Finished "Guns" and moving to 6th century England...

Wednesday: We got up and read and finished Guns for General Washington, prepared and ate lunch in a hurry and drove a vanload of girls up to Cumming for girls' Challenge. We really enjoyed the afternoon, as it involved the whole North Club; the girls made lovely multi-colored rosaries for an upcoming mission trip to Ghana. At certain moments, Miller nearly drove Mom insane, but, as Mom's friend KB likes to say, "It's all good!" Thursday: For various reasons, we did not like Cathedral, as much as I thought we would. So, back to the drawing board for mom to add some zest to Architecture. I had gone to the library and checked out Owl at Home for J by Arnold Lobel (author of Mouse Soup, which the girls and I read and re-read, when they were younger), so he and I took turns reading that, laughing as we read. I agree with this review of Owl at Home. Winter is personified in one of the Lobel stories, so I reviewed that literary technique with the girls. I read a poem from book 2 of the Christian Liberty Nature Reader and showed to all some of my favorite art work from various seasonal books in our personal library. JB took a Teaching Textbooks placement test and quizzed me on the multiplication tables. The sun was shining today, so we ended our day with running and playing in the yard.

And, yes, it is winter, and the "I am bored," comes from JB and J, and we are learning how to combat that. HRM tends not to get bored, she gets busy weedling me for things (...shopping online is fun, at times....at other times, I want to throw the computer out the window...) I am an odd bird in that the slower days, like today, are often my favorites -- ie when it is quiet enough for people to be bored, then real learning often begins. Sure, Mom has to discipline more when there is more time on our hands, but that is good. We had lots of time-outs and lost privileges today, but we also prayed together more than usual and had the chance to talk about how we can control our emotions and actions better.

I am nearly finished planning my coop class for tomorrow. I may post about it, as it is coming together nicely.

Various chores and topics being worked on: Housework is a big part of our homeschool day on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. We have nearly got all the laundry done. This week, laundry is a chore for Mom, JB and J, because HRM is handling most of the dishes, with help from J. HRM shopped, planned and is cooking many of our lunches and dinners. We bought the new Rachel Ray magazine and are watching the Weather Channel and FOX news. HRM is working to memorize her lines for one of our upcoming TORCH spring plays. We are also working out the financing and finances of our new house that will soon be done, and HRM is learning lots from that. Planning: We are going to all try to listen, first thing in the morning, to one main book for historical fiction. Guns for General Washington was so engaging and led to so much good, what I call "white-board work, " as well as questions and discussion, that I want the one read-aloud book to be of interest to everyone, then, we can use our M, T, Th as a general inspiration to get around the globe, pursuing topics related to the time period of the day, but it can come from any source, from the liturgical calendar, geography, current events, even a movie or t.v. show. I putting our new read-aloud, Augustine Comes to Kent by Barbara Willard on the sidebar as a Thursday read, because it is in the classical period, but it will be the first read of the day each day. I am also going to cycle back in our Pauline Saints for Young Readers Every Day, beginning Monday, February 2nd, to help prayerfully transition from our read-aloud to the next activity. I have been putting all written work in our LA notebooks and want to get those Book of Centuries underway. Lastly, Dad and I held a family meeting a couple of days ago to reinforce guidelines for what we call "screentime" (all computer use and television).