A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

We sat down together on Sunday night for Family Home Evening and wrote thank you letters--one each--to any person we felt inclined to thank. On Monday Sir Walter Scott bought stamps and mailed them off. Hopefully those dozen envelopes brightened the Thanksgiving celebration for a dozen people. And if they didn't, at least our hearts were brightened as we counted our blessings and expressed our personal gratitude for part of them. No formal school for any of us this week. Baymax continued to explode in his language development.  Emerging talkers are some of my favorite people in the world.  My current favorite word on his list is "motorcycle" because it sounds exactly like "water bottle." Lola 's language explosion started this week.  In each of her developmental milestones (other than gross motor) she waits just until I start to worry that she's not going to get there, and then she does.  All of a sudden instead of pointing and crying, she...

Having been invited to write a review for Schoolhouse Review Crew , I was tickled to find Creative Nature Study available from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine .  The forecast for our area last week was perfect autumn weather--high 40s over night and reaching 70 or so each afternoon.  Knowing I'd feel compelled to get outside and make the most of these last autumn days, I requested a copy of the ebook and began reading immediately. photo credit: Pixie I am not a natural at taking my kids outside to study and learn.  I was a bookworm who, as a kid, only went outside to walk to school or the library.  I'd come home laden with books from either location and curl up in the overstuffed armchair in the living room and not come up for air until forced. I have a couple of kids like this, but a good number of my kids need to learn with their hands and bodies.  I also have kids with special emotional, physical, and cognitive needs, and research shows that kids le...

We read about it. We talked about it. We planned on it. We set alarms on our phones for it. And we still managed to NOT go out to experience the awesome astronomical event of Sunday night. Nothing went wrong. We just forgot. And didn't notice the alarms that were supposed to remind us. C'est la vie . Monday Preschool book of the week:  Gracias*Thanks We dove into our usual routine easily.  Mondays are our review days for The Living Christ.  I love watching Mister Man, Ladybug, and Brother get into singing.  Their little voices get big, and the expressions on their faces as they hit the high notes deserves a photograph to appreciate--perhaps I'll put that on my priority list next week. We've finished the first quarter of lessons from The Mystery of History 2.  We had a blast running through the review questions included in the text.  It turns out that Nature Angel remembers Roman emperors quite well, while Super Star really absorbed the mat...