The Blues Brothers movies in the quiz below.  They should be right on top!  So re-watchable. 

After the kids seemed to be through with their stomach bugs (the baby got it too, but not for long) they came down with colds.  N worked Sat and then left for a 6-hour drive to his parents' place.  He had a gov't job placement test on Monday.  He called Sun morning at about 1 am to say he had arrived; I didn't sleep much after that, since apparently I came down with the bug.  Luckily I managed to feel well enough to lie down for long enough between bathroom trips that M would stay asleep.  Also very luckily, I was pretty much done with the throwing up by the time the kids were awake, but boy was I tired.  Apparently, N was sick at the exact same time as I was.  How, uh, romantic?  He spent the day wrapped up at his parents' place, and (again, luckily) was well enough to write his test by Mon.  I really have my fingers crossed for this.  The job is in Ottawa, it pays well, he thinks he would enjoy it, there would be benefits, we could sell the house and pay off some debt with what we make.  Ottawa is $$$ to live in, so we would be in a small community or somewhere rural.  The small town my parents live near has a commuter bus to Ottawa daily -- he wouldn't be working the weird hours he has here and would be able to take the bus if we lived near there, leaving us with the vehicle.  And of course, most important of all -- the kids would be near their grandparentses and a few aunts and uncles.  Yay!  But the hiring process is really long -- he has been doing tests and interviews since June. 

So my point was, I was home alone sick with the sick kids.  :P  But we survived.  On Monday I was feeling much better and tried to catch up on all of the mess.  Tuesday was much the same -- catching up.  We did reading and games mostly for our "school stuff" this week.  And the boys have been well enough the last few days to go outside and enjoy the snow.

We have a children's songbook our church publishes as well as the cds to go along with it.  D has discovered that he likes singing along and following the words in the book with his finger.  S had his fourth birthday yesterday -- I can hardly believe it. 

A conversation I had with D as we were folding laundry today (the boys were also prentending to be cats, D was the cat prince):

D: Do princes wear crowns? [he made a crown this morning and was wearing it]

Me: I don't know.  Maybe on special occasions?

D: When you're the prince, every day is a special occasion.

He cracks me up.

Thanks, hsmomof2!  What a time for me to forget to come update my blog.  Here goes:

1.  Seven things to do before I die:
1. Travel to Europe to see Denmark and Ireland and Scotland

2. Become fluent in another language

3. Have livestock, including a milking cow

4. Climb mountains with my family (I'm talking the nice, gentle eastern mountains my parents took us to when I was a kid!)

5. Service mission for our church with hubby after kids are grown

6. Get organized and declutter!  (Sadly, this is probably the least likely to happen....)

7. Learn to play the piano well   

2.  Seven things I cannot do:
1. Wait patiently

2. Pee on a stick 

3. Remember to mail letters

4. Resist chocolate

5. Touch my toes

6. Long division in my head

7. Reach the shelf above my refrigerator without a chair   

3. Seven things that attract me to my husband:  
1. We understand each other

2. Smart

3. Caring

4. Great dad

5. Red hair

6. Sings beautifully

7. Buff 

4.  Seven things I say most often:
1. C'mon, guys!

2. Don't open the fridge, M will get in it!

3. We'll see.

4. What's the fighting about?

5. The quicker we do ________, the more time we'll have for _______.

6. Are you done eating?  Did you bring your dishes to the sink?

7. No, we're not eating ice cream right now.

5. Seven books (or series) I love:
1. Scriptures

2. Little House on the Prairie

3. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

4. Anne of Green Gables

5. A Thomas Jefferson Education

6. Noah's Children

7. Walden

   
6.  Seven movies I watch over and over again (or would watch over and over again if I had time):
1. The Last Unicorn

2. The Princess Bride

3. The Secret of NIMH

4. A Christmas Carol (with Patrick Stewart, at Christmas)

5. Almost anything with Alan Rickman or Matt Damon in it ;)

6. The Wizard of Oz

7. The Holy Grail    

  
7.  Seven people I want to join in too:

I don't know if I even know seven people here!  :S

Forgot to blog yesterday.  Probably because we did so little.  Boys were still recovering.  We did our devotional and then finished reading These Happy Golden Years.  The boys started the morning doing a bunch of mazes and dot-to-dots that I printed up for them.  (We had a late start again, I let them sleep in.) 

Dh picked up an order of books from a local company that sells home school materials -- www.aplusbookscanada.com .  I was happy to find a local place, and even happier to find out that they would special order for no charge.  I think I only ended up getting two items that they actually had -- and one wasn't listed on the website, but they did happen to have it in stock.  I'm so happy to have saved on shipping.  The customer service was great too.  This morning (when I actually managed to get some time to look through the box) was my Christmas morning, lol.  I'm saving Power-Glide French for Christmas for the kids, and I might save Making Math Meaningful too.

