In a Groove

 

I have no idea why this is such a tiny picture.  I took it with the same camera as the rest of the pictures in this post, and I did not edit it.  If I enlarge it, it is nothing but huge pixels.  I'm including it because, even though it is tiny, it has about 3 of my kids during one of our Couch to 5K running sessions.

We've now run consistently for 2 weeks!!  Several of the kids and I opted to repeat week one, and if we keep that pace, we will complete the 6-week program in 12 weeks instead, but I don't care about taking so long.  I'm just happy that we're getting out and being consistent.

The kids have the 50 states and capitals memorized (not Lola, though, I hope she's absorbing what she can by listening), so I printed blackline maps and assigned the kids to trace the shapes of the states.  Over the course of the rest of the week, I had them fill in all of the states and capitals.

Lola was working. 
Beowulf was struggling.

Working on their maps

We continued reading out of all of our books.  We haven't finished or started anything new in a couple of weeks.  

Except for Lightfoot the Deer by Thornton W. Burgess.

The kids are becoming teens at an alarming rate, and we are not able to have as many at-home evenings as we used to.  The default for the youngest kids at home when bigger kids were gone was to have a movie night as a treat.

But that treat was becoming too much of a steady diet!

I let Lola and Baymax know that we'd keep little books on hand to read together when most of the kids were out.  

Ergo, we started Lightfoot the Deer this weekend.  The boys were all gone at a birthday party Friday night, and then everyone 13 and up was gone at a dance on Saturday night.  

They were disappointed to have their screen time reduced, but it felt better to have reading time with them and not just let this bedtime tradition die of neglect while my littlest kids are still only 10 years old.

(How did that happen!?!  10 years old!?!?!?)

One very fun development this week is Baymax's interest in playing the harmonica.  He got it from a primary teacher last year, and it has sat unused in his room for all of these months.  He picked up Echo from one of our shelves, and as he read, he discovered lyrics and harmonica instructions for America the Beautiful.

He's been practicing daily!

The high schoolers and I had administrative conferences during which we reviewed their progress in their various classes and reviewed information for their transcripts.  

I had to laugh at Nature Angel because she's graduating with 30 credits!

I offered to graduate her last year, but she knew she wasn't ready, and even now as we talked about her decision, she avers that it was the right decision to delay graduation to this year.

Little Princess' transcript is starting to look just as full as her sister's.

We will not finish our current world history text until about 2 weeks after Nature Angel's graduation.  She's chosen to graduate at a big homeschool association ceremony.  I asked the girls if they wanted to double up the lessons to finish the course in a more timely manner, but they agreed that they'd rather take it at our usual pace to give them time to absorb the content more thoroughly than they would otherwise.

They are seriously cool teens.

Random picture of Little Princess with her beautiful salad

We had dentist appointments this week.  I laughed at how prepared Brother came for the wait.

In addition to the other activities of the weekend, the oldest two boys had a church basketball tournament all day Saturday. 

There were more boys than pinnies, so they had to take turns wearing them as they played.  Brother and Mister Man did play!  

There was an hour when the younger boys got to play, so Beowulf was able to have a little fun, too.

I have failed to mention for the past few months that during Morning Meeting, the kids are taking turns leading the music when we sing a hymn.  I'm teaching them how to read a time signature and how to correctly beat the music.  Some of them are naturals; some of them are not. 😄  Either way, they are learning a skill that I believe will help them serve in church for the rest of their lives.

My favorite kid saying of the week:

Lola asked me "Would you rather be a deer or a bird?"

I answered, "Deer."

Baymax responded, "Whoa!  You'd be a really old doe!"