R is for Rhyme

is turning out to be one of the best parts of our homeschool day!

We're doing a letter a day for our Poetry block this semester. Every day we read one letter, after reciting the already learned letters:

A is for acrostic
B is for ballad
C is for cinquain
D is for doublet
E is for end rhyme
F is for free verse
G is for ghazal....

That's how far we've gotten. It's fun learning a new type of poetry or aspect of poetry every day. And usually the kids test out what they've learned by writing one. Some are fun, some are a lot of work. Frankly, we skipped the ballads altogether because they're rather long and I'm not sure anyone was up to the challenge!

Here are some examples of their work....

An acrostic by the Little Princess:

"Roses"
Roses are red
Or pink, with a
Sweet,
Excellent
Smell.

TMax wants me to use his acrostic also. He has 2.

"Me"
Masterful
Entertainer.

Lol! and...

"Olympics"
Outstanding athletes all in all
Losers, winners, every one
Young and old
Masters of sports
Playing for gold
In this
Captivating
Scene.

And Pipster's doublet...

Dog and Cat

I have a dog
with a dot on his ear.
He sleeps on my cot.
Then I got a cat.

Pictures of our Progress (and lack thereof)

This is a "before" picture of our dining room. I'll show you an "after" later. Or not. ;-), depends on how the day goes.

Formerly junky corner of TMax & Pipster's room. One of their shelves fell down (on the left). That will have to wait!

Newly installed desk where TMax's bed used to be!

Bunk beds, duh. TMax is waiting (not too long, I hope!) for me to make a privacy curtain for him.

The bookshelf was relocated from inside the closet where it had resided for the past few years.

If you're wondering about the words on the walls----It's the Scout Law from the Boy Scouts of America. When we painted their room their 2 favorite colors (they each got to pick one), I hated the way it looked, so we decided to stencil the Scout Law and fleurs-de-lis between the words to give it some added interest. I think it's a very cool Boy Scout room!

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Now for the Little Princess's room! Her's is still a little cluttered because she has more photos and girly stuff that really can't be sent down to the playroom.

But she has a place for everything wanted and everything wanted in it's place!

And there is a lot less of it.

Smart Martha doesn't allow for Blogging!

Well, between the internet being out most of last week and starting back to school full force, it's getting hard to find time to blog. I can't even spare the brainpower to write a post in my head!

I'm overwhelmed by my to-do list for this week. I'm hoping that next week will be better and this is just a bump in the road.

It's NOT because my in-laws are coming this weekend, really. No, really, I can see you smirking! That doesn't stress me out very much (I'm very lucky in that regard!)---I just have to clean up the house and have meals planned, which I generally try to do anyway. Shopping for those meals might be another issue, however.

It's probably all the fault of Smart Martha, whose seminar should have been at the beginning of the summer when we had all the time in the world to re-organize and declutter our homes before we all started homeschooling again.

This weekend we bunked TMax's and Pipster's beds. This a.m., before school, we cleared all the toys out of the room and dumped them in the playroom. It looks amazing in there! We even moved a desk in for TMax to do his schoolwork at. As he's doing right this moment.

During our midday break, we went through the Little Princess's room and did the same. Boy, do girls ever have a lot of clutter! Most of her stuff went down, except for a basket of special dolls and Disney figurines.

Now, I need to clean up the playroom---soon, so Hitch and Madden can actually get to their room! It all has to be reorganized and stuff moved out.

Photos are still all over the dining room table and need to be moved down to the room-formerly-known-as-the-schoolroom, where I will place them on the table, just below where they are now, in their same positions. Just like when the house elves prepare the food at Hogwarts. That would be nice if I could just make them appear down there! Most of the organization is done now and I just need to make albums!

Finally, there is a class on Shell Identificiation to prepare for. Did I mention that previously? Yeah, I have nothing new to say. It's all the same old run-around:

• too much schoolwork
• too much laundry
• too much cooking
• too much re-organizing
• too many photos
• too much co-op preparation.

I'll have to post pictures later of all this great organization, and disorganization, in progress. Stay tuned!