Ah, I love reading.  I am so happy that I let myself just read chapter books that D was interested in for a lot of our "school time".  We started The First Four Years last night at bedtime, and D was complaining that the books were too short, and that I wasn't reading for long enough (at 10:15pm....). 

The boys were throwing up before breakfast this morning, so we had a "take it easy day."  Did some reading, put on some audio stories (from www.lightupyourbrain.com) while I did some cleaning up and making the boys comfy and comforted M (who was cranky and clingy and warm but never threw up, thank goodness!), and let the boys choose a couple of videos.  We watched "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (the cartoon) which was on hold for us at the library, dh picked it up yesterday.

I found a couple of learning Hebrew yahoo groups, found an Israeli radio station online to listen to, and did some vowel memorizing and then exercises from foundation stone.  Fun, but a little discouraging -- they had almost 20 practise questions for translating (transliterating, actually, I think) simple words, and I had something just slightly wrong with almost every one.  It doesn't help that I started off using a different website and they don't always agree with each other on pronounciation etc.

hsmomof2, The Chosen is one of the books recommended for study with questions at the back of TJEd.  The dads of the two boys in the books mentor each boy in different ways, and it explores their relationships.  The first time I read it, I was just envious of them for being able to have such depth in their studies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I skipped Monday.  Blush.  We don't get a lot done, since we're catching up with housework from Sunday and it is dh's day off.  He was tcb on the computer (banking, work stuff) and I was washing dishes etc. until about 11am.  Then I read to the kids for a while.  N took them to McD's again after quiet minutes, and the girls we babysit didn't end up coming.  I had a long time at home, just me and the baby, and I spent most of the time working on making food or Hebrew.  It was nice.  We did more reading in the evening.  D loves the Little House books, we started These Happy Golden Years on either Sun or Mon, and we're more than halfway through it now.

Today we started with singing and scriptures, some memory work, and a Christmas story.  Then we had "free reading" time, since I haven't really planned anything for this week.  S chose a short board-type book that he "read" to us, and D of course chose These Happy Golden Years.  My plan was to read one chapter, stop for a snack, and then get on to other things, but he just wanted me to keep reading through and after snack.  I read fairly steadily from when we started "school time" just after nine until I decided I couldn't read out loud any more at 11:30.  I took M up for a diaper change, and D said he would keep on reading to himself.  I had misgivings just keeping on with the one book for so long, until then.  Then I realized that, for one, it is great that he has such a long attention span and I should not be discouraging it, and also it is fostering a love of reading, developing his vocabulary (we often stop to discuss what a word means), and all those great things that are the reasons parents are encouraged to read aloud to their kids.   I'm printing up some of the online books from Ambleside Online, and I think I will start adding them in once we get through this series.

I did do a little history timeline work; we read part of a book about Michealangelo last week and I just got around then to adding some more info about him to my timeline.  D wanted to start one, but M was hungry for lunch before I started making it, so I let the boys each have a turn on Study Dog while I fed her a cold lunch and heated it up for the rest of us.  I also did a bit of work on Hebrew.  I think this week I will be learning the vowels.  It is such slow going, since there are so many interruptions, but at the same time, I find that if I get bogged down and just try to plow through learning it, I don't get as much use out of my time as if I stop and do something mindless like dishes or diapers and then come back to it.

I read this book not too long ago, and I have it out of the library again.  I hope to read it to N (dh).  Such an interesting story -- I was really inspired by the scholarship in it.  I think it will be a better introduction to Leadership Education for dh than reading A Thomas Jefferson Education.  He listened to a book on tape about Jefferson, and is totally put off of TJEd because of Jefferson's morals.  He realizes now that they picked Jefferson as an example of someone who was taught this way because he was so famous for being smart and loving books, but he says he never wants to tell anyone we are "doing TJEd" because of Jefferson's moral reputation. 

We had a short day today.  Did our usual morning singing and reading, which today included a few chapters from Little Town on the Prairie.  It is snowy here today, and it felt so cozy just to sit around and read.  It was also an early dismissal day for the local schools, so kids were out playing in the snow by our snack time.  The boys went out for a little bit, but the other kids were just about done playing by the time we realized they were out and got everyone bundled up.  So we had cocoa and the boys played around while I did some reading.  We had a quick lunch of warmed up stew, and then played Trouble.  We're having quiet minutes right now (blogging is my quiet activity for today, lol) and then the boys have requested more Little Town on the Prairie.  M had her nap early today, and I think I will try to take us all out for a walk soon.  Tonight is movie night.  I don't know if I mentioned it, but our tv broke last week.  We have an old one in the basement that a renter left here "for" us, which I thought we would never use, but we did set it up for N to watch Simpsons after work.  I have been tempted a few times -- today especially -- to send them down and put on a movie, but I have resisted.  We will watch a movie together tonight though. 

