Our homeschool week in pictures

 Avery, coloring in her main lesson book. This week we worked with letter R.

We are hitting that late winter hump, where my son says he doesn't feel like doing some of those things that we just have to do, like math lessons. I count myself lucky in that up until this point I have had two mostly willing and eager students. Last week Noah said he wasn't in the mood for our morning circle time, so we scrapped it. The next morning I came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea; I thought we'd take the week off our normal circle activities and all three do yoga together. Yoga followed by our Mr McGregor/Bunny chase game lasted one morning, and then the next day was met with groans...so we scrapped that and just got to the meat of the matter which was probably also met with groans.

This week went a little smoother. I abbreviated our circle time which usually includes an assortment of movement verses, finger plays, songs while running and skipping, alphabet and counting verses, bean bag games, string games, clapping games,  copper rod games and a Yup'ik language call and response segment. This week I made sure to plan out our math so that I squeezed two lessons into the first three days of the week; busting out six lessons and still getting the end of the week off math.

 Noah worked with subtraction facts this week. Here he is playing a subtraction chain game.

 Yesterday Avery asked if she could do some needle felting. She ended up making herself a slice of cheese, a slice of tomato, a lettuce leaf, a blob of ketchup and a white plate.

While I had computer time and while Avery needle felted, Noah set out several game boards that he combined to make his own strategy game. He spent hours playing it. I am ignorant of the rules, but it seemed pretty creative and clever of him.

 Here is Noah drawing Stars in his form drawing journal. He worked on drawing them all week at the chalkboard and at the end of the week he draws them into his book.

 This morning Avery sat down with her potholder loom, and then Noah went and got his and they both spent an hour on the couch crafting.

Over the past few weeks Noah and I have been reading the Enki Sage story of Harriet Tubman. Next week will be our last week working with this material and then I think we will expand it and take a deeper step into African American culture through dance, music and maybe a southern meal. Each day after Noah's circle time he reads word family flash card or spits out memorized sight words. Then he reads me a first reader or two. As long as we stick to this schedule I notice weekly improvement. I'm so ready for him to be able to entertain himself by reading what he wants when he wants.

We got outside each day this week for at least an hour and usually more. The kids spent my milking time rolling and sledding down a small hill outside the milk room door. We got the does out most days for a walk to the chicken coop and back. Today was about ten degrees, the coldest day this week.

Avery came down with a cold this week that had us cancelling multiple engagements that we were looking forward to. Despite battling colds and overcoming disappointments, we have had an enjoyable week around the house.The kids just took a long bubble bath together with their playmobile pirate ship. Now I've promised to do some special design painting on Avery's finger nails. Then I'll be blending some green soup and frying sourdough bread croutons. That's right, I'm counting tonight as the weekend, so some diet cheating is about to begin. Then something tells me it may be a well deserved movie night for all.