Opportunity

In a random shuffle of life, our second daughter had an only-in-New York opportunity last month and we finally got the link.

http://heroeshands.com

That's my girl!

She learned a lot about working, making friends with adults, film making, camera care, fan relations with all the elderly hanging out at the beach diner, and just getting it done. She kept perky from 4 a.m. until we finally got home at 5:00 p.m. When the shoot was finally over and I walked her to the car to drive her home, she started to whimper, couldn't buckle her own seatbelt and promptly fell asleep. She was peppy in time for Activity Days. She happy to have been part of such a worthy cause.

Been there

The super-wonderful new middle school in our neighborhood has an after school program where one of the electives is a Twilight reading group. After reading the book, the group will watch the movie. Hey! Are we ten steps ahead of the program, or what?! ;)

We read and discuss lots of other books, too. In fact, that's the bulk of what we do. We are a little language arts heavy at our house.

Some favorite books are:

Bloomability by Sharon Creech
Percy Jackson series by Rick Riordan

Good feelings

It has been a great week of home schooling. The main highlight has been the peaceful tenor in our home and a general love- love of each other and love of learning. I believe this is because I recently refocused my lens on my family. I have prioritized getting enough sleep to meet their needs as a thoughtful mother and facilitator. Some highlights from this week have been:

*deciding to let Torpedo (my two year old son) let go of our hug first. I held him for 20 minutes and he fell asleep in my arms.

*letting the kids spend half the day exploring with our new set of 50+ gel pens They created imaginative and beautiful pieces

*sledding at noon when nobody else was on the slopes. My Hero sat in his beach chair bundled in winter-wear and a blanket and wrote in his journal. What is not abundant about this life?

*discovering that my 6 year old is happy to do "lessons" with me if we set up a "desk" and let her call me "teacher"

*playing Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader with the whole family on a Tuesday afternoon. we made up our own rules and would run to the maps to check our answers or look up works of art and geographic wonders on-line

*reading aloud The Swiss Family Robinson and The Old Testament with loads of commentary and conversation. I never knew Leviticus was so pertinent!

*My tween writing a business letter on her own. Granted it was to the Twilighters Anonymous podcast, but she wanted to clarify some minor character descriptions she felt they had overlooked and included quotes from the saga to support her claim.

*getting together with friends

*trusting and encouraging their initiative as learners