We started as usual.  Looked at the Spanish English word book for a while.  Read the Rag Coat.  The boys have been cranky with each other today; M woke early and is cranky too.  :P  I'm thinking we might watch a movie this afternoon if I'm not feeling better, or spend a lot of time reading if I am.  I did an entry on my timeline in my history book (I have not done much in this at all, I often think of it but it is put away and I don't remember to do it later) and did a page write-up on Beethoven with points from the encyclopedia that I found interesting.  I put a couple of Beethoven books on hold at the library -- one with letters etc. that he wrote, and one a bio of Beethoven written by a close friend of his.  I'm taking a break to nurse M again; lunch is cooking on the stove (fish chowder) and hopefully I will have time for piano practise before we eat.

I have decided to order Power-Glide French.  I hope it is what N wants for the kids.

I pretty much have all of the parts of the Hebrew alphabet memorized.  I keep on leaving out zayin, for some reason.  The place we have our RESPs through sends birthday cards for the kids; they have happy birthday in a bunch of different languages.  I realized that one of them was Hebrew, and I could figure out what the letters were.  That's as far as I can get, though.

On a vehicular note:  N had a flat tire last week, and took the van to our mechanic.  Turns out the other tires were bald, too.  So we put on new tires.  They also fixed the wipers and are doing something to the steering.  N was driving kids home from scouts last night, and someone threw a rock at the van.  N pulled a -- oh my, how would you spell U-y?  youie?  ewie?  Anyway, he pulled a u-turn, hopped out of the van, and took off after the kid who threw it, but by the time N was out of the van, he was through a hedge and into a townhouse complex.  He didn't see any damage, but it was dark.

We started, as usual, with singing and scripture reading and memorizing.  We read another children's christmas message.  It mentioned remembering past holidays, so we talked about last Christmas.  The boys really enjoyed it.  We read The Rag Coat again and talked about what a funeral is, and why the people were wearing black.  After a visitor and snack time, the boys played around, amused M, and then did some study dog.  We had lunch a bit early; D helped with the dishes after while S kept M happy.  We finished tidying up together and had quiet minutes; M fell asleep.  The boys had been planning on going outside after -- a neighbour kid had come to the door during lunch -- but a kid who has been mean to them was out playing, so they opted to stay in.  I hope to take everyone out for a walk to look at Christmas lights tonight.  I would take us out now, but I won't wake M from her nap.

I've done more Hebrew work.  I have the alphabet memorized (the names of the letters) and I'm probably half way through memorizing how they are written.  There are three forms -- book print, manal block, and cursive -- and some of them aren't too similar to each other. 

N said some stranger was talking to him when he had S at McD's playplace the other day.  He found out that N speaks French, and asked if the kids knew it.  When N answered no, the guy said Shame on you!  and asked if he planned on putting him in immersion.  N pointed out that we can't teach them a language that they don't know, and he really wants them to know at least two languages.  He doesn't want to be confined to North America and for their options to be limited.  I understand his point entirely and I agree with him, but I don't think that the answer is sending them to an immersion school.  I was looking at Power Glide today, and it is available at the local homeschool supply place where I have an order put in right now.  I looked at Muzzy, but it is $$$. 

We started, as always, with singing and scripture reading.  We read another children's Christmas message.  We practised Spanish and read about Michealangelo; we looked at a world map to find Italy and talked about how the men's names ended with "o", like the masc. words end (usually) in "o" in our Spanish words.  We read The Rag Coat again, talked a bit about how people need other people and families need each other, and then after a snack I cut coat shapes out of heavy paper so the kids could glue on paper scraps to make rag coats.  Instead, they made them into rocket ships, lol.  D even labeled the different parts of his.  The kids then played while I printed up a Hebrew tutorial and tried (unsuccessfully) to download and install a Hebrew tutorial programme.  We ate lunch, and the boys played with puppets while I nursed M to sleep.  They chose "Helper League" puppets and made them name tag things.  I have been trying to make cooperating and working together as exciting and fun and attractive as the fighting heroes they see when they watch tv with friends.  I think S would be fine, but D gets way too much into the fighting, combative, aggressive side of things.  We're just about to start cleaning up so we can have quiet minutes.  The boys are cranky -- I've been at the computer too long and I am making things worse because I'm cranky too, I haven't eaten enough today.  :P  S is bursting in to tears every few minutes.  He was up too late last night and up fairly early this morning.  I'm glad he's here with me, even though it gets old fast, instead of at kindergarten where he would have to just deal.

