I 💖 Great Books

 We read Freak the Mighty.  

I think it left its mark on all of our souls.

And Ladybug had to choose a person for a biography assignment.  She couldn't find any of our Harriet Tubman biographies (?!!?), but she did find Ain't I a Woman by Sojourner Truth.  

I think it's going to leave another mark on her soul.

I know it did mine.

And the kids' Wednesday research writings are getting better as they get better at finding good book sources.

That is a Pokemon book Lola is reading.
I had to redirect her back to her research topic.
(But maybe I'll make Pokemon next week's assignment!)

The library we visited this week had an outdoor patio open, and I took Little Mister outside for some play and then a nap while the big kids read and wrote.  (His mama just let us know that she's starting a new job as a home health nurse, and she'll only be working Saturdays when his daddy is home, so we only have two more weeks of including Little Mister in our homeschool days.  I'm happy for them, sad for us. 😭)

We finished our Western Civ text reading about Mesopotamia, and now we're working on a re-telling of Gilgamesh that we're reading via Internet Archive.

It's quite good!

(I am, however, doing a bit of editing as I read aloud that might turn into more than a bit because this is a racy story!  It's certainly not a book I'd just hand to my kids.)

I've already decided to slow down our Western Civ work to take 2 years because I'd rather take our time and read great books and stories along the way instead of rushing through the text just to say we've done it.

Mister Man is slowly working his way through Oedipus the King in his language arts program, and I'm quite enjoying revisiting it with him.

Little Princess is 2/3 of the way through Flowers for Algernon.  She'll write a total of 4 essays--3 short essays, and one final essay--as she reads the book.  I'm looking forward to reading and talking about her second essay tomorrow morning.

I worry about the amount of light reading we do--the brain candy that we all bring home from the library.

Then I make a list of our school reading, and I'm reassured.

We are blessed with great books!

Mister Man, Ladybug, Beowulf, and Little Princess attended a PT/drill activity hosted by our CAP wing.  Not many kids attended, but those who did passed PT and drill tests that put them in good stead for their next promotions.  

Both Ladybug and Little Princess are possibly promoting this week ("possibly" because there are variables at work beyond our control).

Homeschool soccer started this week, too!  We pulled out cleats, shin guards, socks, and soccer balls; we are very grateful to find there were enough cleats to go around . . . for now.  The CAP activity conflicted with soccer, so we had only 3 soccer players this week.  

I have shin guards in my Amazon cart right now.

We added in our final component of our homeschool plan, and that component is PE.  

On Monday we walked.

On Tuesday we had a sit-up contest! (Our best sitter-upper did 81 sit-ups!)

On Wednesday we did half a dozen HiiT activities ("A High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) workout alternates short bursts of very hard exercise with periods of rest or slow movement.")

On Thursday we went to dance.

On Friday we slept in because the heat is killing us all, and everyone is so tired and grumpy!

We tried to open our gym membership, but 3 kids couldn't get their academics finished in a timely manner, so we had to put it off.  I think I will aim to complete this task in the morning one day this week.  The pressure of completing academics first isn't how I want to run our days.

Nature Angel headed to Utah to visit Pixie and Belle.

They've been attending concerts, touring BYU, visiting family, and eating and laughing a lot!

And Little Princess organized a 5 couple group "blind date" with a friend.  The girls and boys met at a nearby church building, split into couples (assigned ahead of time without knowing one another), and headed out for activities.  

It was a great success . . . if success is based on the amount of laughter enjoyed by all.

No budding romances resulted, but that wasn't the point.

The girls are already brainstorming how to organize another event!

Mister Man is doing some practical electronics activities this year.  This requires special equipment that I am purchasing one unit at a time.  Now that he's about half way through his first unit, I wanted to get the ordering for the second unit completed.

It took three hours!

Three. Hours.

I had to study the book pictures, read the written specifications, and then try to match it all to products on the internet that I could order.

Good grief!

I told him he'd better be able to do something useful someday with all of this stuff! :)

Brother spends hours and hours and hours getting faster at solving puzzle cubes.  He and Beowulf each spent a bunch of their own hard-earned money buying high quality speed cubes.  Brother studies solution algorithm videos on YouTube, then he teaches what he learns to anyone who wants to be taught.  He's not as fast as world record holders, but his times are quite impressive, and I wonder if I should be looking for local competitions for him.

Truth?

I hate the never-ending clacking of the cubes.

But they love these cubes, so . . . 🤷

Seminary, church activities, and dance rounded out our week.

I'm quite happy to be having "dull" days.