The Cat's favorite spot in the house. Nothing new to report on The Cat's behavior. We still think she is disturbed and evil and perhaps possessed. And yet, we still like her. While she alternated between lounging in her favorite sunning spot and hunting small children around the house, WE STARTED SCHOOL THIS WEEK!
School cannot begin without these little gems. Okay, let me tell the truth. These are the culmination of 5 months of thinking and planning and I am ridiculously proud of them. I start thinking about the next school year in March. These contain the kid's daily/weekly planner pages, reading lists, spelling test pages, science test pages, journal pages. They keep everybody on track without me having to tell them what do do everyday. They get up and know what they need to get done for school work.
Here's a little sample if you're interested. This is one of Faith's weekly planner pages, but everyone's is different. When I get these all printed up and bound, I always feel a huge sense of relief that the plan is made. I honestly think more than half the work of home school is figuring out what you want to do and how to make it happen. Once that's done the execution is markedly easier.
The Golden Goblet inspired the first literature project of the year. Elinor is reading it as part of a literature based Ancient History course. I often have the kids do some sort of project to go along with books they read. I could never come up with as great of ideas as they do on their own. Poetry, music composition, painting, theatrical productions, sculptures. One of my absolute favorite homeschooling moments EVER was when Bethany rewrote the lyrics to the "Hallelujah" song by Leonard Cohen and accompanied herself on the ukelele. It was all about Odysseus and his son Telemachus. She did it in very good humor and we enjoyed it so much. It is legendary in the family. We still love to sing her lyrics. "Tele-ma-chus, find your daddy!" I'm in tears of delight just thinking about it.
George was pretty excited to get his first "real" school books in the mail. For the next 10 years I shall remind him of the words he uttered this week as he got started, "Actually, math is pretty fun!"
He also spent some time in his "workshop". That is, our disaster of a garage, where George disassembles and dissects anything his can find and get permission to dismantle. This used to be a functioning printer. The baseball bat was used in its destruction. That must have been very satisfying to the boys.
I think there will be building supplies for his "workshop" on his Christmas list.
Today's project was this flying contraption that did not actually fly, but he was not deterred.
We also had the joy of reading one of, if not
the, greatest chapter ever written in all of children's literature. "Cookies" in
Frog and Toad. It's beautiful and reminds us of the eternal truths .. will power is overrated and cookies are very good.
Greta watched TV and played with underwear on my bed.
Hey, it was clean underwear!
Go me!
We spent family night with our book club family discussing
Red Scarf Girl. It's a memoir of the Cultural Revolution in China. Sad, but well worth the read and one more summer evening in a park with friends?-- yes, please!
Clark was happy to get to perform the role of Joseph Smith at a recent Stake Standards Night that doubled as a wrap up to the summer's Journey Through the Book of Mormon Youth Conference. He had to memorize quite a bit and he did great. He probably didn't need to have a microphone since projection is his strong suit, but no matter. He did very well and we loved hearing his strong, powerful voice bear testimony.
He's had a great first couple weeks of college down at UVU.
Abe was very honored this week to escort his childhood friend's son, Issac from the Salt lake airport to the Missionary Training Center in Provo. They went to Temple Square and had lunch together.
Abe hasn't spent a lot of time with Issac while he was growing up, but he said it was wonderful to see and hear so much of both of his amazing parents in him. Issac has been training for years to be a professional ballet dancer and has met with a lot of resistance in his choice to serve a mission. I'm pretty impressed with him and his whole family.
They picked up Clark from UVU to join them for the final send off.
I appreciated the effort George went to with his play-dough, heart-shaped cookies. He used a grater to grate play-dough sprinkles onto his cookie.
So artistic!
Beautiful. They looked good enough to eat.
My goal this week is to take pictures of children other than George. I do love them all, it's just that he's come up with such interesting ideas lately.
Meanwhile,
this.
We have every intention of being responsible pet owners and having The Cat spayed (or neutered, whichever the case may be). Partly because it's the right thing to do. And partly because I cannot in good conscience give any of The Cat's offspring to people I know and love. Maybe to people I know and
don't love.
Kidding.
Sort of.
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