A Coon, and School, and Rosie OH MY

I could "bless" you with a picture of the dead raccoon lying on our lawn right now, but I'll spare you.

It's enough to say that I was lying peacefully in bed last night at 10:45 p.m., JUST drifting off to sleep, when 2 shotgun blasts shattered the nighttime peace. I came downstairs to see a dead raccoon on our lawn, and Kevin striding around with the shotgun, searching for the 2nd one that had got away.  Which he didn't find.

So 2 are dead now, 1 remains.

  Last Friday, I turned in our Notice of Intent to the post office. This is required by Ohio law, informing the local school district that we will be homeschooling.  It includes a general plan of curricula for the year, plus assessments of the kids from last year.  It was intimidating the first year but now it is old hat.  So...anyone reading this who wants to homeschool, trust me -- it isn't hard.

And Monday, August 1st, was the first day of our new school year.

And this week we are doing...math, and spelling, and Bible reading.

 That's it.  I find it way easier to gradually slide into our full curricula instead of trying to start at full throttle.

  There have been some math bumps, as most of the kids took off a couple of months from math. I need to work with Angela on her basic multiplication facts, as she doesn't remember them.  That's fine.

  Next week we'll add another subject or 2.

  Naomi and Lydia start a Spanish class in 3 weeks.  It is taught by a homeschool mom and they'll be driving off to a local town 1 day a week to attend class.

  Naomi starts a college English class that same week. So, things will really ramp up at the end of August.

 I'm doing a few science lessons with this glass bottle and balloons.  Since the bottle is rigid, I can do fun things with hot air, cold air, vinegar and baking soda, yeast, etc. and the balloon will inflate or deflate depending on what is happening chemically/physically.

Fun.

Daniel startled me this week by blending 3 letters to form a word.  He is very young to be reading.  And he isn't really reading in the sense that he doesn't even know the letter sounds yet. But when I sounded out m and a and t separately, he blended them correctly and said "mat".  So maybe he'll be an early reader.  He also recognizes his name and his siblings' names. (And by the way, I was working with Sarah at the time, and he piped in.)

And Rose, dear precious Rose.  She got her fingers caught in the front screen door a couple of days ago when Sarah was leaving the house to feed the cats and the door slammed shut on her hand.  I was pretty worried she might have broken her fingers but we figured out quickly she just had some cuts.  I bandaged her up (which she didn't appreciate) and kept the wounds clean.  Thankfully, little kids heal quickly.  She looks pretty good today.

This is her idea of fun. She LOVES to be outside, and she loves dumping the cats' water.  She was actually standing IN the cats' water bowl for this morning, and then she dumped the bowl.  She's busy.