Monday, March 30, 2009

Quickly for my own reference:

Week of 3/29

Eldest - Finishing up housing/Native American block. Copied "What do we plant?" verse and drew different types of Native American shelters. Will hear story of Sacagawea and finish paragraph for The Rough-Faced Girl before block is finished. Also, will visit science museum.

Middle Boy- Copied and illustrated spring verse. Still working on word families reader. Will hear one more Irish fairy tale.

Also need to do this week - Form drawing and painting.

Friday, March 20, 2009

Happy Spring!

After over a week of sleeping through the night, it was inevitable that Baby would be up in the wee hours at least this once. It's okay, though, as I finally get a chance to sit here with him on my lap and update.

He'll be six weeks old on Sunday and I'm finding that hard to believe. He's so big now, and still as alert as ever. His naps are growing shorter (but still frequent), and his smiles are more deliberate. He loves lying on a blanket without a diaper and just looking around at everyone and everything. I'd love to do a bit more knitting for him soon, but as he's such an in-arms baby, I rarely have my hands free these days.

Middle Girl, who has ballet in a few hours, finally seems to be getting a handle on her meltdowns. They're definitely related to blood sugar and she's starting to learn that if she gets something to eat early on, they're not as bad for her. She's still contemplating public school next year, but I have a strong feeling she'll settle on homeschooling. At least I hope so; I really dislike our "neighborhood" public school (which really isn't in our neighborhood at all, but that's another story).

My dad took Middle Boy and Eldest to see Race to Witch Mountain on Friday and they loved it. It was nice for the bigger kids to be out with grandpa by themselves. I think they needed a more grown-up outing. They've been absorbed with Star Wars lately, as have some of their friends, and we've been talking a bit about all the common mythology incorporated into the Star Wars stories.

Middle Boy is just starting to learn recorder, and does better learning one on one from me than in class. I figured that would be the case. He's also doing some amazing artwork lately. He thinks in graphic novel form, and every story he tells comes out that way.

Eldest's lesson block is still Native Americans/house building and she's really loving it. She's been reading a book about Sacagawea to me aloud, along with her extra lesson reader, and she's so much more fluent now than she was just months ago. She's working on some more challenging form drawings, and her writing has shown drastic improvement. She's going to be Princess Yashodora in her LCG class play about the Buddha's life, and she's bubbling over with excitement about it.

Ah, Baby is fussing and ready for sleep. Time for me to sign off.

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Middle Boy has spent a good portion of the afternoon making "mail" for everyone in the house. He made comics for the girls and sent them along with a bill. Middle Girl's reaction was, "Am I even old enough for a bill?"

Anyway, she's sitting here beside me looking over her mail intently, so interested in what he's drawn there. I love these little moments.

Of course, the batteries in my camera picked today to fizzle out. So I'll commit this bit of sweetness to memory here.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

So my laptop is dead, which means that I'm now sharing our main computer with the four other computer-using people in this house. Someone commented a few posts back that they had some yarn they were willing to send me, and I just want you to know that I *am* interested, but it's been a bit crazy around here, so I'll email you as soon as I get my head back on straight (and have the time to go through my overstuffed inbox). Also, I've lost a lot of pictures/writing/homeschool records that I hadn't backed up over the last couple of months, but I'm trying not to think about that right now. So, on to happy thoughts...

We started back up with our Waldorf-inspired homeschooling schedule this week and it's going very nicely. I'm back to work at Lilac Children's Garden and my class was absolutely wonderful today. At home, Eldest is doing a lesson block on Native Americans/housing and we're currently working with Iroquois stories. She's really into this lesson block, and has been writing more and more in her main lesson book. I'll try to get some pictures up soon because I'm really impressed with her progress.

Middle Boy is still doing fairy tales, and recently we've told The Emperor's New Clothes, and a few Irish fairy tales. He also just got his pentatonic recorder today at LCG, so we're going to start working with that in the coming weeks. Both Eldest and Middle Boy have been very interested in singing more in our circle, which makes me wish I were more musically inclined. But I try to muddle through anyway, and we've had a lot of fun attempting to sing in rounds.

Middle Girl's been working on a main lesson book of her own spontaneously, and she's occasionally asking me to tell her stories so she can illustrate them there. Her ugly duckling was very sweet.

Newly Youngest is a very, very sweet baby. He has his fussy periods, but mostly he's happy to eat, sleep, and look around. He adores the Moby wrap, which is what made it possible for me to get back to teaching so quickly. This is the first baby I've used one for and I'm so appreciating it for a newborn. Which reminds me, Newly Youngest was one month old on Sunday. I can't believe an entire month has passed so quickly. I feel like I was just savoring the last few days of pregnancy, but here we are in the throes of our old routine all over again.

And on that note, the baby's ready to nurse back to sleep, and I think I'm ready to rest my eyes for the night.