An actual homeschooling day

I use this blog mostly to keep notes about noteworthy things. It's rather telling, then, that I feel compelled to post about the fact that we did some actual homeschooling today. The sort of thing you could write down in a journal, have a teacher-friend or a grandparent or skeptical co-worker look over and they wouldn't immediately feel the need to start "expressing concern" or to call a truant officer. All told today the younger generation in this family:

Practiced violin, viola and piano -- with the small person getting proper parent guidance on both her instruments
Helped make a batch of root beer
Picked and pressed cider from a press-full of apples (3 gallons)
Did various levels of algebra learning
Practiced handwriting
Did a short unit in a language arts workbook
Read some biology
Reviewed the previously-studied written French and moved ahead to new stuff
Played math-friendly board games

Later this evening we'll finish our day with readalouds -- Story of the World Volume 1 (this series of books is in re-runs for Fiona, with Sophie listening along again) and some historical fiction from the "Dear Canada" series.

Now it must be confessed that it was mostly the younger two kids who did this stuff. My layabout teen and pre-teen mostly practiced violin (the former) and fondled the computer mouse (the latter). But still, not everyone is going to be "on" at the same time, on the same day. I'm merely happy that I managed to not only initiate a couple of activities but to respond with enthusiasm and due diligence to requests for school-type things, and still have enough creativity and energy to do a decent job practicing with my kid.