Forgot to do an entry again yesterday.  Or rather, M woke up and needed me before I came here last night.

Mon is N's day off, so our school days are a little weird.  We started right at 9, singing and reading the Book of Mormon (we're not caught up yet, but almost).  Then I read one of the children's Christmas messages from the first presidency (one year, I c&p'd and printed up all of them that were available online).  We worked on memorizing the Articles of Faith (well, I did, anyway).  Then I used the Spanish English picture book again for us to practise some words.  We read some poetry (Solomon chose Lear again), and we started "activity time" (do what you want, within some limits).

D worked on some work book stuff, starfall, and then I read them The Rag Coat (on of the Five in a Row books).  We found the Appalachians range on the map, and then we took out the tangram sets to try and copy the pattern in the Joseph's Coat of Many Colours quilt pattern. 

N came over and started playing with them, so I went to the computer to start working on Hebrew.  (I've decided to try out learning it, we will be studying the Old Testament in the new year.  We'll see how far I get, lol.)  The boys then got out the legos we were using for learning about ones, tens, hundreds, etc. and showed N what we were doing with them. 

I realized that if I wanted to grab a shower that day, that was the time to do it, so I did that while N watched the kids. 

Then we read Beethoven Lives Upstairs and listened to the Ninth Symphony.  After a quick lunch we had quiet minutes. 

The boys played with this marble toy they have, it is tubes and tracks and you make a course for the marbles to follow with them.  I went back to working on my Hebrew and N took the boys out grocery shopping.  The girls came to be babysat. 

I finished memorizing the names of the letters in the Hebrew alphabet while I made supper.  (I made a great supper, btw -- nice tender juicy roast [no idea how that happened, lol], good gravy, fluffy creamy plentiful mashed potatoes, carrots cooked in butter, and corn.  Mmmmmm.) 

We had Family Home Evening and went up stairs to get ready for bed.  We read 4 or 5 chapters of Little Town on the Prairie while S took forever settling down enough to sleep.  Then I walked M in the dark while she and D fell asleep. 

Then I folded some dry laundry, hung some wet laundry, and went downstairs to start some flour for baking tomorrow, start a loaf of bread, and start oatmeal for the next day's breakfast.  N had someone over while I was putting the kids to bed -- he is applying for teacher's college and wanted N's help with the application -- and they finished up at the same time I did.  And that's about it.

So I've been looking at Classical Ed lately.  It was intriguing to me when I first started looking in to hsing (when my oldest was less than a year old).  But I knew I had a long time before I would have a child old enough to start a classical education, so I decided to come back to it.  And kind of forgot about it.  Along the way, I ran into unschooling, Charlotte Mason, and Thomas Jefferson Education.  I'm doing all kinds of reading, weighing the different theories against one another, trying to figure out what is the "right" way.  And that's where I get stuck.  I want the one right way, and there isn't one, so I just give up.  It's harder to figure it out as you go, and see what works best for your kids, and adjust your plans and expectations, but really, that's part of the reason why I'm hsing. 

The one thing that really strikes me through all of this are principles from TJEd: You, Not Them; Inspire, Not Require.  When I get excited about nature journals or learning logic, I'm always reminded in the back of my mind that it has to start with me.  If I am excited about these things, I should be learning them and setting the example.  Not making them big assignments or orchestrating everything for the kids and just throwing all of this stuff at them without setting an example.  As I have been reading about classical ed. (at Classical Christian Homeschooling, http://www.classical-homeschooling.org), I'm trying to compare and contrast the different stages with the TJEd stages.  There are some similarities and some differences; I should have a word programme opened while I read to take notes to help me compare.  As I read about classical ed., I get excited, thinking of the education that I missed out on, and think yes, this is what I should be teaching my kids.  But then TJEd reminds me, it has to start with me.  Which is great -- because that's what I really want to do.  *I* want to learn latin and maybe greek.  *I* want to learn how to argue and present myself well.  *I* want to be well versed in ancient history and the foundation of western thought and culture.  But, when you have three kids and a house to look after, it seems kind of selfish to immerse yourself in study.  Unless you agree with TJEd or leadership education, which says hey, go right ahead and study -- you are setting a good example for your kids.  It is an important part of *their* education.  Example is a more significant part of teaching than precept.  I still have a hard time just relaxing and giving myself permission to study, and we do need to work on our Core curriculum -- right and wrong, good and evil, work and play -- especially with my oldest.  But I think the very fact that I need to make time for this studying is a great tool for that.  We have to work together to clean up from breakfast so we can have a clean space to start school time.  After our work, we read and learn together.  Then the kids get the reward of play that comes after work, and I set an example of studying.  The hardest part for me is not minding interruptions. 

