An altogether relaxed day

I overslept and consequently let the kids overslept. Then I rethought this whole "wake the kids up and get the day going at a decent hour" concept and decided I should probably stick with it. But how wonderful these mornings are when we all get around to getting up at some point and then enjoy a relaxing morning together. Do I seriously need to condition the children to wake up with gusto and be productive as soon as humanly possible? Ick. Especially when Alex and I don't do that at all...my husband works nights so he sleeps in late. I certainly have no interest in waking up early like I used to, back when it was biologically feasible.

So we got up, worked on handwriting~~I am so proud of Wolfgang. His handwriting looks beautiful, even if he hates using it. Then we started our new history program. The History Links program begins with a month-long unit on the study of history itself, which we dug into today. We discussed:

• The definition of history~~Wolfgang looked it up in the dictionary.
• Why is it important?
• What can we learn from studying history?
• How do we capture a record of events without a camera? How have people done so throughout the centuries? (Psalm mentioned church tradition, which pleased me. Especially with our recent conversion, I feel close to this topic right now of the importance of church tradition in conveying church teachings~~a living history.)
• The definition of "chronological"~~we started our root word notebook and wrote down chrono~, discussing words such as chronicle and chronic.
• I pulled out a dozen photographs from many different periods of our family life and their project was to arrange them chronologically. Consequently, we had some marvelous "real life" dilemmas about how to identify what happened when, who was in the picture (all our kids have looked very much alike at different times!) and so on.
• Wolfgang arranged the Pacific Coast state flashcards chronologically, based on their entrance into the Union. In spite of myself, I am forced to acknowledge that these flashcards are awesome!
  

Around this point, we all took a break, ate lunch together and decided to take advantage of today's scrumdiddlyumptious weather. My favorite park is now without a doubt Loretta French park. It has everything a kid could want: hills to climb on, rambling trails atop them which remain visible to the tiny speck of a parent below, two playground structures, a see-saw which works even with just one person, rock forts, a maze of an empty parking lot for bike riding, and sprawling views of Turnagain Arm. I'm pretty sure I could live there if we had an RV.

Once at home, Wolfgang couldn't believe that he had to do more studies. As he told his neighborhood friend, "Mom's made me be in school all day!" Yes, Wolfgang. For two whole hours. And now we're going to do a whole other hour." Sigh. He scowled his way through word problems and then we began reading Minn of the Mississippi about a snapping turtle who hatches from an egg in Minnesota and heads down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. In spite of himself, Wolf loved what we read. I adore Holling C. Holling's writings. I couldn't believe that Wolf didn't get more interested in Paddle to the Sea last year (what's not to like about a young boy carving a little man in a canoe out of wood and sending it down the river to the sea?), but this one has grabbed his attention. We're using it for both our geography and science studies this month.

In the meantime, Noah and Zoya made cinnamon puffs from scratch, complete with Crisco. (I'm pretty sure he's trying to kill me.) THEY WERE AWESOME!! We also read more of Hallelujah Handel and listened to Messiah again. I thinks that's it. Full day. Then the kids headed outside for more freedom from their mother's insistence that they get educated.