A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

 It's Christmas Eve morning as I write.  We've got a full day ahead of us including caring for babies (yes, 4 of them are coming over today!), wrapping presents, baking and decorating cookies, picking up the teen car from the shop (someone tried to steal the catalytic converter!), possibly meeting my parents at the Giving Machine downtown, and cleaning up in preparation for Christmas Day. I don't think we can do it all.     We've kept up with school through most of the month.  We're in a working routine, and I don't like breaking working routines!  Yesterday was our first day off from school, and that will continue today.  My best guess is that we'll return to our school schedule on Monday in order to provide everyone with a sense of normalcy and comfort. The kids are generally doing well.   We did have an incident of traumatic proportions when Beowulf got angry at Lola and pushed her down and stomped on her. Both radius and ulna are slightly chipped.   Yes

My computer and Blogger are not getting along these days.  I'm having to get veeeeerrrry creative about reading and writing here.  I hope that relations are repaired soon. We had such a deliciously normal week, that I have little to report other than to say, "We put up our Christmas tree.  We did school.  We celebrated another birthday.  We took care of babies." The best picture I have to share came from last week.   Nature Angel took this picture from our van window as the van was moving.  I didn't see it until today, so that's why it's here instead of in my last post. I love how she sees our world. 10 out of 12 kids home for tree decorating! Ladybug finished another spelling book.  With this one and the last one done, we've renewed our efforts at The Good and the Beautiful Language Arts 3.   Our Christmas picture book reading has prompted Baymax to read on his own.  After I read the stories, I put them on our mantel.  The kids are free to read them at t

 We've had birthdays, illnesses, psych appointments, med changes, family in town, friends in town, and Thanksgiving dinner in the past two weeks.   And through it all, we've marched along with relative stability!   I am exceedingly grateful.   Some days we held sick babies, blew our own noses, and got our work done.   We finished Shepherd, Potter, Spy--and the Star Namer , and we started Tirzah .  Yes, we're reading the books decidedly out of order history-wise.  I don't know what happened to my careful ordering of books on the shelf, but at least we're reading them, and the out-of-orderness gives us plenty to talk about as we read. Our Academy read-alouds have included Landmark's Meet Thomas Jefferson , several chapters in A Child's First Book of American History , and the first several days of our picture book advent, including: Humphrey's First Christmas, A Cranberry Christmas, A Christmas Wish, and On Christmas Day in the Morning. And some days the

 Honestly . . . it was a pretty good week . . . even though we had a lot of sickness and a lot of activities.  We did our book work on 4 days, and we had our one and only show for the semester on Thursday.     The whole bad dress rehearsal--good show adage proved true for us, and our show was a joy.  The audience was so appreciative and complimentary (that's why it is lovely to perform for the elderly).  When the girls came out to dance to Peppermint Twist , and they were all wearing poodle skirts, there was an audible gasp of delight from the women in the audience.  One woman leaned over to her friend and said happily, "I used to have a skirt just like that!"     A frantic costume change moment before Peppermint Twist   Our theme is patriotic this year, and as the kids concluded with singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic , there were many tear-streaked faces. How grateful I am that the nursing home staff not only allowed us to perform, but encouraged our children to in