Letters From the Homefront

Totally off the subject after all the vacation posts, and knowing there are a few more to come. Busy hit me at the door when we got home from vacation, and one of the biggest problems I have currently is this: No, it's not the issue of horrific lighting OR the fact that those shelves are empty. It's that they are in my bedroom for one, and for two - that's the total amount of space I have for anything school related. If it's hard to tell, the small shelf to the right of the overly large shelf is a 3-cube cubical shelf from a local home improvement store. My plan is to add a 6 cube shelf as soon as possible. This space lends itself to the need for some very good organizational planning to have what is needed out and yet still make it not seem too cluttered. I used to have a storage area in our old living room, behind a couch, and that made it easy to swap out materials. Now, though, all material not in use has to be kept in a storage unit, which means I have to ...

I have been contemplating the addition of Art in our routine. I will admit this has not been a strong point. I love crafty things, and I am always amazed by those who have an artistic bent, I do not [insert long sigh]. My original plan this year was to rotate composers to give a little music appreciation - that fell through within a couple months. Now that the kids are finished with their state-mandated standardized testing, I am trying to get that out of my head for a little while, renew my thinking for the next few months, and working on *continually* adding to the education of my children.  I thought I would throw out some ideas, in hopes that maybe I could get some interesting input from any homeschooling (or even non-homeschooling) friends who might be keeping up with this blog.  I wanted to give a broader scope of 'art' than just the go-to painting that is so often seen. Considering the definition of art (especially def #4a), there is so much more to it than th...