A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

This was officially week 4 of our 2018-19 homeschool year, and we are still struggling. Quite simply, I can't do so much out of the house stuff. Some of the kids can't do so much out of the house stuff. Some of the kids really need the out of the house stuff. You'd think the give and take would help us develop an atmosphere of blessing one another and thriving, but I feel like I'm dying, and a goodly portion of the kids are falling to pieces, and while I'm truly trying to believe that we'll find our rhythm . . . I just want to give up. But I haven't. And good things are happening. Mister Man as Osiris. We got Pixie an ACT prep book and got her signed up to re-take it officially in October.  I think she'll need to take it again in December to get her score to a comfortable level, but she's taken the first practice exam, and now we have a record of what she got right and what she needs to work on.  We're focusing on math . . . b

I'm still working on making our days/weeks actually manageable. Until then, we continue in survival mode. One of Nature Angel's history projects this week. We had 3 Symposium meetings this week, during which we finished up our Language Arts Unit 1, reviewed ser and estar as well as learned some new ways to use both verbs and did some Book of Mormon translation for Spanish, and we completed Week 5 in History.  The girls have a fair amount of Language Arts homework over the weekend to make up for the short week of meetings. The art project for this unit was to sketch a leaf.  Here's Belle's. And Super Star's And Pixie's--alongside the photo they were to copy. We finished reading Little Women on Monday and had our book club meeting on Friday. There is a hole in our days without Little Women .  It is not a time hole, as there is plenty to fill the time we took to read each day; it is an emotional hole.  The kids feel it, and I feel i

We did a lot of living and a little school. We managed Symposium 4 out of 5 days (which will be our normal for the next 7 weeks because of co-op), Academy 3 1/2 out of 5 days, one-on-one school for Ladybug all 5 days, one-on-one school for the rest of the kids only once during the week. But we also had a birthday, a family nature walk, picking up the teen car from the shop, the first day of homeschool co-op, dentist appointments, Belle's weekly farm hours, dance practice, church youth activities, a full week of dance for Pixie, paperwork to get Beowulf into the Developmental/Behavioral clinic at the local children's hospital (no small task!), and the homeschool fall camp out. I'm very grateful that all of our cars were in working order this week! Ladybug is 8 now!  This is a big birthday at our house, and one for which we throw a party with invited guests.  For Ladybug we kept it simple--Grandparents and two close families that were understanding when I asked them

We're getting 6 eggs a day right now . . . and watching for that number to increase.  The pretty eggs are a joy to me. I had an almost-panic attack this week. I spent a few hours on Tuesday wavering back and forth between freaking out and using our family mantra to try to bring myself to a functional place. It was moving laundry and my best friend from college that saved me. Work and talk. And listening. When I talked, I cried. When I asked questions about my friend and listened to her, I calmed down. I needed all three--working, talking, listening--to come back to myself. And good teens who put (the already prepared) dinner on the table, got the littles cleaned up, and then fed them.  (Thank you, Super Star and Belle!!!) I don't know whether the work I'm doing is that hard or if I'm just a wimp. But it feels that hard. So I made some changes. The first was that I gave up half an hour of my personal quiet time to do school with Ladybug.  It