to life. Lola was inspired to share her tiny crocheted frog so that Tiana would have her prince! Mister Man became Jack Skellington with a thrift store jacket and pants and a set of white paint pens. Oh!  And some face paint! Lola's costume came from Amazon, but she found shoes at a thrif...

 We'll keep reading--still working on Gilgamesh and The Hobbit . But we'll put the other stuff away to re-center ourselves and get out in the autumn sunshine. Everyone is making progress--math, language arts, science, their various electives. And the cutest part is how they're developing their ability to express gratitude!  Their gratitude journals are getting so creative (toilets, socks, YouTube videos about speed cube algorithms, etc.), and they're strarting to explain their reasoning more thoroughly.  I think the best part of each day is getting to review their gratitude journals. And my next favorite part is reading their Wednesday Research papers. Last week's compositions were about the Wonders of the World, and this week's were on world religions.  They're getting interesting!  And the kids are learning to write more clearly. But I found Ladybug in tears one day over science. Brother is profoundly struggling with algebra. Mister Man is putting school a...