When the Cat's Away, the Mice Will...Teach Themselves?

People often say that they don't know how I can possibly home-school four kids and do everything else I do and my response is always that the kids do most of the work themselves. Today was a perfect example of that.
MATH: While I was on the couch studying my scriptures and the older kids were finishing up their chores, Amber told me that she was making a course in the hallway. I was like, "That's great," having no idea what she was talking about. As she carted bottle after bottle from the recycle bin to the hallway, my curiosity got the better of me. She had created a bowling game out of the recyclables. Seeing an opportunity I couldn't resist, I gave her the idea to write numbers on the bottles and explained that then she could add up the numbers on the "pins" she knocked down. Krystal joined her in the fun and voila! math was done for the day for those two. While this was going on, Jared was taking our trash out and had employed Clarissa to take out our neighbor's trash, a job he gets paid to do. He paid her a dollar so she added that to her Christmas money and then asked me to help her figure out how much tithing to pay. So we worked on adding and subtracting money and percentages. When Jared was done with his chores, he did math at Khan Academy on the computer.
SPELLING: I reminded the girls that they needed to practice their spelling words and Clarissa came up with the idea to use popsicle sticks to build some of the letters. She and Krystal both decided it was easier just to write the words on the sticks several times and then use them to create shapes. Jared preferred to just write his words several times on paper.
SCIENCE: After Jared did the dishes (and while I was still studying on the couch), he decided to start playing around in the sink with a soda can and glass bottle. He was so excited when he discovered that he could fill the bottle with water and then raise it above the level of the water and as long as there were no air bubbles, it would stay full. We talked about buoyancy and he did some other experiments to represents the way submarines stay afloat and then sink. He even did a little research about it on the internet.
READ-ALOUD, GRAMMAR, and ART: While I read our book group book, Heidi, the kids sat at the the table and worked on creating designs with Perler Beads. Several times in the book we stopped to talk about metaphors and similes as we found them in the story.

PRESCHOOL: After Amber finished her bowling game, she decided to "do a craft." She took a piece of paper and drew little 1/2 inch circles on the paper and then cut them out to be cookies. She then folded another paper to make it a baking sheet and colored it brown. She rolled little pieces of tape and put them on the back of the cookies to adhere them to the baking sheet. After "baking" them she passed out cookies to everyone in the family. I consider this excellent practice in fine motor skills, sequencing, and social skills.

READING and HISTORY: Krystal and Clarissa both read several books to me and did great! Jared and I are working on doing scripture study as his reading practice. Today we read from the Bible Dictionary and 2 Chronicles about Hezekiah's Tunnel and the siege of Jerusalem by the Assyrians. We did some further study on Wikipedia about the different sieges of Jerusalem including those by the Romans and in the first Crusades. Jared is also building a castle under siege with siege towers and battering rams, etc. out of Legos.

What a great day, but as Chris reminded me, not every day is like this.