The goings on

Oh, it's been a while!  There have been quite a few things going on here but writing informative blog posts just hasn't been one of them:)  Sigh.  I guess it's another thing to add to a very very long and probably, highly unrealistic postpartum plan list.  So here is a short synopsis of what we have been up to.  We finished Multiplication 2 and Division 2 of the Math Mammoth Series.  I think we'll need to do some more practice with the word problems just to keep up with the retention. I should go and look at the mathmammoth.com to see what's available as far as additional word problems are concerned.  We are continuing with the Italics cursive copywork and I am very happy we have waited a bit on the cursive front, because now it's going more smoothly and enjoyably than I think it would have gone had we tried earlier.  In geography, we covered various landforms  using some worksheets the link for which I need to find again.  We are continuing with Grammarland, which is very enjoyable but as far as getting enough practice, I think we'll need to follow up with something else in the future.  The boys are doing well with their hebrew reading, writing, grammar and are motivated to make quicker progress so we can move on to other more exciting and challenging things.  We did some good work on dictionary using skills with ds8.  Ds9 continues to read everything in sight and to my great delight ds8 is also beginning to show more signs in his progress towards independent reading.  I need to work on English reading with both of them and start some with the girls as well.  History and science have been happening frequently but in a very informal way.  Dh is very good with this kind of spontaneous teaching and these subjects just happen to be something that he really loves and it shows. We had many good discussions on many subjects and practical matters.  The boys are doing well in Tae Kwan Do.  Everyone has been spending a lot of time out of doors.  It is noticeably colder and it it's a full time job to make sure everyone doesn't forget to dress for the weather and is supplied with plenty of vitamin C and doesn't get such unnecessarily:) It has been perfect soup and tea weather and we have adjusted ourselves accordingly:) We celebrated Rosh Chodesh Kislev with brownies and sufganiot (jelly doughnuts) and a good time was had by all.  We had some great rain storms, something that all of us are very excited about, here in Israel where the rain season is pretty short.  It was wonderful just to sit and watch the downpours.   Equally exciting,  to see the leaves being twirled around by the wind and the birds frolicking around the yard.  All of the above gave me some ideas for future science/nature study explorations.  We read lots of Chanukah books and in general there has been regular reading aloud to the five and younger audience.  I need to get back to reading to the older kids more.  There has been a lot of kid inspired arts and crafts sessions.  Dd5 is making nice progress with her Hebrew printing and copying.  We have also started doing a little bit of more formal math with the younger set which makes them feel very grown up, because they too are now doing their work:)  In general, there were  a few things that I've would have loved to get to but I don't think are going to happen until I can manage more things physically such as art and organized crafting and other subjects that I would like to add in at least on occasion.  Those will just have to wait for the time being.  But I think most of the basics have gotten done even though  I had to keep our lessons a whole lot more structured than I would like in the long run, just to instill good discipline and good work habits and such.  I hope in the future we can introduce more unstructured learning time when I could just read to the kids and discuss and maybe reserve an official crafting day for us to do more projects together, something that I miss and I think they do too.  I've been reading a lot and making extensive lists of all the exciting projects I've found and ideas I've researched and promising looking books I saw recommended.  There are many posts waiting in the pipeline and Heaven only knows when they'll materialize, but here are a few I'd like to get to soon -Chanukah inspirations and projects, ruminations on a healthy diet, diy projects I'd like to get to sometime this year and other crafty links and thoughts and a whole bunch of great links on the subject of language arts that I have found and enjoyed recently.  So there is a lot to be grateful for and a lot to look forward to, life here is always full and overflowing and extremely busy- thank G-d.