A Year In Review 2011

Wow looking back over the past years posts I can not believe not only all the changes that took place but all that was accomplished. I am so glad I started blogging if just for this reason alone.

Well I decided to sum up the year by listing all *our* favorite resources. This is not*my* list by the way but was accumulated by the girls while looking over past posts.

So here is our 2011 favorites list from Miss Sky’s (10 turned 11) and Little Sis’s (5 turned 6) point of view.

Wow traveling all the way back to January, we were not yet unschooling but things were starting  to turn sour and I found myself becoming lots more “relaxed”. It’s funny looking back and seeing what the girls picked as their favorite projects. I can also see now how much they learned from projects that weren’t affiliated with “school” at all.

Let’s begin with when we made curd’s and whey

which became cheese and later casein. Oh by the way you should be able to search my blog for these projects and instructions in my blog search located over on the upper right corner above my About page .

Little Sis LOVED watching The Letter People you tube videos to help with letter sounds. The game Spot It quickly became one of our most favorite games and both girls still enjoy the book Apple Fractions.

Sewing School brought on many sewing projects from the girls over the year.  Now the girls make their own patterns for projects.

The American Girl Felicity series was another hit with Miss Sky bringing on many independent projects including learning about the presidents.

We accomplished  The Naked Egg science experiment which led to many other egg experiments.

We visited The Historic Artcraft Theater where I learned a thing or two from Mary Poppins. Other favorite outings included a trip to Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum,  Drama class, homeschool skating, the Indianapolis Zoo, Science day at the fair grounds, a trip to Kings Island where dinosaurs were the big hit

Martinstag, dining at the historic Kopper Kettle restaurant and taking a hike at our favorite park saying  good-by to winter .

*Favorite read alouds which inspired many projects, researches , and conversations. The 101 Dalmatians

Hachiko

The Paper Dragon

Albert

The Country Bunny and the Little Golden Shoes

The Girl With The Silver Eyes

and The Ramona Series.

*Other favorite books the girls were glad to have around for independent research.

Usborne’s Living Long Ago

Monsterology and the other Ology books.

Basher Astronomy

and even though we didn’t go through the whole series (which Little Sis wants to start reading again) I am really glad to have all The Magic Tree House research guides on hand.

Oh let’s not forget Ranger Rick magazines.

*Favorite “tools” or supplies.

Wikki Stixs

Pattern Blocks

Instant Snow

Zometool

Bare Books to create stories and comics (you could also bind your own like my tutorial on making main lesson books).

Sketch books

*Favorite new resources by far was the Roku to instant stream Netflix  and the Playstation 2 game console.

*Favorite Dvds, videos, movies or documentaries (most which can be viewed through Netflix or you tube).

The X-men original cartoon series and X-men Evolution (most anything Marvel).

Roseanne

Cyberchase

Walking with Dinosaurs and Walking with Prehistoric Beasts

The Little Travelers dvds

School House Rock

All the Ice Age movies

Dora the Explorer

Go Diego Go

Don’t Forget the Lyrics

*Favorite Websites

Starfall

Animal Jam

Kidzui (thousands of free children’s games played on their own safe browser.)

Disney Create

Tux Paint

*Favorite board games and video games

Thrillville (vg)

Ice Age 2 (vg)

Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaur (vg)

New Super Mario (vg ds)

Bingo

Clue

Disney Apples to Apples

Monopoly Deal

Uno

The Tea Party game

Animal Rummy

Sherlock memory game

*Favorite projects

Raising rabbitsSalt dough fossils

Egg Geodes

Sea Monkeys (which have gotten pretty big)

Symmetry projects

making Boo Boo Bunnies

and making cookies .

Whew, to see it all out like this makes me realize we had an awesome year! I do not regret any changes we have made this year and I *know* the girls don’t. Honestly *all* of us are the happiest we have ever been.

I can not wait to see what adventures await in 2012.

Oh and PS I do not get paid for listing any of these resources, these truly were picked by my daughters as favorites. Please I would prefer shopping used, local, and using your public library before buying anything from Amazon .

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year!

Ponderings

So I found a draft of something I thought was deleted when we had a power surge. The moment was already past when I found it so I didn’t bother to post it but today while faced with the days headlines I am again reminded of why I wrote this in the first place.