I know this all sounds confused and rambly.  That's what happens when I'm up late, excited to be learning new things, and needing to work it out in words.

I have spent most of the morning fixing up my c&p'd The Story of Mankind so I can print it up.  Now that the baby is sleeping, it's time for cleaning up and Christmas decorating!  Then once we're done, we will read and play outside.

Well, I missed adding a daily entry on the second day, but that's only because I was busy looking at curriculum in the afternoon, and then I fell asleep putting the kids to bed last night.  Now, the good thing about that is I was up before 5 this morning -- I love being up longe before anyone else and having time when I'm fresh and awake in the morning to read or clean up or write or whatever.  I've started laundry, started bread, and read my scriptures.  Woo hoo.

So, yesterday... Thursday... our school time.

-We do our regular song time (the boys each choose a song to sing).  When I told S "OK S, choose a song," I was holding M, and she started making her "singing" sound.  Very cute.  We then read from the Book of Mormon.  We did the chapter on Hagoth from Book of Mormon Stories, it is only about eight verses from the actual Book of Mormon.   D was disappointed that that was all we read, but I told him not to worry, we would be doing more reading today.

-Briefly did lesson 41 from the Sunbeams manual, it is about scriptures.  I asked the boys if they knew what the 4 Standard Works were.  D guessed two, and I explained what the other two were.  I asked what their favourite scripture story was; S didn't have one, D said Nephi building the boat.  D asked me what mine was, and I had no idea.  :P  I decided I liked the story of creation, and D asked me to read it.  I just read the first chapter of Genesis, and he said that was enough.

-Memory work: D was not into this today, so I just read aloud the two scriptures I knew from memory.

-Spanish: I pulled out a Spanish "My First 100 Words" book, it has for example a page about family "Mi Familia" then pictures of everyone in a family and the Spanish and English words to go with.  Well, it was pretty limited, just immediate family plus grandparents.  I left it open on the piano to remind us to practise.

-Poetry: I took out a set of poetry books we have, it is a scholastic set of ten authors.  I laid them out and told the boys they could each choose a book and then choose a poem for me to read from it.  They both chose Edward Lear.  D choose The Scroobious Pip, and S chose Owl and Pussy-cat. 

-Reading: We read 50 Below Zero (Robert Munsch) and finished The Long Winter.  It snowed quite a bit during the night, and our couch faces our window.  We were are snuggled under blankets looking at the snow reading the wintery books.  The boys were restless before the end.  M entertained herself by climbing up into the big rocking chair and trying to rock.

-Snack time, yum.  The boys chose apples.

-I asked the boys if they wanted to draw pics of what they thought the Scroobious Pip looked like.  I pointed out that in the poem, the different groups of creatures can't tell if he is fish or insect, bird or fowl, so he probably looks like all four things.  D drew four different creatures; S drew a bunch of eggs with a big round Scroobious Pip on top.  I sorted through our craft paper box, and managed to find a whole stack of white scrap paper for printing on, and tossed a bunch of small scraps.  Note to self: replenish construction paper supply.

-I'm blanking on what we did next.  I think I had to change a wet diaper and then right away go change a poopy diaper, and the boys just kind of goofed around.  Then D asked if he could try Study Dog (some free reading software I downloaded the other day, and told him he could play at the end of school time if he does his work).  So I set that up, D played while S watched, and I tried to get some practise time in on the piano.  It didn't last long, though, since M wanted to play, too.  So I held her on my lap and she played a bit.  D did one level of Study Dog, and by then it was about quarter to one.  We made lunch and ate.  M got fussy while the boys were still eating, so I put on the tv (this actually reduces the overall volume in the livingroom, lol) and nursed M to sleep while looking at curriculum stuff online. 

-D spent the rest of the afternoon outside for quite a long time in the snow with a neighbour, then he was invited to play at the neighbour's house.  S only lasted about 1/2 hour out there, and then he came in "needing" hot cocoa.  The first time we had much snow here (this is only the second), it was warm enough outside to be pretty wet.  His boots aren't waterproof (apparently) and his feet were really cold when he came in.  That time I put him on the couch until his feet warmed somewhat, then put blankets on him and gave him cocoa.  He wanted the same royal treatment today, and sat happily on the couch drinking warm cocoa for quite a while.

