Schoolwork, Sickness and Sewing

In our homeschool this week:

1. I changed up the store game I frequently play with my son.  I told him HE would be the storekeeper, and had to label items with prices.  The catch: I would be trying to cheat him, so he had to really know his coin values!  He loved this new twist.
2. The kids declared Tuesday to be Smencil Day, announced on our whiteboard.  It cracked me up–I’m known to love a good theme and will randomly declare it something-or-other day if we’re doing a few things that go together.  I had told my cautious daughter that she should go ahead and use the Smencils (scented colored pencils) she received for Christmas instead of saving them forever, and little brother was happy to join her in making it an event.  I allowed all schoolwork to be done in Smencils.  Embrace the small joys!
3. My daughter published another Writeshop project.  This lesson was on Haikus and my daughter wrote one about spring.  (My full review of Writeshop is in the works.)
4. Does any one else have a counter that looks like this in the middle of a school day?  Please say yes.
5. Martha Dog is a sweet, sweet dog.  She’s happy to stand in as a footrest during my son’s reading lesson.  These moments make up for those others, like when she attempted to chew into her food bin this week to get at the 40 pounds of dog food.

I was happy with what we accomplished considering I was dragging with a nasty cold.  It settled into my chest and disrupted my sleep all week.  Thank goodness for audio books (Wind in the Willows free from Librivox) as I sipped hot tea!  My daughter helped fix snacks and said “bless you” when I coughed (which was a lot!), my son cuddled (a rare event) and rubbed my back.  It warmed my heart to see them as sweet caretakers.

Thursday Auntie came for a sewing day.  We usually do these on a Saturday (with a name, of course: Super Sewing Saturday), but she had a rare afternoon off from work so we took advantage.  I was struck by so many things to be thankful for:

1. Flexibility: How often do I say this? A lot!  When the option to sew with Auntie came up, I could adjust our schedule.  We got our core work done and will finish the rest today–an adjustment my daughter was happy to make.
2. Sewing:  It teaches valuable skills to my daughter, gives her a sense of pride, and is an activity we can share even in the years to come.  Handicrafts of all sorts can fit the bill, sewing just happens to be our favorite.
3. A sewing mentor:  Sometimes when Auntie comes to sew with us she doesn’t get as much done on her projects because she’s helping us.  She teaches us a lot, always has cool new tools for us to try, and also makes it a whole lot more lively and fun.
4. Our sewing machines:  We’re blessed to each have a Singer Featherweight–a sewing machine made over fifty years ago.  Picked up at auctions, we treasure these little beauties that hum along and are a thing of beauty.  (At least to sewing dorks like us.  We call ourselves the Featherweight Fan Club.)
5. My husband:  My husband returned home at 7:00 AM from his 24-hour fire department shift.  He made us a delicious chili for lunch and ran out to get pizza for dinner.  And he didn’t say a word when we had to eat at the coffee table because every other surface was covered in sewing supplies.  He’s a keeper.

My daughter sewed another project from her Kids Can Do It: Simply Sewing book (a fleece bag to bring to sleepovers), I made a case for my son’s iPod out of an old pair of his jeans, and we started work on a tote bag.  A productive day!

Today we’re embarking on a last-minute interest-led study of the Iditarod after seeing it on the news this week.  I’ll share the details and pictures when we’re done!

Other things from this week:

• I shared about a sanity-saving daily habit of Quiet Time.  (Extra helpful when Mommy is sick.)
• I joined with other bloggers of iHomeschool Network to share some of the reasons why people think they can’t homeschool–and how we make it work!  One of my fears before we took the plunge was that I can’t homeschool because then I wouldn’t have time for anything else!

Thank you to the wonderful hostesses with fun link-ups on Fridays. Be sure to join the fun and see what other homeschoolers are up to!