We're doing pretty good. My cold is almost gone, Kenna seems to be feeling better, and it's supposed to stop raining finally! YAY! The world is looking up!
AND I have been organizing our life. Don't you just love organizing? I don't have time to go fully into it, but we are making long-term changes and short-term changes to things. I'm starting "Adult Skills" classes with the girls. I've worked out the content of the classes and they are ready to go when the girls choose to enroll in them. We have things like Baking, Meal Preparation, Household Chores, Auto and household maintanence, gardening, economics, secretarial skills, sewing, etc. Some are mandatory classes that they must complete prior to graduating from our family homeschool (even if at some point they are no longer technically "homeschooled"), and others are optional if they just want to learn the skills for fun. There are rewards for finishing certain classes (like after completing the household chores class they are excused from family chore time if they would rather study).
I'm also revamping our chore structure to something that I think will be a bit more long-term. Today, being the first day, went really well. I'm still organizing that. But basically, everyday I select the jobs that need to be done and they choose the ones they'd like to complete. I'm trying to keep it simple. We're not divvying up ALL the daily work - just some of it. Some we are still doing together or I will assign as the need arises. Logan happily chose to clean the bathroom counter, mirror, and toilet! Brynne vacuumed the bathroom floor - so now I have a clean bathroom! Love that!
We are approaching homeschool differently, too. I cannot give as much attention to it as I was before - YOU know how that is! So we are doing projects, instead. Each week, they choose a new topic of interest. I reserve the books from the library for them - a selection - and they do a presentation on their topic, complete with a visual. This week they are finishing up projects on the American Revolution, Moths, and I chose Organization. Their new topics are Dolphins and Horses. Haven't chosen mine yet. I thought it would be better if I did one too, though. It helps keep them reading and learning. They write paragraphs of information to put on their visual and draw pictures (handwriting covered!). And they like begin in charge of their own learning. Brynne is totally into moths right now. She loves finding them outside. We've learned some interesting things!
Can you tell I'm feeling pretty happy about how things are going? I'm trying to make things run smoothly without needing a Mom hanging over their shoulders.
Reading any good books? I finished a book about David O. McKay...did I tell you that already? It was okay but not fabulous. I started another book that turned out quite boring - not what I thought it would be at all. I have a third book that I started back in November, then left at Nina's on accident, and couldn't get back into it when she brought it (when Kenna was born), but I think I'm ready to pick it up again. I need some fresh reading material right now. I've been watching too many movies while I feed the baby.
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