I spent most of the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out what books I should buy.  I am starting Ancient History when our church sunday school lessons switch to Old Testament in January (they are on a 4-year rotation), and I'm very excited.  I was never too excited about history in school, but recently I have been loving historical fiction and making connections between things I read now and things I learned in school.  I use a lot of what they have at Ambleside Online, but they do a different schedule for history (I think it is 6 years instead of 4).  But they still have a lot of great resources.  I didn't realize until yesterday, when I was trying to figure out what history books I should get to read to the kids to go along with my studying, when I realized that a lot of the books in the Ambleside Online curriculum are available FREE online.  I mean, they did say that was the case, but it never occured to me that clicking on the links might actually take me to the books free online.  So I did a lot of bookmarking and pared my "to buy" list down significantly.  I also read some reviews for Story of the World, which I had been planning to buy, and decided against it.  One of the big complaints from those who didn't like it was the overuse of exclamation marks, huge "pet" peeve of mine, so I'm glad I read before I commited to buy.  For now, I will be printing up The Story of Mankind instead, and we will see how we like it.  It is supposedly very Euro-centric, so I'm not sure how I will supplement it.  Likely with books from the library. 

I also looked at A Handbook of Nature Study, and plan to buy it if I can find it for a reasonable price.  My library actually has it, but it has always been on hold, so we wouldn't get it right away, and then only for three weeks.  I think for science it is a good idea to start with nature study, and my interest at the moment is getting more familiar with local flora and fauna.  I think the winter is a good time for astronomy, too, and hopefully we can spend some family nights out in the country stargazing.  Dh and I both have astronomy texts left from university, and there is plenty in the library and online.

I'm going to go with Making Math Meaningful, too.  I'm worried about my ability to express math concepts, and this programme looks good to me.  Focusing on concepts, not just drilling.  I think this will help the kids enjoy math -- which, at their ages, is a bigger concern to me than whether or not they have math facts memorized.  Not that I don't think memorization is useful -- in its proper place and time.  We'll see when that is.

Today I'm thinking we'll either skip school alltogether or do a shortened version, since it is one month until Christmas today, and so we're going to decorate the house and make cookies.  :D

Hahaha.  I would like to try, though, now that we are being more consistent with having school time.  We've had snow a couple of times (it has all melted so far, though), so we are spending more time inside, and not venturing out until it warms up a bit more.  So, this is what we did today.

- Read Ch 35: Captain Moroni and Pahoran in Book of Mormon Stories (actually, I read the actual scriptures cited with each picture, instead of the simplified summaries of what happens.  And we are reading a chapter a day this week to catch up to where we should be to finish by the end of the year.  )

- D memorized the First Article of Faith (we had been using this time to memorize the monthly scriptures that went with the theme for the year in Primary, but they have done the presentation that goes with it and I think they basically do Christmas for the rest of the year.  Two of the montly scriptures were Articles of Faith, so I'm trying to get a few more down) and started to copy it out in his school book.

- When D was writing the date in his school book, he wondered why 2005 was written that way, and not 20005 (like 2000 and 5 on the end).  So I made up a sheet in excel that had the rows and columns for counting and place holding (I think this has a name but I don't know it), and we found 5 different colours of lego squares to fill in the columns.  I showed him how to fill up the ones column for the numbers 1 to 9, and then tried to explain ten, and how the two numerals really show you how many tens and how many ones you have.  Actually, I started with words -- I showed him that we write CAT that way because we read left to right, and the letters have to be in that order to make the right sound.  If you mix it up -- TAC, ACT -- it has a different meaning.  Then I told him that numbers are kind of the same, because if you mix them up, they mean a different number.  But they are written in that order because it tells you how many tens you have, and how many ones you have, not because the individual numerals "spell" out the number.  I hope I wasn't confusing, lol.  Once I got to demonstrating, and asking him to fill in columns for different numbers, a light bulb seemed to go off a bit.  He did some for me, and I did some for him.  We wrote numbers and had to fill in columns, or filled in columns and figured out the number.  The first one I did for him was 1999, the year he was born.  He thought that was neat, after complaining about having to count so much.  :)

- D kept playing with the lego while I went to the computer to pull up some Beethoven stuff, since we were supposed to be listening and talking about him today.  While I was there, D told me a story he had made up using the five lego columns (which he had made a rocket out of) and he was really into it.  So I told him if he wanted to tell me the story, I could type it on the computer and we could put it in his school book.  So, here it is:

Detective Clues

Once upon a time, there was a famous detective and there was a mysterious fire that happened when someone had a rocket ship. Now, it's the part where the story begins.

