On the thread of inspiration...

Today was a divergence from our old schedule. It was definitely more free-form, but it was good. A few years ago there no way I could have handled this but today it was great and the kids couldn't wait to get back to their work.

We started the day with family work time. Since the school room was a mess, that is what we tackled. After a short while it was picked up and we were ready to go! Next was devotional. Then we spent a little time working on botany. We are working on a germination experiment with beans in the fridge, in a window, and in a dark closet.

 After germination project, we split up into learning time. For the next couple of hours, the kids had free choice, within the educational bookshelves that are in my school room. Butterfly chose to construct a simple lapbook.

Instructions to draw a canoe with people in it

The yellow is the step that is already done and the blue is what needs to be done this step.                                                

Tiger chose to delve into exploring art. He read about Van Gogh's  Starry Night and a little about him and then attempted his own scene using a similar technique of thick paint and etching into it. Here is his painting:

Pumpkin Pie worked on slow math speed with me:

And Strawberry dumped out a puzzle, sat on my lap and helped me play with Pumpkin Pie, read stories and asked me to split myself in half so I could read to her while I played, deleted half the pictures I took today from the camera, took pictures of the table, and watched everyone working.

After lunch they moved on- Strawberry sleeps temporarily, Pumpkin Pie is playing with dolls, Butterfly is doing art and making paper cutout collages, and Tiger is working on K'nex and playing games with the girls.

I would say today was a great day!