I just have to share with you a “successful” day of homeschooling.
Sunday night I got home late and my husband got home even later so no school prep was done. (I hate it when that happens.) But in looking at our week…Halloween, no public school on Wed. so there is a cub meeting in the middle of the day, aunt and uncle (with cousins) coming to town, I knew it wasn’t going to be a productive week anyway. No sweat, I have a plan up my sleeves. (OK, I’m lying but I feel better when I at least think I’m smart.)
We had spent Saturday cleaning the house so we could get out the Halloween decorations. That done, but by evening mom was having a terrible headache—happens anytime I fast (we have Stake Conference the first Sunday in Nov.) and no decoration, so today we spent all day preparing the house for our Halloween celebration (Ok, we spend all day in our costumes and eat candy till we are sick—or at least till mom is two sizes bigger).
The oldest three figured out how to open the door with a string—I was very impressed, it really works and does so well. They were going to rig up a “personless candy dispenser” but I said, “No rope is going over the chandelier.” (They are still thinking and designing—tape measure and graph paper to boot.) After they have that figured out they are going to figure out how to make the house scarier. (Of course the oldest told me, that he would make sure that his little brothers and sister won’t be scared. “If they are scared, we’ll take it down, mom.” He can have a tender heart every now and then.)
Of course we had to have spooky music (after piano lessons) so they spent an hour going through all the classical CD’s trying to find the spookiest music we own. They actually found pieces they were playing (or had learned) and so of course we had impromptu concerts. (And of course we needed to show dad all this after he came home.)
After lunch we decided to carve our pumpkins, or at least get a head start on Family Home Evening. (The Monday before Halloween is our annual Pumpkin Carving FHE.) We just finished Leonardo da Vinci and are in the process of doing Michelangelo. As we are carving the pumpkins I ask, “How is this like Leonardo and Michelangelo?” (I had no clue, but I thought I would try.)
Here is what they came up with:
1. “They carved up dead people.” (They preformed autopsies while studying the human body. And we had to talk about the guts of the pumpkins until I had had enough.)
2. “They used cartoons to paint.” (They would first draw to scale the picture then poke holes in the outlines and then use black charcoal stuff to transfer the outline to the wet plaster. A technique called fresco—think Sistine Chapel Ceiling.) They were absolutely true. We were using “cartoons” to make the designs! (Those carving kits.)
3. “We are making a mess just like Michelangelo.” (Something Leonardo chided Michelangelo about was how messy sculpting was.) Of course we had to start making it even messier—I have to mop anyway, right?
4. “We are letting the figure out of a block of pumpkin.” (giggle, giggle…just like Michelangelo letting what he saw inside a piece of marble get free.)
5. “They hated school too.” (I don’t know how this fit in with the day, but we sure had a blast.)
And this took us to 4 this afternoon! Just in time for soccer practice and dinner! But we had carved all the pumpkins and just watched dad carve his for FHE. Oh, we sang our traditional Halloween songs; they are still singing them even in bed. I hope they just sing the “boos” softly and not wake up their baby sister. I have no voice left. Those Halloween songs are “supposed to be sung spooooookeeeeeeeee.” That’s OK, tomorrow is another day.
So much for “no school” today!
I’ll let you know if they ever figure out how to pass out candy without being seen. The lesson is in the journey.
Have a great day—we did!
by Doreen Blanding
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