A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

 I didn't want to write last week because I felt too whiny. "Our days are hard." "I don't want to do any school." "What are we going to do?" "Everyone fights everything I ask them to do!" "There's no joy in our journey right now." I didn't want to fill a whole post with those feelings in my mind as I wrote. So I made a change. I worked hard to get the kids outside for many weeks, but the effort was exhausting and then the time change came. I love regular time, when the cold evenings are dark early, and we can gather around as a family together. But my children are bigger. It was this past year that my little boys turned into big boys. Three of them grew about a foot and put on lots of man-to-be weight. They take up so. much. room. I've been treating everyone as if they were old enough and ready to do more studying and less playing. But they're huge, and they're still kids. If I reduce all of their ages by 3...

  Belle (3rd from the left) was so happy to spend time with all of the sister missionaries at a recent meeting on Aruba. We're doing our best. It isn't a lot. But it's something. We're still reading The Phantom Tollbooth . We're still doing math most days. Ladybug is almost done with her Grade 3 review, and I think she'll be starting Grade 4 math before Thanksgiving. We're still doing Morning Meeting. We're still working through grammar and The Mystery of History vol. 3 with the teens. We're still doing "bin school" most days (language arts workbooks). We're really working hard on American Rhythm--so much dancing and sewing and organizing! We're really working hard on communicating and creating peace in the face of conflict. Brother was just mad one morning when it was time for him to take his meds.  I'd waited and watched for a good time to catch him, but it was still a time that annoyed him beyond all reason.  His feeling of ...