There happened to be a rocket ship fire, and no one knew how the fire came from the rocket ship. It was mysterious, mysterious indeed. And the famous detective found a thing that he thought was the missing part of the puzzle or the last missing part of the puzzle, but it happened to be that it was only a clue to the puzzle of mystery. The rocket was still flying. But something mysterious happened – the rocket ship was not built the right way, and it broke. The rockets broke off from the front, and everything fell. They fell right into the ground and it happened to be that the people who were driving the rocket ship knew that it wasn't built properly and knew that the fire was going to be left on the ground, but when it broke, something mysterious happened. The rockets had automatic hoses, and they put out the fire and right when the person who lived in the house came out of the house, the rockets fell off of the mountain.

The End

- I did end up playing Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 (for free from www.classicalarchives.com, we just started using it, and it's nice), but no one paid much attention to it besides me.  I read part of a bio of Beethoven that they had there.

- D put a copy of his story in an envelope and "addressed" it to a neighbour (his age).

- S spent this time in the bathroom, running around naked claiming he lost his clothes, playing with his little monster truck, and playing with lego.  M played and fussed and nursed and snacked on bread.

-D read "I love mud and mud loves me" to himself and S while I nursed M to sleep; they also watched a bit of tvo while I put her down and then we cleaned up.  I asked D if he had fun in school today.  He tried hard not to grin while he said, "Oh, it was OK."  I asked him if he would have had more fun sitting in a desk at school all morning, doing worksheets.  "I love worksheets!" was his reply.  So I pulled out the duotang of Starfall worksheets I had printed up and he had been working on, but hadn't shown any interest in lately.  He finished the one he had left off from -- circling words that had a long "o" sound in them and writing them out.

We then had lunch and quiet minutes (which I used to type this out), and they are choosing stories for their reward for being quiet for 15 minutes. 

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I'm buying "Ancient History from Primary Sources" from a local curriculum place, and I'm thinking of getting Story of the World.  I'm looking at Making Math Meaningful, too. 

I finished Pride and Prejudice not long after my last post.  I wasn't terribly impressed by it -- seemed a little soap opera-ish to me.  Since then, I haven't had time for much reading.  I don't think this is a great time of year to start *book* schooling.  I am reading the introduction to the book of classic literature that has the Iliad in it, and that's been pretty interesting, but I jus haven't had time to sit and study it.  Too busy canning.  And I hate to have the boys inside doing school all morning when the weather is finally great for playing outside.  So, we'll probably  not start a lot of book work until November.

We are reading On the Banks of Plum Creek at bedtime.  I stopped at one point to change the baby's diaper, and D wanted me to go on.  I showed him where I was, and said he could read it if he wanted.  And he just went ahead and read!  I was a bit floored.  He has improved since the last time we have "worked" very much on it (for a while he was very interested in the star fall work sheets I printed up, that was a couple of months ago), without any apparent effort.

Today began well.... scriptures, memory work, reading, word games, more reading, playing with the train set and craft stuff... but then, I let myself get distracted by Pride and Prejudice.  Bleh.  I spent most of the rest of the day reading.  N came home early -- he is sick -- and the boys played outside or with the train or in the basement.  One of the other scout leaders came by to pick up some pop that N was going to take to the activity tonight, and I hadn't realized he would come by so early.  The house was a mess, I was so embarrassed.  Then the mom whose girls I will be babysitting after school came by as I was cooking "dinner" (sausages and saurkraut) and sitting and reading amidst the scattered toys and dishes in the sink.  Yikes.  It won't take long to clean up -- it's mostly toys and they all have bins; the dishes will mostly go in the dishwasher -- but it looks really messy now.

We had our first day of school today, and it went swimmingly.  We had a leisurely breakfast, cleaned up together, and the boys dressed etc. speedily enough that we actually started a few minutes before nine.  Trust me, that was a miracle.  We sang children's hymns, had a prayer, read our Book of Mormon reading for that morning (D and I discussed it; he was listening somewhat and had some details mixed up).  I pulled out the scriptures we had been memorizing starting Jan last year and had neglected through most of the summer.  D remembered most of them.  We read a story about prayer from the Friend (prayer is part of this week's sharing time theme).  Then is was Spanish time.  I wasn't quite sure how to proceed here; I simply chose 5 words for us to learn today.  Hello, goodbye, book, poem, and read.  Read was tricky as it is a verb, and I know nothing about conjugating them or whatever.  I tried to use them throughout the day, but had forgotten after snack time.  We then read The Sword of Damocles from Favourite Tales of Long Ago, a selection from Ambleside Online.  I had D narrate it.  Then I started reading a poem from A Child's Garden of Verses, but the kids were hungry by then and so we went ahead with our snack. 

