A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

This is my crew last summer--the day we said goodbye to Pixie as she headed off to college. I actually have all 12 of my children home right now. Rose Red is nearly 20, graduated from our homeschool a year and a half ago, lives at home, and is working as a server at Applebee's as she tries to understand what it means to be an adult. Pixie is newly 18, graduated from our homeschool almost a year ago, is a dance major at BYUI, and is spending her off-track semester working full-time in the 1-year-old room at a daycare. These two still are part of our family days, and their schedules directly impact the rest of us, but I am no longer responsible for their day-to-day educational needs. The remaining 10 are still under my educational supervision.  Among these 10 children we are schooling while we cope with anxiety, depression, FASD, ADHD, DMDD, ODD, ASD, PTSD, and Intellectual Disability. Here is a February Wednesday in our lives. 5:04 am :  Sir Walter Scott's a...

We are recovering. Little Princess was the last to succumb, so she still feels weak, and Baymax is still on constant bedrest.  The rest of the kids are energetic enough to play games before I make them take naps. It felt like influenza, but it was shorter-lived. Whatever it was, it was dreadful, and I'm glad to see the back of it . . . even if we are left with treating asthma flare-ups and boggling levels of sinus drainage. I was knocked out flat the longest (thank goodness for Sir Walter Scott's PTO!), but Baymax has been by far the most ill--his fever sat at 105+ for over 18 hours despite every medication, every effort we made to cool him down.  At the end of that worst day, he finally fell asleep sandwiched between ice packs.  I am so grateful for the priesthood blessing that precipitated the decline of that fever! He is, however, still quite ill. Other than Morning Meeting, which we managed to have 4 times during our sick week, and one day of Academy r...

We did all of the homeschooling we had planned every day--Morning Meeting, Independent School, Symposium, Colloquium, Academy, Jr, K., and Evening Reading.  It was a very routine week in many ways. The week also challenged me to the breaking point . . . but I didn't break . . . and we soldiered on. My Jr. Ks finished their first of two Alphabet workbooks for the school year. They loved finishing their pink books and starting their blue books. My teens finished Unit 9 of The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts . This is Belle's Unit 8 sketch finally finished! Super Start's Unit 9 art project And Belle's We did not enjoy the literature selections for Units 9 and 10 at all, so after completing the Unit 9 selections, we dropped the books completely, turning instead to The Odyssey, which is how we are diving back into the Omnibus studies we dropped when we decided to simplify our school days last semester.  It is an outstanding translat...

It was an emotionally challenging week in many ways . . . but we get to mark another week of not needing to call 911. :) Saturday The kids spent 7+ hours outside in the snow.  It was the last day before the temperatures were going to melt everything away. They finished as much of their igloos as they could and enjoyed them very much! Little Princess' had a slide out her front door.  Nature Angel's had a sky light. I had no idea that day that circumstances would keep us from enjoying the outdoors for the entire week to come! Sunday 3 sick teens meant we felt small at church.  We didn't even fill the whole pew! My plans to bundle up and take a family hike had to be filed away for later, so we had a quiet day that included a very brief FHE lesson followed by brownies and a scoop of ice cream for those who felt well enough to partake. Monday We had a solid first day of school for the week.  Morning Meeting, Individual School, Symposium, Academy, a...