Where we break out the paint brushes.

Boxes make the best toys. Whenever we get a big box I let it sit around until there's too much fighting. (sometimes twenty minutes, sometimes two days...) The boys made up a little game this morning.

After we finished the regular school books, I decided to be brave and bring out some paints. Valentine had been given this acrylic paint and canvas set a while back. The paints went on nice and thick, and covered up the pre-printed pictures. They didn't mind.

Edmund says "my favorite color is black" and used two paint brushes at the same time. That way he can get out of there sooner. Surprisingly he painted the entire canvas.

Valentine is more of an artist, taking her time and painting multiple pictures.

That last picture is her and Daddy. Holding hands. (awwww.)

My art teacher would love her. Too bad the school she's teaching at is so far away. There is a school closer to us that offers and art class once a month. I'm going to look into that a little more for next school year.

Slacking.

Yeah, I'm slacking on the whole updating thing. Not at the schooling. Which was a big concern for me in the beginning! Valentine is moving right along, she can read some simple words if she tries. (it, sit, mom) Edmund is still a pro at stickering and pasting.

It's really comforting when they spout off something that makes you see that they are, in fact, learning. Edmund was watching some TV with me (hey, some TV can be educational! Right??) and at the beginning of the movie when they're showing you the company names they had the earth. And he said, "the earth! That is the planet that we live on!" So not only does he recognize the earth, he knows it's a planet. I did not however, teach him any of this. So no credit to me, but I know that he is picking things up and remembering them! And that's way better than "look, Oreo's! We eat them!" (Which hasn't happened, because I don't like to share Oreo's, so I doubt he knows what they are.) The movie we started watching was "Babies", Ian and Edmund are fascinated by it. And so am I, honestly.

See? We did school today. (It's a paper snake.)

Valentine recently started a new book, Kumon's "My Book of Easy Crafts". It's perfect for Valentine, it has all sorts of cutting and pasting things together. (With minimal mess! And I don't have to plan ahead! And that makes it perfect for me.)

Even if we don't make it to the school books every day, at this stage they are learning just as much from day to day things. (Such as earth is a planet.) Plus they have 12+ years of schooling left, we don't need to burn them out on it yet!