Friday Mash Up: Making Origami, Playing Dragonwood

Monday highlights - Tobias had a rough night that meant only one thing - his cough/congestion/runny nose had turned into a double ear infection. Poor buddy! Daddy and the kids did breakfast and chores while I was at the doctor with Tobias. By the time I arrived home most of the kids had already begun school work. I took care of new math lessons and oversaw our other usual lessons. We also started some interest based projects - stop motion animation, knitting a hat, making bracelets with the rainbow loom, and origami. Makayla had her online vet class mid-morning. In the afternoon we dissected a crayfish and discussed voting and elections. For dinner we made yummy chicken and black bean enchiladas.

Tuesday highlights - I was out the door before light to go vote. We then had a nice, slow and steady morning with chores and school work. I listened to Oliver read, helped several kids through math, oversaw lots of things, and took care of Tobias, whose super power today was dripping snot and drooling through multiple shirts and bibs. Gross, but sometimes that's a mom's life. Oliver and Caleb brought me scriptures to read to them and they chose the story of the Amlicites, (you can read it here). Definitely interesting to read on election day. Daniel and I have been buddy reading the Book of Mormon lately and finished Jacob chapter 5 today too. Then I had kids doing various interest based projects. More rainbow looming, more origami (a bat today). Emma decided that she wanted to draw for today. She created many fairies with a drawing kit we have. We read aloud two chapters of Prince Caspian. I helped Makayla with biology.

Wednesday started out tired. Tobias is still miserable with the double ear infection so night time sleep was only for 30 minutes at a time, then he was awake and in my arms for 30 minutes or more. Then he would drift off again. I had to be up at 5am to drive Makayla to Seminary so I really didn't get much sleep last night. Of course this would be the day that a certain child decided to argue over the necessity of chores. We had a discussion about the fact that chores are part of family work to care for our family, and that cooking food is part of family chores that mom mainly handles, and if you don't participate in your assigned chores you don't participate in the fruits of mine (the cooking). Sigh. The day did get better as it went on. The homeschool routine soothes even the cranky mother as we go through it. Fun project today - Daniel made a new origami project, the transforming ninja star. He even recorded it on video:



 We also got to play a new game today - Dragonwood. It was fun!

Thursday - Tired. That sums up how I felt on this morning. Add to it another child complaining of ear pain in both ears so another trip to the doctor to confirm a double ear infection and get appropriate meds. (The child actually told me one ear was hurting on Wednesday and we decided to wait a day to see if it got better, while managing the pain. By Thursday it was worse and in both ears.) In other areas school went well. Caleb is learning to count and write to 100. Yesterday was the very first day and after each row of 10 numbers he got up to do some physical activity and then ate 1 chocolate chip. His siblings were jealous of that! Oliver's reading curriculum introduced contractions this week and he really didn't get it until yesterday. Now he understands contractions using will (I'll, we'll, he'll, etc) and not (can't, isn't, hasn't, etc). We will keep working on the others but have moved ahead to reading a poem about a snake.

One thing I've been doing for my own enrichment is listening to audio books and talks at various points during the day and night (might as well if I'm up with Tobias, right?). I recently finished listening to Emma by Jane Austen. I've listened to the cds for Calm Parenting University (fantastic!). I'm currently listening to Eragon by Christopher Paolini, Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, and talks from General Conference. I'm hoping to get time to watch some dvd workshops in the near future as well - Teaching the Classics: A Socratic Method for Literary Education (I've watched before, just want a refresher). I have a couple more audio cds from Celebrate Calm to listen to as well, including ADHD University.

We introduced Daddy to Dragonwood and the kids have been playing it together as well.

Friday - Tobias slept much better last night, which meant I slept better. Makayla also didn't have seminary this morning so the whole family got off to a slower start. As a matter of fact, we didn't do formal school today at all! Most of the kids were playing Dragonwood as soon as breakfast was over. I got some work done for a church calling. Then Grandma came over (my mom) and we spent the rest of the morning hours talking, laughing, and playing games like Simon Says, Zombie tag, and we also introduced Grandma and big sister Makayla to Dragonwood. After lunch together Grandma headed home and the kids and I have moved on with our relaxing day. I still have multiple kids coughing so we're using our favorite essential oils and trying to rest and recharge. We will do some reading aloud soon and maybe play another game together. I've been wanting to pull out Uno but they may overrule me for another round of Dragonwood.

(Linking up here.)