Staring at me again was the news of yet another teenage suicide. I can not begin to express the emotions that run through me every time I see this. My heart literally aches for these children who feel like they need to end their life. Something that all these children seem to have in common is the fact they hate school. How sad that children and parents don’t think they have other options and WHY the hell do people think that being bullied is just part of life?

I live in the “real world” and I would NEVER allow myself to be bullied by anyone let alone tell my girls that it is just part of life that you will have to deal with.

Then I ask WHY do parents feel that unless we control or tell our children what to do they will grow up to be wild and unruly like in Lord of the Flies, that book was fiction for crying out loud. I don’t HAVE to tell my daughters to take a bath they don’t like to stink or to tell them to go to bed eventually they fall asleep.

Anyway here is my lost post. My hope is that parents who read it might start realizing we(parents) don’t have to be the bad guys to our kids. That teenage rebellion against parents doesn’t have to be normal (I do have a 21 year old daughter ).  I wish parents would realize that our children are not us. Just because I might like a certain style or music or books or movies does not mean my children will or “have to”.

Most of all I wish parents today will let every one of your children know just how much you love them!

And RIP Dan Wheldon, your sweet smile will be missed here in Indy.

“The Post”

Deb Lewis wrote:

“Once you’re really listening to your kids and not your sense of injustice, you’ll find that answering them and interacting with them is intellectually rewarding and stimulating and fun. It’s not something you *have* to do. It’s something you *get* to do for a very little while.”

As I have been pondering over the weekend whether or not I should share my opinion of our last homeschool co-op outing, this was waiting in my e-mail this morning from Sandra Dodd’s blog Just Add Light and Stir (link found under blogroll on the right). You can also find the rest of the quote there too.

Deb Lewis couldn’t have said what was going through my mind last Thursday any better .

For me, when I think of homeschooling co-ops I think of parents and children interacting with one another or “socializing” while out enjoying an activity together.

I understand the need as a homeschooling mother, unschooling or not, to be surrounded by other homeschooling mothers. In my family my support of homeschooling varies. Some family members support “my” decision and there are some waiting for the day I fail. So it is nice to be around others who likewise support your decisions.

Something that I don’t think of when attending a homeschooling co-op outing is the parents planting themselves down on a blanket and ignoring the h**l out of their children. I was the *only* parent out on the playground with my children.

Yes I like to talk, lord knows as well as anyone else that knows me can tell you I *love* to talk but you can talk and push your children on the swing at the same time.

While I was there Miss Sky had to find the parent of a child who fell off the monkey bars and landed on his *head* and was crying hysterically. I along with Miss Sky helped the children use the zip line and out of 8 swings I was pushing children on 6 of them who did not know how to swing themselves (all at the same time). The other 2 were occupied by my children. This is when 1 child replied to me “Gee you sure are fun” and another child asked if she could come home with us.

Okay if I was the parent of that child I would be extremely embarrassed. Not to mention if I saw a “stranger”(this was our first time with this co-op) pushing my child on the swings I would have at least gone and  introduced myself.

The worst part though ,for me, was all the laughter coming from the children having fun and as I was laughing and having fun with them I would occasionally glance over at the group of parents ,who so planted their butts down on the ground with the majority having their backs turned, not ONCE did they look to see their children’s happiness. How sad is that ? (Ugg)

When did parents become so disconnected from their children? I use to believe that video games and television was the cause of so much sex and violence among teenagers but I am starting to think that is not the case at all.

These are my thoughts anyway and like I mentioned previously our search for a homeschool co-op continues. I have even had thoughts of  starting one of my own. I guess only time will tell.

Peace

It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Autumn

Yes it is. The leaves are finally turning colors and falling off the trees. It just hasn’t really felt like it until today. I mean just yesterday we were still in shorts.

Well today is my last day listing this post under 10 year-old. Tomorrow is Miss Sky’s birthday. How fast 11 years have gone by.

This week I tried to keep better track of everything we did. It is getting harder for me to separate school from living, which to me is a good thing .

For starters Miss Sky spent time at Sploder.com playing games other people created and is working on creating her own game. Working as a team we finally beat Oogie Boogie in the game Kingdom Hearts(yes). Man I would love to meet some of the people who created levels on certain video games and ask Why SO hard. Then I’ll read some reviews at Amazon and they are all like man this game is SO easy. Guess I need to work more on my gaming skills.

