Nielsen Homeschool Round Up – April/early May

With the new site, I have been wanting to bring a bit more of who we are everyday into our blogging.  Many people know us, but far more don’t and so I thought this would be a good way to let everyone see the nitty gritty – trust me, we have ugly days here too… wanna ask me about the day the 15yo confessed he hadn’t used laundry soap in over a month ~ serenity NOW ~ LOL… life is… well LIFE and Waldorf living is a large part of that for us, so hang on, we’ll try to keep this up monthly.  If you want even more of the personal Nielsens, complete with my wise cracks, see our personal blog – Gnomes & Knitting Needles.

Life with children in every stage of the 7 year cycles can be pretty challenging, especially when they become teens, we really work to balance everyone and it takes a lot of work.  It takes every ounce of me sometimes to stay home when the little ones need me to and I just want to run and play.

This month stretched me farther than I think I have ever stretched.  With the opening of our new website and the smoothing out of everything, I was sure I would be hauled away to someplace for moms that have cracked.  Thankfully God got me through… and a bit of help from these awesome people I share my life with.

School isn’t winding down just yet for us.  We started late and had some interruptions so we are going to take a couple short holidays and I am going to do some much needed writing catch up, but we are going to motor on through with  a few lesson blocks.

My oldest, Harry aka The Dr., finished up American history and we are getting ready to hop into WWI (thank you Kovacs!) this next week.    We saved Revolutions for this year and I am SO glad.  He is 15 and he was ready, last year we would not have been able to meet him so well with these lessons.

My second son, Jacob aka HeMan, has finished the Renaissance and is digging into the Wish, Wonder & Surprise series.

Ellie aka Lala, is really loving ancient cultures, but in a MUCH different way than the boys did.  It has given me such perspective and I am really glad I can pull that into our second editions of our curriculum.  So many things play into how our children receive the material – our preparation, their temperament, their sex, etc.  these can all be factors.  She loved Holi Fest this year and really connected with the happiness that can come from sharing God’s love, no matter how we approached it.  She LOVES geometry.  She asked for it to be her first block next year and even to do it weekly rather than as a whole block because she wants to enjoy it through the year.

Let’s see, what else…. May Day!  We had about 40 people here from our local group for our May Day celebration.  That was a lot of fun.  Oh and Ellie was in a production of Rapunzel this month too…. busy.

And lest you think I always have a clean house… just look at Sariah’s mess.

Blessings!