A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

 Puzzles are the current kid craze.  Little Princess started it, and the younger kids have eagerly searched the game closet for interesting puzzles.  (Even though we clean that closet out at least once every year, somehow half of the puzzles have missing pieces every time!)   She was doing one 100 piece puzzle over and over and over again.  When I went shopping I picked up a $5 puzzle that was new to her and a bit more of a challenge.  The weather has continued to swing precariously between single digits with storms and 60s with sun.  One day we can take the babies out to play half of the day, and the next we have to keep them indoors because the wind chill makes it dangerous.  On cold days, they stand at the windows pointing to the deck pleading, "Ou'si'e?  Ou'si'e?"  We do our best to distract them with dancing and playdough and stories. It looks like another cold is going through the ranks.  A couple of the babies went home sick ...

 Temperatures swung from 60+ degrees and sunny to single digits and 8 inches of snow this week.  In the coming week we're swinging back up again with 20 degree temperature climbs per day. The kids are out in it all.  I don't have photographic documentation of their outdoor play this year the way I have in years past, but they are still outside in all weathers.  This week they spent most of their time on bikes and skates, but when the creek froze, they spent almost 2 full days on the ice. The ice and snow caused schools to close and travel advisories in our area, so we had a day with no babies at all and then another day with only 2 babies.  It was so quiet around here!  We missed our babies, but we put our time to good use to get lots of school and organizing done. We celebrated Valentine's Day on Sunday instead of Monday because of school and work and babies.  We had our treasure hunt which was actually pretty challenging this year, and even though ou...

 I feel as though there's nothing to share . . . we get up, we clean up, we study, we struggle, we triumph, we read, we fix meals and eat them, we play, we feed babies, we talk (or don't talk) . . . we're in a quiet place. I'm so used to living in crisis, that it is hard for me to see the power of the quiet moments. (I used to be so good at it!) I'm training myself to see again. Though we're in a quiet place, we still have our struggles.  Beowulf had a hard time with school.  We didn't have any book-ripping or chair-throwing, but it did take all of my patience and energy to convince him to face the table and focus on the work in front of him.  Each lesson ended with completed work and no violence. A triumph! Wednesday night church activities took everyone from home but these two and me.  In between tidying-up jobs, I watched them watch their movie. How grateful I am to have young ones at home! Every day we joyed in our babies being back in our home.  Though...

 I planned to spend the week recuperating and caring for sick children, but I felt fine when I got up on Monday morning, and all of the kids were in fighting form, so we did quite a bit of school! Everyone tested positive for covid except Sir Walter Scott.  He is not the only vaccinated member of our family, but he is the only one who didn't get sick.  With the exception of Baymax, the older we were, the sicker we felt.  Baymax is youngest, and he felt pretty crummy.  Some of the kids had a runny nose for a single afternoon. :)  Nonetheless, we stayed away from all people and activities outside our home all week long.   Every single one of our daycare babies tested positive, too, and they all stayed home with their parents, so we had an oddly restful and measurably productive week. Brother finished his first cursive book.  He has another to work on, but we're taking a break and focusing on some grammar for a little while. Most of the kids' th...

  The only picture this week is of my kids doing an object lesson for Come, Follow Me during Morning Meeting.  The kids tried to make eggs stand on end (of course, they couldn't).  Then we added 1/4 tsp salt, and we could help the eggs stand up easily!  (idea credit: here )  We compared the egg to the job of building Zion.  Alone it was impossible.  When lots of little salt grains (us) worked together, we could do it. It was fun, and we had two good days of school (including finishing both Mr. Revere and I and The Golden Goblet ) before I was taken down by covid. I could feel in my bones that this was not an ordinary cold, and I was too sick to do anything, so I hid myself away while the teens ran the household for a couple of days, and Sir Walter Scott pitched in when he was home.  When we didn't have any daycare babies, I came out of my room to find that Baymax had a raging fever, so he and I cuddled up for a day together while I could at leas...

 We're in the zone:  chores, school, family time. It's the zone I always want to achieve, and I'm so grateful we're here. The first day at dance was good.  We did a show run through, just to see what we did and did not remember; there's significant review to do!  I was right that the covid surge would affect our ability to perform in the community.  We do have two shows scheduled, but none at nursing/rehab homes.  We'll have lots of time to rehearse and have fun and work on our Friends and Family show planned for mid-April. Nature Angel, Little Princess, and I all agree that our preschool activities are just right for our little ones and our family.  The older kids love to join in for some of the sensory activities and crafts, and Nature Angel said, "Knowing what we're doing and having it all planned and easy is letting me do better at school and keeping me from feeling frustrated with the toddlers.  It's just nice to have a plan that they like, ...

 Wonderfully enough, we had a relatively boring week.  Beowulf did have a 2 hour breakdown on Thursday morning that undid our school day (a hard moment), and Grandma came over for a visit on Friday (a fun moment), but other than that, we did school, took care of babies, went to church activities, and took care of home. Santa brought us some more magnetic tiles to add to our collections, and the kids are making the most of them. I love Sugar Bear's face as she feels the paint going on her little feet! Li'l K was more into the project than Sugar Bear. Dancing with scarves was a big hit one day . . . but playing with the scarves afterward was even more fun. The Munchkin has begun to ask to "do school" each day.  He's so proud of each new accomplishment! In spite of his breakdown, Beowulf finished a school book this week! We finished A Lion to Guard Us , and we're continuing to read Mr. Revere and I .  We're also making slow progress through The Golden Goblet ...