A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

  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 map...

 That's what has filled our days for the past couple of weeks. Super Star was pregnant; we were all so excited. Then her numbers went down, and she had several days of waiting and wondering and worrying before an ultrasound confirmed that there was no heartbeat. I am far too familiar with this kind of loss, and my heart broke for my daughter and son-in-law.  Even as I supported her to the best of my ability, I felt gut-punched--as if I were reliving my own pregnancy losses of the not-actually-that-far-distant past.  She is recovering well, and she and Mr. E are adopting a beautiful puppy to fill their hearts and hands while they wait for medical clearance to try again and then face the uncertainty of future pregnancies. (Adopting a puppy has been on their wish list for a year now.  The timing of this puppy being born and available now is a serendipitous blessing!) That was one death. The other was Sir Walter Scott's mom. We are grateful to have her body and mind at p...

 After I posted last Sunday, Brother got angry over a Lego.  Long story short, violence happened, and he ran. It was a long, tense evening of searching, calling 911, and finally finding him. He was not happy to be home, but he chose to be home, so we settled in the best we could. We were tired, sore, and on edge, so we all went to bed by 9:00 pm. When we woke up, it was the first day of 2024. Our study theme for January is astronomy, and even though it was not technically a "school day," we went to the downtown planetarium and caught a showing of Destination Solar System . No pictures were allowed during the show, but before it began there was a slide show of various pictures from outer space.   Awe set in almost immediately. The actual show was silly and fun.  We managed to learn a few things we didn't already know, and I was happy to start the month in a joyful manner. We got started on official school on the 4th.  Just history for the high schoolers and ...