Another X-men cartoon series,Wolverine and the X-men, bit the dust. Now we don’t know what we are going to watch while waiting for season 2 of Iron Man and The Avengers to come out.

We are still reading The Girl With The Silver Eyes aloud and Little Sis flew through the book Go Dog Go. It amazes me how only a few months ago she first started reading.

Continuing with our science theme this week. Miss Sky asked to make another trip to our United Art and Education store to purchase instant snow (yes really) and I said why not.

This turned out to be a great rainy day activity that kept the girls busy for hours.

Little Sis planted a bean while at science day and she has been looking after it all week.

I loved the jack-o-lantern candle holders I saw at the awesome blog Ordinary Life Magic and thought how cool they would look in our window so we decided to make some too.

We decoupaged orange tissue paper on jars I picked up at Goodwill’s 50% off sale and used black construction paper for the faces.

Then we finished up the week at our local homeschooling skate day and look who is skating all on her own now.

Did I mention how fast time flies? Before you know it I’ll be posting pictures of Miss Sky passing her drivers test. Hopefully she will do better than what I did though .

I knew I would forget something. Yesterday Little Sis told me she wanted to surprise Miss Sky by earning up enough gems in Animal Jam to buy the game sky high for Miss Sky’s den. Little Sis earned the 500 gems to get the game and sent it as a gift to Miss Sky.

Wishing everyone a great weekend!

The Sound Of Science

This weekend we had the pleasure of attending the Celebrate Science Day at our state fairgrounds.

There were tons of booths filled with chemistry, biology, robotics, and forensic science demonstrations with hands on activities. The girls met astronaut Stephen K. Robinson ,who has flown on 4 space missions, one being the flight after the loss of Columbia, and got his autograph.

The girls also talked with a female forensic photographer . Miss Sky really took an interest here asking her lots of questions, (Miss Sky is not shy to ask about information that interests her) and even shook her hand and thanked her saying “it’s really nice to have people like you around”.

Next it was off to the Silly Safari stage show. This was by far the best part of the day for the girls, I personally loved seeing the high school robotics team competitions. Both girls got to go up and help with the animals.

Miss Sky with a hedgehog

and Little Sis being most brave petting a baby American crocodile.

Again Miss Sky went up after the show to ask , the very sweet lady, lots of questions about her job. She was not even scared petting a python snake and reassured all the other children that they were not poisonous “see how their head is round, a poisonous snake has a diamond-shaped head” (Thanks Doty ). Then all the way home she talked about how this is what she would like to do when she gets bigger. “Mom I would LOVE to help rescue animals and get on stage to educate people about them”. She truly has a special place in her heart for animals.

We finished up the day at the chemistry booth with lots of hand on experiments, some being requested to try again once home.

(Miss Sky not happy with mom making her put on tight goggles “just” to take a picture.)

So today keeping my promise we recreated one of the chemistry experiments adding one more of our own.

Take 1 tbsp yeast in a plastic bag and add a few drops of food coloring of your choice.

Next add about 1/4 cup hydrogen peroxide to the bag and close.

Then mix the 2 together with your hands watching it foam. You will also feel the mixture get hot while you are mixing it. Congratulations you just made a chemical reaction .

Next we made egg geodes, a project that has been on “the list” for a while now.

All you need is Epsom salt, hot water, food coloring, clean egg shells and a refrigerator.

Oh yeah and some patience as the project needs to sit in the refrigerator for about 3 hours.

We had so much fun and I am really thankful for all the people who took time out of their day to help put this on in our city(did I mention it was free). I got to see Miss Sky’s love for science flourish. Now for them to have a mathematics and an art day to make Little Sis happy.

*Update* Our egg geodes. They turned out so cool. After pouring off the liquid let them dry overnight for best results.

Wishing everyone a great week!

Little Comments/Connections

Miss Sky: “Mom, I would like to find out more about the Phoenix. I mean I know it’s a mythical creature” (yes her words)”but I’m curious how much of the mythology used in X-men is true.”

Me: “Well let’s see if we can find any Phoenix myths on-line.”

We did and I enjoyed watching Miss Sky make the connections between the myth and her comic books.

Week In Review

The weather has been beautiful here in Indy. When we first came home from vacation it was cold and rainy, we even had our first flash fire already when temps dropped down into the 30′s. Thank goodness it was only temporary. This week we have been doing our best to take advantage of the warm fall temps while we still can.

