Review of the Week # 10

Things went pretty smoothly this week. I would say that the past couple months of tweaking things each week until we've found a system that works was worth it. There's really nothing I feel like we need to change from how we were set up this week. The girls went ahead and got started as soon as they finished breakfast and morning chores instead of waiting for me to be done caring for the babies which almost never happens-- they always need something. There was a kid always in charge of the 3 yob so that I can work uninterrupted with the older kids. One day I didn't even have to help #4 because #2 read with him and helped him with his math. That was a happy surprise for me. Friday moved very smoothly because #1 has made it to the review section in math and didn't need my undivided attention in explaining new concepts. That was nice. I tried to clean out a particularly messy drawer instead during that time. That almost never happens. I even folded some clothes this week although I have plenty more to fold today!!

One thing that I need to continue that was good this week is to make sure we have something fun to look forward to when we are finished with the individual basics (math, greek, reading and writing). The ideal is for each child to be finished with their individual requirements/checklists for the day by lunchtime. After lunch it seems almost impossible to get them to focus. Then after lunch, cleanup and maybe a bit of a break, we can do a fun science experiment which is what the boys love- my girls just loved stories, painting and coloring at that age, but the boys are loving the science stuff. So this week we looked at a science experiment book and picked out some experiments dealing with water. I found old dropper bottles and jars for our experiments and all the kids had a ball mixing food coloring and water in different containers when we were done with the experiments. So while they busily experimented I told them "no talking, only listening" while I read to them the "big kids stories" which have very few if any pictures-- (history and literature). Once that's over I read the picture books, and then it's usually about time to make dinner and for the older kids to finish up whatever reading or practicing they didn't get to earlier.

I have a "dinner helper" assigned each day, but I didn't enforce it this week, because I thought they had too many other things to do. They were surprisingly a bit disappointed about that though, so I will enforce the dinner helper this coming week-- it doesn't take that long and living skills are important too!!

The twins turned 1 yesterday and we had a fun little party. we made it through the first year!!

So this was just a nice boring week. We are almost done with our Saturday jobs and we are free for the day. I'm looking forward to a nice restful Sabbath!!