Spring Break

We are all extremely bored. Josh and the girls have been enjoying Beat Saber on the Oculus (a VR headset from Josh's brother), but all the Fortnight, Minecraft, and Beat Saner in the world still can't keep us from boredom. Anastasia has turned into a crazy Dutch Blitz player. I read books (40 so far this year) and play Solitaire while overseeing the girls as they complete their school work. Really, my main focus is on keeping Anastasia (8) from completely derailing things. Felicity, 12, is wrapping up Algebra II while Mary, 11, has just begun Algebra I. Anastasia just completed Saxon Math 6/5. 

They read to me almost daily, Anastasia from a collection of 6th-12th grade books that she finds far more engaging than the weird stuff published for 2nd graders. Mary reads me abridged classics, which are just about right for challenging her a little but also assuring that she gets some literary exposure. Felicity just finished reading Star of Light (Patricia St. John) and is now working through Lord Foulgrin's Letters (Randy Alcorn mimicking the premise of C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters). 

I read to them as well, for history, literature, geography, and everything else that reading can do. We watch Khan Academy videos about government. They also just went through through government book with my mother-in-law. We finished the Khan Academy astronomy so quickly at the beginning of the school year that I had to scrambling for something else, but we have basically been watching random YouTube videos about animals since I couldn't find a comprehensive and engaging zoology course. Our focus has been on African animals since geography has mostly been focused there. 

Occasionally I become concerned that we are massively behind in composition, so I assigned them essay topics recently and worked especially hard with the older two to show them how to structure an essay. They did surprisingly well, considering what I had expected. Maybe they aren't the best, but perhaps by high school they will be able to do proper writing assignments with minimal coaching. Now I just need to get Anastasia to do the same instead of being the class clown. She was basically born articulate, so her main issue is that her fingers can't keep up with her thoughts. Most likely I will have to type or write things for her as she dictates to me, because voice to text becomes massive run on sentences. Her handwriting speed and precision have certainly improved over the course of this school year, but she still finds it cumbersome. Felicity has held a pencil correctly since she was a year old and her handwriting reflects it. 

But schoolwork doesn't really keep us from boredom. So when Josh saw he had two days off in a row we decided to come to Kansas City. And the two older girls apparently can't sleep through Josh's snoring.