Just a little daub'll do ya!

It's Friday, the first day of May, and I am sooooo done with teaching for the year.

We love homeschooling--really!--it's just by this time of year we've exhausted my meager stock of patience, and the kids are antsy to do something else, and NO ONE WANTS TO DO SCHOOLWORK! (You want proof: it took Jobe five hours--FIVE HOURS!!!!!!!--to do 40 math problems yesterday. Don't even ask. Just send carbohydrate-free chocolate.)

So here's what I figure. I figure we've accomplished all we needed to do August through April, and let's make May a fun month, with all the stuff I wanted to do during the other months, but which the children made impossible by their dawdling. I mean, hey, Jobe has already learned to multiply multiple-digit numbers and to do long division, and Charlie is adding and subtracting like there's no tomorrow, and they both read incessantly. (They'll even pick up a history or a science book if I request it.) So we've done well. I hope.

Therefore, this month we'll be making paper, and using quill pens to write our history books. And we'll create a play and produce it. And we'll bake some alphabet cookies and see if Lindy can remember which one is "A" and which one is "B"--and there will be much rejoicing if she does.

Today's activity: watercolor self-portraits. (I still have supplies left over from college. And you wondered why I was too poor to eat during those years. Perhaps I overbought.)

Gosh, doesn't the garden look verdant. That's the magic of photography, folks! And , yes, that is my daughter in the viking hat.

"Just a little more red . . ."

The finished portraits. Suitable for hanging in the finest salons. Or at least filling frames in the entry. Mine is the one that looks like it was done by a precocious kindergartner. The boys were VERY impressed. I love an overly-appreciative audience, don't you?

So that's the plan: education through creative expression. (It sounds very official when put that way, no?) I'll keep you posted.