Our family took some much-needed time off from our normal routines during the holidays. Allen was home for about a week and a half, and all the kids were out of school for two weeks. Some of our daily chores slid by untouched, and many days were spent in pajamas. All of us found plenty of time to read.
Will managed to read four novels during that time, and one night he came down at 10PM to ask if he was supposed to have already turned off his light. He claimed that he couldn't turn it off yet because he needed to finish part of a book so he wouldn't have nightmares. He took Allen up on the challenge to read The Hobbit,with the reward being that Allen would take him to see the movie. They fit that in during the break, too. Will also finished two of John Grisham's Theodore Booth books, and couldn't put down James Patterson's I Funny once he picked it up.
Ben and Jon played with Legos a lot! At the crack of dawn I would hear Jon sorting through his boxes of blocks looking for a certain piece. Ben built spaceships or alien UFOs and floated them through the house on his fingertips. Maddie played with Legos some, dolls a lot, and made several dozen bracelets from the three different bracelet craft kits she got for Christmas. Everyone that visits our house usually leaves with new colors around their wrist.
Several times, we got together with the Browns. One of the times all the kids and adults were at our house. The kids playing everywhere, the adults catching up or playing games. Another time, the younger boys were at the Browns' home and the big boys and the girls were here. We all got together for dinner, let the kids watch a movie, then the adults played more games. I think between all the kids and Allen, our home gained seven new games at Christmas, so there were lots of games being played at our house through the holidays.
We all really enjoyed the downtime that the holidays gave us, but we were also ready to get back to our normal routines. Allen went back to work on January 2nd, and the triplets immediately started asking -- each of the three asked at least once per day -- when we could start doing school again. They were all pretty excited about getting to do some new things with homeschool. Will was ready to get back to school and all his friends there, too. The four kiddos all started school this past Monday, and the week has rushed by quickly.
In our home school, Ben, Maddie, and Jon began doing multiplication. They all feel like such big kids now, and they have picked it up pretty quickly. I suppose it helps that they hear us quizzing Will on multiplication facts often. Each day, we do our lessons together, then I let them do their workbook assignments at their own pace. Each day (you'd think I'd have figured it out by now,) they have each gone through their work SO fast that I assumed they hadn't even started even though I was sitting nearby. These three all seem to love math and pick it up quickly, but Ben doesn't always like doing lots of practice. We have been going through world history and sticking with the curriculum. This week, we talked about Greece and Olympics (and more). I am getting excited about the upcoming games and I am trying to find ways of making TV-watching be a bit educational -- maybe even educational enough to warrant staying up later to watch some of the events. I remember when I was a kid I got to stay up later than normal to watch ice skating. I'm not sure that would hold the kids' attention too long, but I'm trying to come up with some projects or exercises we could do together to learn about the countries the athletes are representing... or bar charts of the different countries' medal counts... or adding scores together to figure out the winners... or making a ethnic dish from a gold-medal country... I have to get busy on that :)
Will is enjoying school and his new projects sound exciting. In history and English, he is researching a character from Texas history and writing journals as if he is that character. In math and science, his team is choosing a city to host Winter Olympic Games for 2018. They must build a model with certain specifications, but they will be working on fractions and decimals while discussing different landforms and environmental conditions. It is really quite cool! In PE, his team is designing and building an obstacle course, and in music he is writing a song. He has more classes than that, but I think they tie into one of the first two projects I mentioned.
Along with the back-to-normal busyness of school for all four kids, Will has begun meeting with his Odyssey of the Mind (OM) team for a couple hours a week. They compete in February, but just began this week. I am hopeful that what his school's teams lack in preparation time, they can make up for because they are already project- and team-oriented workers and used to thinking outside the box.
We are heading into a somewhat busy weekend, but hopefully there will be time for some fun and relaxation, too.
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