In Which We Refuse to Say It's Going Well....

Lest we jinx anything.  It's only been 3 days, so that's really not enough to make a judgement call.

I finished "A Thomas Jefferson Education" and it was fantastic.  I confirmed that we are a "classical model" family when I compared the book list in the appendix to our selections from the library.  Definitely classical.

Tuesday we did another hike and the kids spent most of their time in the creek.  We really need some knee-high boots.  We made it further since there was no banana bread in the oven and found a portion of the creek where there are tiny fish and an enormous tadpole!! Logan was sad because he didn't get to see it since he was moving at Logan pace and Savannah threw some sand into the water and startled the tadpole before Logan could see it.  The kids found a peninsula and an isthmus and an island- good geography as far as I'm concerned :) they also found a few mini waterfalls and were quite pleased with the whole morning.  Our reading for the day included more on the Aztecs, which they listened to for an hour straight, more on Abraham, the first chapter of John, several library books, and their math, literacy and spelling work that we do every day.  We didn't go swimming because grandma's back and shoulder were bothering her, but we did go to Chick Fil A for lunch and to play in the playplace. 

The fun part of this has been really seeing the types of learners the kids are.  Riley has amazed me with how self-motivated he is.  This morning, he woke up when Austin left and got all of his "standard" workbooks and completed the typical number of pages (typical after 2 days anyway) and woke me up at 6:50 with his completed work asking if we could skip straight to history.  Our last few days have taken us from 7-4, so today we only went until 12, and then we went to swim and play at the playground.  Daddy met us at a local steakhouse for dinner and then we did our journaling and started "Trumpet of the Swan".  Reading it reminded me how sad I am that they read Junie B. Jones in school when there is such rich children's literature out there.  Riley loved it and requested 2 chapters, which I read despite the fact that it was already 9:55.  Riley also did another letter for his state project and Logan continued with his reading and workbooks.  Riley's still recovering from his tonsillectomy and he didn't feel up to a hike this morning.  I think that his tummy is upset from all the antibiotics. Our cultural literacy piece was "Chicken Little" and I had the kids draw pictures, but they were very upset there were no masks and dramatic reading, so apparently that's coming back for tomorrow.  I think I have all the costumes that we need to do a full-on production of Anansi and the Tiger, so we might go that route.

So far I'm pretty happy.  The kids were rambunctious and a little silly today, but we still accomplished everything we needed to, and they were good about reigning themselves in when I reminded them to.  I definitely noticed a difference in their energy level without our morning walk to make them simmer!!