As much as I try to stick with a fairly regular routine, it seems that a lot of times our activities are completely random! When I returned home from running this morning, Arden was sitting at the breakfast table, eating cereal at 6:35 a.m.! Ted said he had come downstairs crying because he was so hungry. I know for a fact that all of our kids ate a GREAT dinner last night, but all 3 of them woke up apparently starving! I guess they're growing!
I had a stamping workshop last night, and this morning as I looked around the house, it looked like a complete disaster. I don't mean to bag on Ted, because I know what it's like to try to bathe all 3 kids and get them down for the night. That in itself is quite a job. However, because I wasn't here to help, and because cleaning is not the highest priority for Ted OR the kids, well...the house looked like a tornado had hit it.
It's very difficult for me to mentally set aside the clutter and focus on things like home schooling, so we took an hour to clean the house this morning. I had to keep giving the kids little assignments to keep them on task, but overall they were somewhat helpful, and by the time 9:00 came, the house looked much better.
I, however, had a few business things I felt I needed to take care of before getting involved in school activities, one of which involved a phone call that ended up lasting close to a half-hour. So the kids played quietly (for the most part), either coloring or building with the Wedgits Tobin got for his birthday. By the time I finished my phone call, I was just ready to snuggle with the kids and read, read, read.
So we did! Forget math, handwriting, phonics, and other workbook stuff. The kids picked out some stories, and we gathered a bunch of Sonlight books and cuddled and read for probably 45 minutes to an hour. Then we (well, Charis and Tobin) acted out the story of David and Goliath. Tobin rushed to the landing and looked down the stairs, yelling out, "WHO WILL FIGHT ME?!" As David, Charis collected a herd of stuffed animals for her "sheep" and then traveled to where the Israelite army was.
I discovered that, like me, Charis is not an impromptu gal. She wanted to read lines from a David & Goliath book we have. :-) Tobin, on the other hand, is just like his dad--a total and complete ham! He did a great job as Goliath! Both kids had fun, and after they went through the scenario once (I made sure Charis didn't actually sling any "stones" at Tobin!), they continued to play a bit while I grabbed some water for my parched throat.
Then Charis and Tobin decided to go outside and play, and Arden chose to play with our Mighty Mind set. I sat on the floor and helped him with some of the puzzle cards, and then I prepared lunch while the big kids came in and played Uno. (OK, I did play a couple of rounds with them first!)
I had Charis do her handwriting practice page a bit later, while I read some more to the boys on the couch while she listened in. She's doing great with her writing, and I was proud of her for buckling down and working hard when she probably would have rather been sitting on the couch with us. Perhaps later this afternoon I'll have her work on her math practice page, as I was planning for her to take her "test" tomorrow. But if she doesn't do it today, we can do it tomorrow! She's got a good handle on the 8 family addition facts...what she doesn't know off the top of her head she quickly figures out with the manipulatives.
So, all in all, while our morning went NOTHING like our "normal" schedule, it was fun and productive anyway! One more reason I'm thankful to be able to home school our kids.
Right now Tobin is coloring, Arden is napping, and Charis is playing in her room. It's quiet in the house, and that probably won't last long since Arden has been asleep probably an hour and a half now. I enjoyed a short nap in his room as well!
Guess I'll sign off here. I have some reading to do for our small group study tonight. Hopefully later I can post more.
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