Digging In

We're working on habits. I'm terrible with them. We've had a bit more success with getting started, but we don't get to everything I plan for us to do. We've had older kids home sick at various times and younger home schooled kids under the weather over the last week and a half and that hasn't helped either.

I sit down to read our together reading stuff in the morning and T is a distraction and sometimes the older kids just want to keep on doing or playing whatever they were doing before. I'm trying to decide if we should "begin as we mean to go on" and I should require attention at least from 9B and 6B (doing Year 1 of Form I together), or if I should simply for now focus on getting myself into the habit of sitting down and reading and once I'm solid with it, and they know it's not going away, start to work on them listening more.

Usually they do gather around once I start reading but today and yesterday they were just all over the place. I did manage to incorporate the huge bin of blocks they took out to play with into our reading -- we read the story of The Brave Three Hundred (Spartans) and as I read I used the blocks to sketch out a map of what was going on, and it caught a bit of attention. It's a start.

We used the first two lessons of the Hoffman Academy piano lessons yesterday and today and they were a big hit. B6 declared today that we need another piano. The second lesson introduced jazz improvisation. I love it.

We managed a "baby steps" nature walk last week; my mom looked after kids during gymnastics and errands and I took them out around my parents' sugar bush and pond when I came back to pick them up. I gave out ziploc bags and they collected a few things (some red maple leaves, common scouring rush/rough horsetail, and a snail shell) and we spotted water bugs, boatmen, teeny minnows, and raccoon prints in the mud. It was a beautiful day.