We went through our binders etc. to get them all set up.  I was hoping this would excite the kids -- especially D -- about the learning ahead of us.  It went OK, but was a little less exciting to the kids than I had anticipated.  I put together a nature notebook and history notebook for myself; we all set up our school journals (meant to be like a commonplace book).  D made his own title page for his journal; S scribbled on his a bit once he saw D, but he wasn't really interested in it.  I made the mistake of coming to the computer in the basement to search for a pic to print up for my title page.  The boys wanted tv and were antsy; I spent too much time here.  We finished up with music time, listening to a Beethoven selection.  D wasn't crazy about it, but they did like some of the other tracks.

After lunch, I had to nag and cajole the boys into helping me.  Then we had quiet minutes (I started reading Pride and Prejudice) and the boys each chose a book.  D chose a retelling of St. George and the Dragon, and S chose You Are Special.  N came home from work and we flew around getting ready to head out to the amusement park for the Not Back to School party.  We were late getting there, and it wasn't just for homeschoolers, so I wasn't sure if anyone I saw was a homeschooler, and didn't talk to anyone.  The boys had a blast though.  They have some big covered slides; D was terrified of them last year, and only after a long time did he go on the biggest one.  This year, he ran straight for the biggest one and went down without a second thought.  S seems to have sprained his ankle; he isn't afraid of jumping down from pretty high heights.  The ground has impact-absorbing wood chips everywhere, but the one structure we were on is made of wood, and he was jumping from one level to another.  He was also wearing a pretty cheap flimsy pair of sandals; he lost his regular ones.  S was running around and playing right after it happened -- he didn't even really cry -- but by the time we were moving on to the splash pad, he was limping and needed to be carried.  He is still limping, but it is not too swollen.  We stayed until the park closed. 

All in all, it was a pretty good day.  I asked D if he liked it; he said he enjoyed the reading and the trip (haha), but not doing the notebooks.  I asked him why, since he seemed excited to start that; he said he was excited to get the binders, but not to do the work of sorting everything out.

D said something interesting this morning, towards the end of school time.  He has asked for us to do things more like the schools do, to go with their schedule, that kind of thing.  I figured he liked structure and such.  But today, he asked why we have to have "school," why we don't just learn things "normally."  I asked him what he meant.  He asked why we sit around and talk about things instead of learning by doing stuff.  I asked him about it again tonight, and he said he doesn't want to do public school OR homeschool.  He would still want me to read to him, but he would learn things by doing them.  I don't want to hound him, but I've been trying to get him to explain things to me more clearly.  I worry that he means he want our time to be like it has been toward the end of our summer vacation -- playing outside or watching tv all day.  Not that I would mind if he played most of the day -- our actual planned school time is likely not going to be more than an hour, and it is pretty much all reading.  He would like me reading to him for an hour every morning, I'm sure.  So maybe I'll downplay the morning school time somewhat.  I wasn't planning on really doing any lessons with them after the first reading hour -- they would play, or we would do something fun together, or whatever.  I was emphasizing kid school time because D seemed to like it.  Sigh.  The fickleness of youth. 

I finished Walden; it was great.  I don't have time to type out all of the other quotes I have written down as I was reading it.  I am going to start on The Ilyad and, as I mentioned, I have begun Pride and Prejudice.  

What's on for tomorrow?  Hmmmm.... More reading in the morning, and then I'm going to work on my history notebook, getting a feel for the ancient time period, and reading some Homer.  Or we might take the later morning off to go to the park, and I would work on my stuff in the afternoon after our quiet/reading time, and let the boys build a train set or get out some craft stuff.  I also have some saurkraut to make, and I will likely do yogurt too.   I have to get a meal plan going to help clear time for study.

Didn't get Walden finished by the end of the week; I still have a couple of more chapters left.  Our "Labour Day" is supposed to be a day for getting the house decluttered and cleaned up, but I'm not feeling terribly motivated to do much of anything.  I am happy to do housework when the kids are asleep, but I just dawdle through it when they are awake.  The boys' room is decluttered and ready for vacuuming, as is the upstairs hall and our spare room.  The main floor is pretty much ok, it just is getting full of bits of clutter from elsewhere in the house.  I will clean it last.  The basement is decent too -- the hall is cluttered up but that shouldn't take too long.  Then I just have to rearrange a few things so I can move a change table upstairs and free up some room down here. 

I'm excited to go to the Not Back to School party tomorrow though!