After breakfast we’ve added daily walks to the “to do list” as well as lots of outdoor play.

And of course I’m going to add that this is coming from children who are allowed to watch all the television or play on the computer whenever they want to .

Then, with the request from Miss Sky, we have eagerly gathered on the couch to listen while I read The Girl With The Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts. What a wonderful story this has turned out to be. So many coming of age topics discussed here. It is going to be very hard finding another story to read aloud after this one.

While at the Goodwill 50% off sale (that they now have every first Saturday of the month woohoo) the girls found some electronic finds that they’ve taken an interest to.

Miss Sky learned all about auctioning and biding (and patience) as well as how much she was willing to pay for an item and if an item was really worth it at Ebay.”Why can’t we just buy it now, you mean someone can outbid me, man I have to pay shipping too?” Not to mention the prices of different currency.

Little Sis and I read her “little”story from My Big Backyard magazine about pumpkins, with a reminder that a visit to the apple orchard needs to be scheduled “very soon”.

Oh and lets not forget all the X-men play that’s been going on around here( my girls never seem to like the “in” things. You know how hard it is to find the female characters?).

Miss Sky has also finished her stack of comic books. She has been my little informant telling me all about what they left out of the cartoon.

Life is good friends .

Oh and I forgot to mention “we” have been playing Thrillville ( I think I need to start writing this stuff down ) and Miss Sky has been making her own roller coasters.

I would recommend this video game to anyone. You are left in charge of setting up your own amusement park. You have to ask the customers what they like and don’t like to keep them happy so that your money flow keeps coming in. SO much one can learn from this game.

Wishing everyone a great weekend!

Discoveries Of A Radical Unschooler

There seems to be a lot of negativity spreading through the internet these days about (radical) unschooling. I usually stay clear of this kind of talk (most of it is based on fear or lack of knowledge) and honestly I wasn’t going to post anything about it (even though it was very hard to do so) but, yes I said but, there is a thread going on ,in a radical unschooling yahoo group, about an article that is talking about whether a Unschooling child can “teach” themselves to read. Someone even commented, in the articles comments, on knowing uschooled adults who can not read.

Now I understand this is not a one size fits all question. I mean many factors play into the environment of how these children were raised. I can easily say I’ve known people who graduated high school (with a full football scholarship) that couldn’t read but I don’t dismiss the WHOLE school system as being a failure in being able to “teach” children how to read. So why is it so easy for people to form conclusions about unschooling based on a few incidents?

Well this got me thinking about what I have noticed about my girls since we have started to radically unschool and I thought I would write a post about that.

First I want to start off by saying I am someone who had doubts myself. I am also someone who thought placing limits on “screens” was needed in order for my girls not to become “vegetables”. I also heavily controlled what our girls brought into our home including movies, books, music, food, toys( I’m sure you get the drift). A year ago I might even have argued with you about movies and video games causing violence, and yes I would have been the mother that said “If I allow my children to watch television or play video games  whenever they want to, they would do it all day”.

However now I can say, with confidence, I am no longer that mom. In the very short time since we have been radically unschooling, I started deschooling in June, “I” have come to the conclusion that television and video games are not the cause of all today’s violence (what is Billy the Kid or Baby Face Nelson’s excuse) that maybe, possibly it could be a child’s environment. But I digress, we were talking about academics.

What are some things my girls have learned since we started radically unschooling?

Lets first talk about Little Sis. She is 5 getting ready to turn 6 next month.

Since radically unschooling she’s learned how to read, spell and type. Count past 100, recognize and read numbers in the thousands, add and subtract numbers in the thousands and learn how to tell time on an analog clock (what will the big hand be on when it’s my turn, how many minutes does Sissy have?) all while playing games of her choice at KidZui.com such as Starfall, Animal Jam, and Club Penguin being her favorites.

She reads words all the time like when I am reading a chapter book aloud she will point out and read the words she knows. She will begin reading the summary of a show or movie before it loads on the Roku. Not to mention her trivia  knowledge of the Beatles( like pointing out the other day that it most certainly was not the Beatles singing Here Comes the Sun at the grocery store). Not once have I made her do any of this and not once have I needed a curriculum.

Moving on to Miss Sky who will be 11 in 2 weeks.

I feel she has thrived the most from all this. See just because I might have gone through the motions of “school” in the past does not mean she retained everything we talked about. Yes we had spelling tests and she may have got all the words right on test day but ask her to spell one of them 4 months later and she didn’t even remember she had it as a word.

