Glub...glub...

Drowning in school here.

Not in a bad way (can one drown in a good way? Probably not. But maybe imagine Gollum going down, in the lava, but smiling because he has his Precious?), exactly, but the laundry, vacuuming, etc. are suffering. And every morning I get up thinking I'll get five or six things done before the kids come down and wind up getting only one, maybe two done. Frustrating, but I know I'm lucky to have so many things I want to work on!

Co-op is going very well. Both kids love their history/geography classes, and Katie's Latin is miles ahead of what I would have put together on my own. They are having fun discussions and projects. Good stuff. And my classes seem to be going well also. Logic is just hard enough, but not too hard, and the composition and literary analysis seem to be engaging the kids pretty well. The first week I had to rush to cram all the material in, but yesterday I actually finished a few minutes early, which pleased everyone!

We're on our second week of World War I. Depressing. So sad. But Katie has decided she is old enough to read Horrible Histories (I had scheduled The Frightful First World War for Travis last week and this, but Katie added it to her schedule as well) and is finding it interesting. Actually, the amount of reading aloud I am doing now is very reasonable -- just enough for me to check their understanding and offer some chance for discussions, but not so much that it consumes the day. There are some benefits to their growing bigger and cleverer!

Travis started his Algebra today, and I think it is going to be perfect. He can even check his own practice problems, which he likes (and is one less thing for me to check!). Katie is managing fine with math too. We started back to weekly (rather than every few weeks) piano classes, and both kids are making good progress.

Gosh, now that I type it out I see that everything is going beautifully! And all that I left out was Travis's teen angst and Katie's world-class procrastination efforts. Those do complicate our days, however. Those and the business of trying to keep up with Second Form Latin, Third Form Latin, and my Wheelock's Latin class while my brain cells moan that if they couldn't learn a foreign language as young brain cells, they don't have a prayer at learning it now. Whiners.

And here, just because it has bright colors and Katie wants me to post it, is Katie's "dirt" project. For "science." Ha! Fortunately the text and worksheets for the program are mostly more educational than the projects might suggest! But the projects (mostly food related) are the part she gets enthusiastic about.