Winter

The winter slump is real, even in the home school world. BUT, being able to stay home makes it bearable!
At the beginning of February we took a trip to Wintergreen. It was so fun, especially since we had our besties with us.

LOVE our people.

Tubing was our favorite! Except Abby's.

Dinner at Devil's Backbone was #yum

We love going to CC each week. Our community is wonderful. It's safe to say that art and science are the faves! I'm so proud of Annie; we paired up with another group of older kiddos for Memory Work and she constantly volunteers to sing the songs by herself (although technically I help her.) I love her enthusiasm and bravery! Admittedly, we haven't done much with memory work on our own throughout the week. I'm giving us a lot of grace with this being our first year.

Painting like Michelangelo

Coolest. Bridge. Ever.

More bridge building!

We're doubling up on T4L. Back to doing math and LA each day, just to change it up a bit and see what we like more. They've added Time4Facts which is an awesome way to drill fact fluency. I'm considering adding Time 4 Writing. It's an 8 week course and it sounds like the perfect way to keep them writing (possibly doing this for summer.)

Soapy Science

Audrey has been listening to audio books. She'll listen to them while working on some kind of craft or as she falls asleep. Abby loves reading out loud right before she falls asleep. I love standing outside of her room and listening to er sweet voice :) I want to work in some quiet reading time during the day, maybe where we all sit together and either read independently or do a shared read.
We're going on week 2 of no Internet for the girls. I was able to use our Xfinity account to restrict access. Mostly I was concerned about all the time they spent on YouTube. I'm all for using it for educational purposes, or even for art tutorials. I need to figure out a better way to manage it without excluding it completely. The girls can still play Roblox and Minecraft, which I like because it's something they do together.

Drawing tutorials. She's quickly becoming as talented as her sisters!

Activities have slowed down, which is nice! Abby has had a break from cheer and we haven't enrolled in any extra activities. We're coming up on competition season for dance, which means our weekends will be busy! I have absolutely LOVED seeing Audrey and Annie improve their technical skills and flexibility. Audrey got to perform one of her numbers at a variety show at UMW, and she was absolutely delightful! Her stage presence is incredible!

I always get the Winter blues. It's just such a struggle to get up and moving when it's dark and dreary and COLD. Being away from home all day and not getting home until dark was always so depressing. This year Winter has been so much better; leisurely mornings, more time spent together, and overall less stress have been a blessing! And yes, snow days are still exciting :)