A Week, Briefly (Feb 7, 2022)

 I feel as though there's nothing to share . . . we get up, we clean up, we study, we struggle, we triumph, we read, we fix meals and eat them, we play, we feed babies, we talk (or don't talk) . . . we're in a quiet place.

I'm so used to living in crisis, that it is hard for me to see the power of the quiet moments.

(I used to be so good at it!)

I'm training myself to see again.

Though we're in a quiet place, we still have our struggles.  Beowulf had a hard time with school.  We didn't have any book-ripping or chair-throwing, but it did take all of my patience and energy to convince him to face the table and focus on the work in front of him.  Each lesson ended with completed work and no violence.

A triumph!

Wednesday night church activities took everyone from home but these two and me.  In between tidying-up jobs, I watched them watch their movie.

How grateful I am to have young ones at home!

Every day we joyed in our babies being back in our home.  Though the charm is not captured in this picture of Sugar Bear with her "tail," it does remind me of how much I laughed at all of the babies shaking their tails and dancing to music about the letter C or cheetahs or ovals.

The Munchkin rocked these little puzzles!  He did them again and again.

Baymax . . . looking like the awkward growing boy he is!  He's all snaggly toothed grins, mussed hair, and long limbs right now.  He also finished this printing book.

Ladybug finished this math program.  She has not mastered the skills, but she has been introduced to them, and we will continue to work on 3rd grade skills until she demonstrates mastery.  I've found that it is best for her to do several different programs relatively rapidly, rather than working slowly through one.  I think hitting a hard subject hard, then leaving it, then coming back to it helps her not give up or feel stuck.  We're going to be between math programs for a little while, but we're going to continue working on memorizing the times tables with flash cards.  She's passed off her 3s, 4s, and 5s, and we're working on 6s.

Beowulf trying to control his body and his mind simultaneously.

Brother is happiest when he is building!

Belle had her first College Algebra test--score still pending.

Pixie had her first Kinesiology test--score still pending.

Nature Angel worked on this painting.  Rose Red shared some of Nature Angel's work on her social media accounts, and one friend has commissioned a painting of his dog.  Nature Angel has been hard at work on preliminary sketches.

I realized we're almost through all of the planned readings for my elementary crew's Early American History course.  This week we read Daniel Boone: Trailblazer and Who Was Betsy Ross?.  We also started I Am Sacagawea.  It will only take another couple of weeks to read about The War of 1812 (including The Star Spangled Banner) and early westward expansion.  Next school year we'll pick up with Abraham Lincoln and The Civil War.

This leaves me some time to cover some of the other subjects on my wish-list:

*Returning to our World Geography readings--we only covered Argentina at the start of the year!

*Greek Mythology

*Reviewing one of our Safety Skills units

*Picking up our walking and nature studies--I miss doing these!

*Doing a Maturation and Sexual Reproduction unit.  All of the younger 6 are emotionally and intellectually between the ages of 7 and 10 (except Lola who is chronologically 7, but emotionally 4 or 5), and even though we've had private discussions with some of them, it is definitely necessary to cover this subject more than once or twice.  Could this possibly work in a group setting?!?!  Something to think about!

At night, we're still reading The Cat of Bubastes.  We've finally gotten to some exciting stuff!

We have a dance performance next week.  Time to see if the costumes still fit from last semester!  For sure, I know that all 4 boys need new shoes--they've been growing. :)