I woke up today (3/9/16) grumpy. I am guessing this is because of the time of the month but I could tell my patience was nil and a storm was brewing. All I wanted to do was crawl back in my bed and hide. When you are a stay-at-home-homeschool mom to a 6, 4 and 1 year old, that isn’t exactly possible.

One thing God has taught me this year is that I am in control of the climate of my home. I knew I needed to do something drastic because things were headed south if we just continued on with our normal daily routine.

We did our Morning Routine like usual. Then we gathered around the kitchen table to do our Memory Work Review. We played the LEGO Review Game to review our new Memory Work for this week. The girls love that game and I knew it would at least put them in a good mood!

After Review Time we headed to the playroom to sit on the bed and read a Bible story. We are reading through The Beginner’s Bible for the I-don’t-know-how-many-times! I love this Bible for preschoolers and early elementary-aged children.

At this time, I was still thinking I would push through a normal school day. Then I knew that was a bad idea and I declared to the girls that today was a FUN DAY! They were giddy with excitement as I told them the first thing we were going to do that day was to lay on the bed together under a big blanket and read a chapter of our current Read Aloud book, Little House in the Big Woods.

After that we got Sarge up from his morning nap and headed to the Arboretum!

I don’t go by myself with the kids because it feels too vulnerable, but Uncle was available to go with us! The weather was absolutely perfect for a hike through the woods and wading in the stream!

We got back in time for me to get lunch on the table complete with a surprise show! Little Bug has been learning short and long vowel sounds so I put on the Leap Frog show Word Caper which teaches about vowel. The kids watched while they ate lunch.

After lunch we finished playing the LEGO Review game and then the girls played together while I got Sarge down for his afternoon nap. We read another chapter in Little House in the Big Woods and then it was time for Sweet Pea to go down for her nap. Little Bug did her Independent Work for the day (2 pages in Explode the Code Book 2 and a Math Fact Sheet).

After her Independent Work was complete, she went to the living room for her 30 minutes Rest Time while listening to a Jim Weiss story CD and I started to write this post! It was a FUN DAY indeed. Sometimes your homeschool just needs this. Ours did today and I am glad I was successful in keeping the peace in my home by changing things up and declaring it a FUN DAY!

- Elaine