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...

  Hurrah for being healthy! I got up grateful every morning, and I went to bed grateful every evening, and I was just plain grateful all day to feel capable of being present. Monday Random shot of Little Princess working on research.  She changed her essay focus from The Wright Brothers to History of Aviation It was clear and sunny and cool enough for coats, but also perfect for playing outside (It would normally have been teen school time, but Nature Angel was really sick.).   At first, I tried to keep the babies away from the two puddles in our driveway, but then I gave up and directed it a little by encouraging them to throw pebbles into the puddles.  I figured they'd love throwing rocks, the pebbles would raise the puddles so they'd drain, and it didn't require sitting in the water. They did love it. And they sat in the water. I love how patient my kids can be as they teach the babies how to do stuff! The younger kids and I couldn't do our usual school becau...