Well, it's Tuesday, and while I'm satisfied with what we've accomplished for school....well....we're not following those lovely plans I had labored over (for at least an hour or so....after all, it's only 2 weeks worth at a time).  We've had school time together as a gang, at the dining room table.  Yesterday they worked on letters and projects to mail to Grammy and Peppy.  David did some coloring, Alycia did some coloring and then wrote (very creatively) a little letter too, and Daniel wrote a short letter in cursive (for at least the first 4 words, he got up to show me each word and did a wriggly little happy dance at his excitement to be learning cursive).  They also did math and some science (Alycia made a bee puppet and Daniel tested himself on the solar system again, using that cool World Book Learning Center I bought him).  Today they both did math in their workbooks while I did laundry and hung it out on the line.  Then Alycia asked me to read a book, then she picked up a Magic School Bus book about Ancient Egypt (actually it was just Ms. Frizzle's adventure)....it was a GREAT book....that lead us to our history lesson.  They worked on their maps (locating Mesopotamia), then colored pictures of the first farmers using a "shaduf" to irrigate their gardens.  I finished reading about the early people (we'd read that they were nomads, today we read about how farming came about).  In that lesson, they mentioned that Jericho was one of the first cities.  They told how the people built homes out of mud bricks and reeds and then put up walls around their village to protect them.  It said that this wall was 10 feet thick and 13 feet tall, so I had the kids measure that out using the slate tile on the floor.  Boy were they impressed once they got the picture in their mind.  Well, that of course, was a perfect lead in to reading about Joshua and the battle of Jericho.  I asked Daniel if he thought he could yell loud enough to knock over a little plastic coffee can, if the whole family yelling could do it......Nope, he was pretty sure it couldn't be done.  Then we talked about reasons why God would have given them such a strange battle plan....Daniel figured out right off that it would show that God really was the most powerful.  Yay!!  They're now doing some quiet reading, David's napping, and I REALLY need to paint some trim for Glenn so we can get our kitchen/dining room/living room/hallway renovation finished!!  Boy would it be nice to not have to step over tools in the house!!