Ahhhh

Ahhhh

Fireworks after the Apple Blossom Carnival went a long way toward dispelling the dark clouds. It took a couple days, but I'm feeling better. It's always nice to be back in a homeschooling groove. Youngest is really doing nicely with the new Latin book, and when I said, okay now we'll do a little Roman history, the response was "hurray!" Must be doing something right. It helps that the children are all older, of course, but somehow, copying Latin conjugations is okay with Youngest, when copying vocabulary wasn't. Go figure. Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant!

A clarification on the AP book list I gave: it's gleaned from years' worth of past exams, covering as much as possible without blowing a teenager's mind or overwhelming with sheer bulk. The exam's long essays ask for discussion based on novels or plays, and since plays are short, I lean on those pretty heavily (you can use Hamlet for almost any topic!). I do like other Hemingway novels, but Old Man is so short that I go with that one. Spectacular badness: I did once have a group read Long Day's Journey into Night just before Christmas. I don't know what I was thinking. Actually, I remember exactly what I was thinking: "aw, it's not that bad. And we really need to whack right into Grapes of Wrath after the holidays." Uh, it really is that bad--first half, not so much, then...you get to the second half. And OMG. Bad weasel, bad bad bad.

Oldest takes her last scheduled AP exam in the morning, for this year, anyway. Go, kid! Then we'll discuss SAT subject tests and what APs to pencil in *really* for next year. And visiting colleges needs to be planned (and done). And so on. And the two younger ones need to not get lost in the avalanche of college countdown madness. I feel a Big Fun Project starting to come on...

I tend to be pretty structured with homeschooling. It feels pretty loose for me, but when I talk to other parents, there's such a range that I guess I'm more on the "structured" end of the spectrum. The kids have daily work, and other regular stuff. But I think we could all use a big ol' project, with fiddly bits and mess and different areas of the house and yard taken over by it. Hmmmm. This could be cool.

We went to the Museum of Fine Art for Mother's Day, with a group of homeschoolers--one of the dads has a background in art history, and one of the moms has been doing history with a bunch of kids, so T. led a tour of some of the collection, and we weasels tagged along. It was a great time! All 3 of my kids had friends who were there (and I did, too) and the adults got to talk about interesting art (and the kids did, too) and all behaved very well indeed. Yay!

Perhaps we'll be investigating egg tempera or some other high rennaisance paint technique.

Anyhow, thanks, you guys; it's a bumpy ride, but I do at least seem to be moving forward.