I never got around to journaling yesterday. Went to Latin. Got 100% on my quiz, Will and Josh who didn’t study much did poorly though, as did most of the rest of the class, so the teacher is having everyone retake the quiz until everyone gets 100%.

Did some Greek when we got home. But we really didn’t do much else yesterday. We are slowing down for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Today has been entirely unschooly. Becky woke up early and got herself dressed, fed the cats, let Tillie out and then came and woke me up. She was so proud of herself!

Will and I said the rosary together.

I showed Becky some Thanksgiving projects at Enchanted Learning. We printed out leaf templates and she started tracing them and cutting them out. However, they were too intricate and she wound up asking me to do the cutting for her and then she lost interest altogether. Josh and Sean’s interest in Yu-gi-oh has reignited. Last night they started a game and they spent a couple of hours before they even got out of the pjs this a.m. playing the game. Becky watched them. She made it into a sporting event by lining up all her stuff animals to watch too, like going to a Nationals Game or something.



Will boiled his guitar strings in water! Says this helps new strings hold their tuning better. If I'd been a really good unschooling mom I would have googled this to find out why this might be the case, but I just thought of the science aspect of this right now typing this up!!!!!

Becky had piano lessons at 10:30. Will was playing guitar downstairs and Josh and Sean finished up their card game and finally came down for breakfast.

Hannah, Will, Josh and I are starting a study of the Gospel of John (Scott Hahn) for Advent. We listened to the first part, the overview, this a.m. Becky and Sean went downstairs and watched The Electric Co. dvds.

Hannah finished her application to Steubenville but is now working on the essay. She has to go to work in a little bit.

I read a bit more about Thanksgiving to Becky and Sean but now they are downstairs doing something. I hear Becky shrieking as I type this. (update: Becky had me watch a 'routine' she'd choregraphed where she leaped, danced and cartwheeled all over the basement. It reminded me of a comic strip I used to read where occasionally would feature this slightly lumpy female dancer. The first square would announce a topic: to spring! And then the remaining squares would all be this lady gleefully and not quite gracefully contorting herself into various dance positions. Cracked me up!)

Rick worked at home all a.m. but then went into work around 1:00 p.m.


Took Will and Sean to VT. While they were there I tried to run a quick errand. Traffic was terrible! I guess everybody took off early for Thanksgiving. Very frustrating and got back late to pick up Sean. Will wanted to stay in town and then hopefully get a ride from his friend to his CLC meeting at 7:30



Came home. Becky had watched the movie Dumbo while I was gone. Hannah went to work. Don't know what Josh was doing. Anyway, everybody has been vegging for a while now. Becky watching Wordgirl, Josh and Sean playing on the Wii and now looking at funny videos on the pc. (Dilbert is on youtube???)


We were supposed to go to karate but I forgot to wash Sean's uniform. They can go on Saturday anyway. But still, I MUST KEEP UP ON LAUNDRY!!!!!


I ran out to McDonald's for dinner. Blech!


Now I am going to read Black Ships Before Troy and the more from If You Were There at The First Thanksgiving.

I talked to the kids about I hoped to reduce screen during Advent. We really do too much to an unhealthy degree. We brainstormed about other things we could do instead of screen. Here's the list we came up with:

1. Reading (we could go to the library more than we have lately)
2. jigsaw puzzles
3. board and card games
4. play with magnetix kit
5. Take care of Tillie - walking her, playing with her and training her
6. exercise outside (running, playing catch, frisbee)
7. play pool or ping pong in basement
8. Crocheting/handknitting/mushroom knitting (this was Becky's suggestion)
9. art
10. writing stories (Josh suggested this)
11. baking or cooking
12. use up science kits in storage downstairs.

I wrote up the list and posted on the kitchen wall. Maybe it will help.