One of those great homeschooling days

This is not typical, but days like this happen often enough to make it worthwhile.

Up at 7, with the dog and kids, walking/running the neighborhood.

Catechism and discussion of 6th commandment (it's more complicated than you think).

A chapter of North With the Spring, read aloud. Words to bring tears to your eyes.

Math, grammar, even phonics without complaints! Ever since I told the big complainer that he'd have no computer game time if he complained about these basics that we have to do, we have gotten a lot more done in a shorter amount of time! Shazam!

Animal classification - looked up a few animals found while reading On the Banks of Plum Creek (oh yeah, they did their reading in that after breakfast cleanup; we just do 3 chapters a week). In the process, of course, they had some short diversions in the pages of the encyclopedia, on the Animal Diversity Web, and on the Encyclopedia of Life website. Read about grasshoppers in Comstock's Handbook of Nature Study. We read about the order Mammalia in the Audubon Nature Encyclopedia. We are loosely following The Prairie Primer and getting discussion and activity ideas from that book, so we also discussed idleness, work ethic, and wheat growing.

J went outside to work on some kind of rocket involving matches, paper clips, and something else. (Under strict instructions not to light said matches alone.) Then moved to playing with the dog, then had a little baseball practice with Dad (who is on spring break and outside fixing the roof). The rockets never did work; it's a little too windy outside today.

E wrote up a recipe for a bready sort of thing, then put it together on her own. It turned out horribly - I should have been paying closer attention when she rattled off her list of ingredients; if I had, we might have added some leavening. No matter; I do hate to waste a cup of flour and an egg (the other ingredients were in negligible amounts), but the lesson, of course, was priceless. Yes, I'm living a MasterCard(tm) ad.

We read a picture-book bio of Charles Dickens and talked about the way his life affected his writing. We had read Oliver Twist a few months ago so the image of the orphan in the workhouse was familiar to them. Took a virtual tour of the Charles Dickens Museum in London. Decided that The Pickwick Papers should be our next "pleasure book" to be read aloud. I am not sure I'm up for that right now. It took a very long time to get through Oliver.

In between we had teatime, and did some house and dog chores. The kids had time to play some more with the dog, get in some more baseball practice, and do some "geological exploring" which was really just messing around in the mud.

Just before bed we read a bit of Tom Sawyer.

Yes, these are the days that get me through the tough ones. The days everything clicks, the kids improve their skills (even if it is almost imperceptible), greatly increase their knowledge and understanding of the world, and take great joy in life.