What did we learn?

Today is a "down" day.  Grammie is coming in to town for a quick overnight and to celebrate Jay's birthday... and hers!  It's stormy and gray, a few days before Halloween.  I feel like putting a fire on the hearth, sipping hot cider and reading "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow."

Well, we can't do the fire because we'll be out in the yuck running a few errands.  We'll have to get to the library to check out "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," and we're out of cider.  So goes the day.

So Cady woke up with me this morning, cleaned her room, and headed downstairs for some cider (yeah, that's right, the last of it) and to work on some comic strips she's been writing.  I poured my coffee and joined her.  After a breakfast of eggs and toast, and with Asher still fast asleep, she and I began pulling out our halloween decorations.

I taught her how to change batteries, and she hung our motion-sensored ghoul in the front.  Scary!  She colored a face on a pumpkin and put up some cobwebs.  Now, since her brother is up, the two of them are using the hour of screen time to watch a Little Monster movie. 

While I feel like I should pull out their workbooks and pencils, I also feel like this is a day to hunker down, do housework, bake an apple cake, and prepare for Grammie's visit. 

I think this is a big dilemma for homeschoolers, at least for newbies like me.  We want to take advantage of the flexibility in schedule that homeschooling provides.  But we don't wan to "take advantage" of it to the point that they aren't learning what needs to be learned.

Okay, so having said that, here's my plan.  I hung a skeleton on the wall, and we are going to cut and past our "organs of the day"  (we have four so far) onto our "monster in the making."  I'll have Asher read the Max Axiom comic I checked out for him all about the adventures in the human body.  Cady can read "The Story of Farts."  She loves that book!  They can work on their NaNoWriMo prep stuff, workbook or more writing.  They can do times table flash cards together... they both need work on their times table memorization.  They can make the apple cake and clean the basement.  They can make birthday cards for Dad and Grammie.

Tonight as a family, we can enjoy some kettle corn and play either "SomeBody" or "The Game of States," or maybe even Monopoly or Clue.  Then more silent reading before bed.

I think for today, this regime will have to suffice.

Tomorrow is a new day.  Maybe a workbook day.  Maybe not.  I'm learning not to stress out about what life deals me.  I'm learning that my kids are learning all the time. 

I mean, yesterday Asher spent a couple of hours voluntarily typing his part from his upcoming play to print onto note cards... then he rehearsed the lines from the cards.  He wrote about a hundred more words on his novel, read books for an hour, and did a blog post.  He also learned how to utilize spell-check, a wonderful way for him to learn how to spell certain words he's unsure about.

Cady read an entire book out loud to her brother.  She loved the book and they laughed their way through it!  She drew and captioned tons of comic pages and finished writing out invitations to a disco play date.  She learned how to use our home copier, too.  The two of them also watched an episode of "Word Girl" and a ten minute, first segment, Haunted History of Halloween- a National Geographic film.

That's after we spent a great morning picking apples, feeding goats, and playing in hay bales with friends at the orchard.  It wasn't a traditional "school" day, but they chose what to learn an were excited about it!  We went with the flow and learned a lot.

I'm not sure what tomorrow will bring, but I am sure we are open to the possibilities!