Since she has played Animal Jam her spelling has improved SO much. She likes to interact with the other kids playing and “wants” to make sure her spelling is correct.

The same is said about her math. Yes we went through the motions (and stress, and tears, and yelling) of workbooks but again she wasn’t retaining anything. Now she is in charge of budgeting her allowance. How much do I have to save to buy this, or do I have enough  money to cover taxes and what are taxes for and why do we have to pay them?

Apples are $1.69 a pound how much will 3 lbs cost? Will 3 lbs be enough for everyone to have one? While on vacation she learned what a mile marker was, how to read interstate signs(the next gas station is exit 49, that is in 5 miles). She “sees” math is everywhere not JUST in workbooks.

Is she learning what other 5th graders would be learning in school? No. Do other 5th graders know what Miss Sky does? Probably not, She can tell you what year Mt. Vesuvius erupted, she knows how many people died on the Titanic, she knows Mary Tudor  got a bad rep with the name Bloody Mary(her dad had more people beheaded, not that burning at the stake was a good thing either). She knows who Joseph Goebbels is and who sunk the Bismarck. (And there is more but for  the length of this post I will stop.) Again all because “she” wanted to.

The idea that children will not want to learn history or math unless someone “teaches” them is crazy, I see that now. If a child “wants” to learn something there is no stopping them, and that is my very long way of saying why I think there has to be more behind an unschooled adult never learning how to read.

Wishing everyone a great week!

Back In The Groove

I think we have settled back in after our vacation. The yard work and piles of laundry are finally all caught up (man how clothes pile up while on vacation). One thing I am very thankful for this year is even though our surroundings might have changed our learning never skipped a beat.( I love unschooling ). So what have the girls been up to this week?

Well for starters Miss Sky asked if I thought she was to old to get a baby doll. This honestly through me in for a loop. One because she has NEVER been interested in dolls before (seriously never) and two because for the last few months she really hasn’t been interested in toys period. Lately its been all about computer and video games. So I was a bit curious as to why now all of a sudden she wanted a doll but not because I thought she was to old. I told her if she wanted one we could plan a trip to Goodwill and she was all for it.

Then while laying in bed that night I remembered when I was about her age my mom bought me a baby doll, one of those that look like a real baby, that I carried around for months. I think maybe it is kind of like a right of passage for a girl around 10 or 11 when their maternal instincts start to take shape. Her individuality is definitely beginning to show.

Miss Sky has also been on a X-men (cartoon) marathon this week. She has become fascinated with Jean Gray and when she becomes the Phoenix. She asked if I wouldn’t mind taking her to Half-Priced books to see if they had any X-men comic books during the Phoenix saga. Okay like she really needed to ask if I wanted to go to a bookstore, Um YES.

I have been having so much fun searching for comic books with Miss Sky. We have met so many people who not only know the best places to find comic books but today we met someone who has all the X-men action figures and wanted to know if Miss Sky would like to have them. They loved seeing her excitement of knowing who all the characters were and thought it was so cool that Papa and I were helping her follow her interest.

Miss Sky isn’t the only one following her interests. Little Sis couldn’t wait to get home to listen to ,I mean watch, her music.

Both girls have enjoyed playing at Club Penguin and Animal Jam, which they like both for different reasons.

(Little Sis playing the typing game)

As for me I made Little Sis a purse exactly like she requested

and the girls surprised me with a gift for once(they are not the only fans in the house you know).

Though I am beginning to get a bit suspicious as to their motives .

All and all I have to say it has been a great week.

Wishing everyone a great weekend!

Peace

Little Comments

Miss Sky:”How many more miles to Indianapolis ?”

Me: “40 more miles”

Miss Sky:”That means we have 40 minutes until we are finally home. So we should be pulling in the driveway at 8:44.”

Me looking at the clock: “That’s right.”

Miss Sky didn’t even know she was using math while on vacation .

All’s Quiet On The Homefront

Because we were on vacation .

There was lots to prepare for

Miss Sky searching the weather channel on Roku.

But we are always happy to be back home.

Wishing everyone a great week !

Oh and P.s. Miss Christine Natale,from my Waldorf days, left a wonderful surprise on my About page you must take a peek(like a PDF copy of her entire book of fairy tales).