Everyone did some math I had planned, but other than that, we accomplished nothing. Well, they studied, and in some cases, quoted from memory, entire chapters of a great classical book known as the Bible, but that was just for quizzing, the extra-curricular activity that's not really "school." And I think Drew spent some time on his Rosestta Stone French. He also played on his violin. But the boys and Scarlett - since we spent a large chunk of their day at the gym where they take gymnastics and dance, all they really did was run and stretch and tumble and interact with other kids. They were entirely too happy for that to be a school day. And does it really count when Chase learned about consonant blends on the go, as I snuck papers in front of him now and then and asked him a few questions before he had time to object? Probably not.
For heaven's sake, I barely saw anything Aimee was doing. I mean, I think I saw some grammar pages, and she told me about a bunch of reading and some studying of vocabularly from classical languages. I know she spent lots of time writing, writing, writing. Why do I have such a hard time tearing her away from all that writing? Ugh. Fail. Much later, after dinner, we talked at length about current events like the Ebola crisis, and then about pleasanter things like literature. We probably should have busied ourselves with looking over her Algebra work.
Or, I could have used some of that evening time to catch the boys up on some of their missed school work, but instead, I just sat by and watched as they put together Lego stop-motion videos, baked cookies from a new recipe, listened to books on CD, and then carved up pumpkins. By that time, they had to go to their respective baseball practices, and then it was dinner, and then they played happily together before bed.
Yesterday's wasted day means we're now further behind on things like on spelling books. And I think I'll have to tack on other week or so of study of our History, because I meant to be finished with this particular time period by the end of October, and now because I didn't sit them down to do their mapwork, I'll have to rework my mental schedule. If we hadn't spent so much time previously on reading and talking about World War I, we wouldn't be in a rush now, anyway. We'll probably have the same problem with the next World War war - there's no way I'll be able to get them to wrap it up in just a couple days. They'll keep wanting to read about it, and I'll never get finished with modern history so I can start back up with the Ancients!
And then TODAY...co-op! An entire morning of nothing but spending time with other kids, learning about nature, dissecting fish, doing art - argh!
Obviously...I jest to some degree. But I would be lying if I said that this doesn't represent my actual thought process sometimes. Much of the time. I try to not say it out loud, or to convey non-verbally my feelings of frustration and doubt, but it must come across sometimes, because occasionally one of the older kids will ask me "how far behind" they are, or what they need to do to "catch up." And I have to remind myself as well as them that there's nothing about all the reading, writing, conversing, interacting, stretching, playing, discovering, LEARNING they do...that's anything like "falling behind."
We'll catch up on the spelling books - if that's even necessary - when the snow comes.
Maybe.
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