A Week, Briefly (9/23/19)

Mister Man spent months kitting this orange scarf that he proudly gave to Grampa Chad.  The good news is that Grampa Chad proudly wears it!

Monday
What a great day!  We had homeschool magic during Academy when our plan was to simply read a simple introductory book about the human body that inspired watching YouTube videos showing actual human systems and one video of a white blood cell chasing down a germ.

The germ video was my favorite.

The kids were alive with the wonder that only young kids can show when they wake to a bit of knowledge they'd not known before.

During Symposium, the teens and read the first 55 pages of The Book Thief.

Ummmmmm . . . this book is amazing!

I don't know where it's going to go, but sometimes I lose my breath from the perfection of the prose, and I'm willing to take this ride.

It's for our teen book club in mid-October.

Water color painting by Little Princess--as assigned in The Good and the Beautiful

Sir Walter Scott took a couple of kids to the dentist.

We did as much school as we possibly could.  It was a productive day.

I had to leave in the early afternoon to join Ladybug for a joint therapy session, and when I got home, the kids were playing so happily in the autumn afternoon, that I chose to drop the idea of any further formal school.

I called the kids to dinner.

I caught the boys playing in water when they weren't wearing swimsuits, and I reminded them that we don't allow water play in regular clothes (I don't care if it sounds fussy--trust me, it is important to my sanity in our household).

Brother seemed to accept this discipline, then he went to the garage, put some toys away, put on his helmet, got out his bike, and rode away.

We gave a good chase.
We called 911.
Sir Walter Scott had a hunch about where to look.
He caught Brother trying to enter the freeway a few miles from our home.

Seriously--the freeway!?!?!?

I wonder what other drivers thought of this 7-year-old boy trying to work his way up the on-ramp on his bike during rush hour traffic.

I further wonder what they thought of Sir Walter Scott's efforts to cut him off and catch him.

We reported back to 911, calling off the police hunt.

We limped through the evening, with many, many prayers of gratitude that God helped us find Brother unharmed.

And we got 2 new friends!!!  They're Nature Angel's special friends. :)

Their names are Jot and Tittle, and they're baby male guinea pigs.  They're so friendly and so cute, we can hardly stand it!

Tuesday
Sir Walter Scott went back to work, and I was the only adult in the house.

Ladybug and Brother each had a dreadful day.

The rest of us did what school we could . . . which wasn't much.

But no one ran away, and everyone survived.

Little Princess built the splatter paint tool herself and splattered artfully away.

In an effort to get these two out of the kitchen, I handed them some old bread crusts and put them to work feeding the chickens.  Win-win-win.  (Me, them, the chickens)

And at some point in the week, the Academy crew and I wrote these two poems, inspired by our study of The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown.

This one was part of a nature study.

This one was just because we could.

Wednesday
Sir Walter Scott went back to work

It was a slightly better day for Ladybug and Brother.  I ordered cardboard study carrels for them, so they can work at the table at the same time.

I opened an Internet Archive book recommended by Jennifer at Bookish Family called Squirrels in the Garden and read part of it to the kids.  We're all hooked!

We had a reasonable homeschool day together.

The Cheerios portraits are inspired by The Chaos and the Clutter

Mister Man, Baymax, Ladybug, Beowulf

Brother, Lola, Little Princess, Nature Angel

Pixie face timed with me and the teens later in the evening.  It was so fun to chat and so hard to press "end call."

Thursday
I focused on prepping for teaching dance--allowing the kids a mostly free morning in the gorgeously gorgeous autumn weather.

Then I called the kids in for a brief Academy during which we played with a fan, feathers, playsilks, paper, and artificial leaves in order to study wind.  Then we made a wind inspired art project.

Ladybug had a particularly bad day.

So did Super Star.

I left them both home while the rest of us went to dance.

We danced very hard.

(Even though I forgot my choreography notes at home.)

I did a little bit of school with a couple of kids, but mostly I left them to play outside.  I was wiped out even more than what's usual for me, and by the time I had dinner ready, I was nearly in tears.  We got the teens off to their service project for a local transitional housing project, and after I read to the littlest ones, Sir Walter Scott graciously entertained the medium-sized kids while I crashed into bed and slept like the dead.

It seems like Brother's new med is really working at helping him control his actions.  He's got a lot of hard stuff to deal with, but he's significantly more capable of functioning than he was before he started it.

Friday
Sir Walter Scott was home again, and his presence allowed for a lot of supervised outdoor play for those needing supervision.

The study carrels arrived, and upon using hers for the first time, Ladybug said, "This is really good for me!"

I agree with her!

I ran the kids through a full school day even with a break in the day for therapy sessions for Brother and myself.

We didn't get done with school projects until after dinner, but I'm pleased with having had a productive day.

Beowulf is struggling with attention, focus, fine-motor skills, and general cooperativeness.  His ability to do seat-work is declining . . . I'm not sure what to do!  His individual school time is scheduled to last barely 20 minutes per day, and over half of the days, we can't do any of it.

Not even 1:1.

Not even if I let him stand or jump or move as he works.

At least we have his ADHD clinic intake appointment in October.

Saturday
That's today.

Sir Walter Scott is at work.

The teens are off at a church volleyball tournament.

I took 9 kids 10-and-under to two grocery stores and the library.  I got a whole bunch of books about human anatomy, and those would have been extremely delightful to the kids except that they found a whole bunch more Lego books, and the boys are holed up with the books and the Lego bin, completely absorbed in building.

It's all good. :)

We returned 31 library books and checked out 72 more.

Oh!  The teens got home!

One leader bought all of the girls the socks, and another one is a professional face-painter. 

:)

They won an award for best team chant . . . and they are sure they had the most enthusiasm of any of the teams present!

This morning Pixie texted that she and her friends made a 6:45 am temple session and returned to the apartment common room to share a pancake breakfast.  Her studies continue to go well, and in spite of a nasty cold, she's happy and dancing well--including being moved to the "advanced" half of her ballet class. (It's a 200-level course, so it includes a rather wide variety of ballet experience.)

I'm off to lure the kids outside with popsicles . . .