A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

(I kind of feel like Mister Man here on Christmas morning--time to pause in my building to assess what to do and what needs to be cleaned up.) I want to run. Not away. I want to run for exercise, for joy, for satisfaction, for setting a good example, for strength, for energy, for reaching a goal. If I sign up for a local half marathon before tomorrow night, I get the early-bird discount.  The race isn't until October.  I asked Sir Walter Scott if he wanted to join me--to make it something we can do together.  He hemmed and hawed a bit.  He wants to run, but he has the same question I do. My older girls want to run, too. How can we do it? That's one of my questions for the year ahead. My other questions are: How do I re-structure our days so that I don't always feel like a pressure-cooker about to explode? How do Sir Walter Scott and I get to the temple more often? How do I make time for individual children? What will we read? What ...

We had school for the big girls on Monday and Tuesday in order to finish up our history unit--we briefly covered the Peloponnesian wars and Alexander the Great's life. We made gingerbread cookies. We played outside in the mild air (now it is cold, but it wasn't earlier this week). I ran too many errands. Ladybug and I had a PCIT training session. We played Spirograph. We finished Winnie the Pooh and started Owls in the Family .  I cannot say enough good about Owls in the Family --even the teens are laughing aloud at this one.  And I have to add that this is the first time we've ever finished reading Winnie the Pooh aloud because the kids have always made me stop before.  Something was right this time, and everyone from 4 to 15 was enamored of the adventures of Pooh in their written form. We finished Wonder and began The Screwtape Letters as well.  Both books are treasures.  Wonder affected us all with a sense of joy and love for our fellow man...

I just uploaded and edited all of this past week's pictures.  There's not one photo of anything school related! We had preschool Monday-Thursday this week.  We danced to the Hallelujah Chorus, finished learning how to fingerspell the alphabet, began learning the song "I am Like a Star " and began making "All About Me" books. The plan had been to learn "Little Jesus" and do a small nativity craft, but one morning during personal prayer the idea was clearly manifest that my preschoolers needed books about themselves to begin their personal histories.  Ladybug has been asking questions--even trying to make up a past for herself--and though I can't get answers for her (tied up in confidential state records), I can help her document her history starting right now. We drew pictures of ourselves, took photos of ourselves, weighed and measured ourselves, drew pictures of our family, documented our favorite colors, foods, and activities, and talk...

Monday was a typical day for us, therapy for Brother in the morning, school for the rest of us. Blanket time was dancing to The Nutcracker Suite, but Ladybug was grouchy, Brother and Little Brother were hyper, and Mister Man tripped and fell over Baymax, so we called it quits early. PreK was enjoyable as we watched videos about the letter F and its sound.  Ladybug has beautiful handwriting for a 5 year old!  We sorted pictures with /f/ and /t/ sounds, practiced writing, and learned about "the" as a sight word. Family school was about the Babylonian captivity of the Jews--specifically focusing on Daniel and his ability to stay the course in spite of troubles in the world around him.   In Chemistry we discussed the concept of density.  We examined a couple of toy balls--one was a ball pit kind of ball and the other was the same size but made for bouncing.  In our comparison of the two balls we were able to learn the formula for finding density. Sir Walt...

I'm a cookbook junkie; I can't resist a good cookbook.  I borrow them from the library.  I purchase them.  I read them for pleasure--sitting in the rocking chair while I nurse my baby.  I study them when I menu-plan.  I pore over them while I consider alternative diets.  I give them away when I have too many to fit on my shelves. Then I buy more. So, when I found out I could join Blogging for Books and have nearly unlimited access to brand-new cookbooks, something in my brain shivered with pleasure, and I signed on. I've long been fascinated by Alice Waters and the Chez Panisse story, and I love a well-stocked pantry, so it was with delight that I opened the box containing my first cookbook to review. But I was disappointed. I'm an instinctive cook.  I don't need recipes for much other than inspiration and the specifics for a good pie crust.  What I look for in a cookbook is inspiration.  It doesn't matter whether there are lus...

It was a good week for school. For preschool we danced to the Nutcracker Suite on Monday. Tuesday-Thursday we worked on learning the words to "Picture a Christmas," and we worked on a stable craft to go with it (though by printing and coloring other nativity characters we were able to make our craft a bit more complete).  We should be able to finish the song and craft on Monday. We've also continued to learn to fingerspell with ASL--we're up to "m" now. December is our month to learn the 4th Article of Faith , so we've been singing it once a day and reviewing one previously  learned Article of Faith as well. This week we formed a PreK class for Mister Man and Ladybug.  We're reviewing/learning all of the letter sounds along with a few sight words via Easy-Peasy and Reading the Alphabet.   We've done /t/ with sight word "a," and we've started /f/ and sight word "the."  So far it has been really joyful for them bo...

It has been a week of tremendous heartache and tremendous joy. Brother loves going to therapy. Ladybug had a joyful reunion with her school teachers when she went in for her weekly therapy appointment.  She'd been asking to go back to school, so I was uncertain and vulnerable when they asked her if she wanted to come back.  She answered, "No.  I want to stay home with Mommy."  I breathed a sigh of relief and blinked back tears of exhaustion and gratitude. Her behaviors as she struggles to adjust have been quite difficult. Daily use of our quiet buckets has helped her settle into life at home. The oldest girls collected goods for servicemen/women and for Syrian refugees with the church youth group.  Belle had her first riding lesson--a combined Christmas/birthday gift.  She came home glowing. We had our dog put down.  She was nearly 14 years old and suffering greatly from old age.  When she couldn't get up to get a drink of water or ...