A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

The focus of the week was Rose Red's Sweet 16 party.  We spent hours cleaning, crafting, sorting, decorating, shopping, and soothing worries. Super Star helps wash the mason jars that we eventually filled with flowers and/or candles and hung all over the yard. Dad spent 2 hours stringing fairy lights all around the deck.  They were so, so, so pretty! In spite of thunder, lightning, wind, rain, and hail, the party was a smashing success!  And the storm passed quickly, so the party-goers got to go out and enjoy the night in the end. While they were stuck indoors, Rose Red opened her gifts. Along the way we still: *Held Morning Meeting--we're on paragraph 5 of The Family Proclamation, and I forgot to mention that we finished The Book of Mormon stories and we're back to Bible stories with this book .  We're also doing daily scripture reading and journaling with these pages .  *Did some Math--at least Pixie, Super Star, and Belle did their work 4 days t

Spring is here. The sun shines; the rain falls; the kids grow; the flowers bloom; we have big, exciting plans looming. And I feel just dead inside. One foot in front of the other is how I'm doing it. I tried to take the week off, but then I realized that all I would hear all week was, "Will you read with me? Will you do _______ with me? When will we do ________? What are you doing? Can I help? What are we doing next?" The very thought of so many questions makes my heart race and my hands shake. Then I tried sticking to our usual school routine. For the sake of survival. But even that didn't work. Monday The older girls and I began a music history/appreciation unit. Unsatisfied with the fact that the unit began with the Baroque period, the girls asked enough questions that I googled music history and read some articles about the earliest, earliest musical artifacts. We also listened to some Gregorian chants, some medieval pipes, and some Italian

We had a fabulous reading/discussion session Saturday night about Galileo and how our solar system moves through the Milky Way galaxy--complete with Google searches, ooohs, ahhhs, and tons of questions from curious kids and teens. Seriously, this science book by Joy Hakim? Priceless. Thought this picture of our van full of groceries for a week was kind of funny. Monday dawned cloudy but warm, and we had the littles out playing on the deck before breakfast. Morning Meeting brought lots of giggles at Dad's expense.  He does his best, but the kids laughed because he doesn't know the words/tunes to the songs we sing as well as we do.  It's really not his fault that he misses most Morning Meetings because he goes to work to support our lifestyle! The older girls and I limped our way through an examination of literary stylistic techniques found in The Comedy of Errors as we simultaneously dealt with interruptions-on-top-of-interruptions by babies and littles. 

Monday's forecast was for 70 degrees and sunny.  I immediately planned to have our Poetry and Pie event outside and wondered if I could fit in a park outing . . . or if I should blow off regular school and just go to the park. Realizing how many appointments and other hassles are on our calendar for the week, gave me impetus to just hunker down and enjoy our usual work for the morning. We started paragraph 4 of The Family Proclamation during Morning Meeting.  We had a grand time singing paragraphs 1-3 all in a row. The older girls and I discussed the events and character development in Bambi chapters 13-17.  It led us to discussing how to judge wisely in life.  At the end of the discussion they were sent off to finish the book, do their math, and come help me make pies. Nature Angel and I did some grammar, spelling, vocabulary, and geography. Mister Man read some Dick and Jane stories with me. Little Princess didn't want to do school because she was busy playin