…I did NOT mean to completely abandon HSB!  Blogging is just so much easier at that other place, but I do miss you folks.  How are you all?

Update from the school room:

School.  School is school.  It’s fine.  It’s necessary.  It’s never the same two days in a row.  I’ve been doing it for 16 years and I still don’t know what I am doing, but I might figure it out before #4 child graduates.  I realized that in our county, homeschooled kids don’t get diplomas anyway, so what exactly is “graduating”?  I get to decide that.     I have one student who is serious about her school work, who can find interesting things to learn in any subject, and who mostly uses her time wisely.  She is teaching herself conversational Hebrew, is enjoying her constitutional studies, and is captivated by the human nervous and circulatory systems. She is a thinking girl and can hold her own in a good philosophical conversation.  Aspiring to be a wife and mother, Alison now has a cottage industry teaching violin lessons to ten students. She makes a lot more money than I do.  If she doesn’t thrive when she moves out (and I don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t), she will at least survive!

Second child, Amy, has no use for anything remotely resembling “school”.  I told her that someday she is going to wish she knew about more than just cameras and photo editing.  I asked, “What if your camera breaks?  Then what will you do?”  She was ready.  She replied that she would cook and have babies, or babysit, or adopt babies.  Problem solved!  What use does this girl have for chemistry or algebra?   This used to really bother me, but it doesn’t any more.  She is who she is.  She is multi-talented and creative and fun to be with.  Her intelligence must be measured in a non-conventional way.  Thomas Edison was thought to be a hopeless student, but his mother knew better.  And look what he did.  I decided she is my “Thomas”.  And I like her.  But I am still making her do algebra.

Third child has suddenly matured.  She no longer has shy attacks in which she crawls under a chair. Actually that behavior stopped a long time ago, but the insecurity was still there.  In the past year Elisabeth has blossomed into an outgoing, helpful, thoughtful child.  Most of the time.  (All of us have room for improvement.)  During a break from math, because she is way ahead of grade level (whatever that is), we discovered she is very strong in logic.  She prints out a 4×5  logic puzzle every day and has it solved in about ten minutes.  Balance Benders is also a fun math tool for her, so now she loves 2/3 of her math each day. The other third is the Key to Algebra series, which is not exactly fun, since it is algebra, but it is tolerable.  So I am happy to say that this seems to be a good fit for us right now, for this one child.  Wow, each child is so different from her siblings.  This one loves healthy food and good exercise.  She often has a piece of fruit for breakfast and makes herself a veggie sandwich for lunch.  And she is skinny.  Why couldn’t I have been born with that kind of appetite??

Number four child is whizzing her way through everything, anxious to catch up with her big sisters.  I need to order her some more science and math, but can’t do it right now, so the library will be our school for a bit.  It’s working.  She is also blogging, and that is helping her to learn how to write in a way that is fun for her.  We are STILL working on  capitalizing the first word of every sentence and ending every sentence with an ending mark.  While Emily is years behind in picking up after herself, she is years ahead in cooking.

We’re anxious for the wind to die down here in the desert, so we can go out and play.   Ever since trying  ice-skating a few weeks ago, the girls have been on their in-line skates a lot more, trying to do “tricks”.  I am getting good experience at sympathy over bruises and scrapes.

Everything else here is about the same.  I just finished up the book of Genesis again, and I cry every time I read about Joseph revealing himself to his brethren.  Can’t wait til Jesus does that. 

Belated happy new year wishes to you all.  Hope your 2011 is a blessed year!

PS. I have finally updated the sidebar links to the girls’ blogs!

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Relieved >>