January

At the beginning of January I took Isaac out to breakfast where we discussed everything he wanted to learn about in January.  There was a long list, and we only made it part way through.  We covered a ton about Alligator, Crocodiles, and Snakes.  So much so that for the past two weeks I have been dreaming of being torn apart in a death roll with a Croc.  I am glad the month is over.

Our studies of Crocodiles inevitably caused us to study about Australia.  A friend of a friend was so kind to mail us a postcard from Australia.  He was so excited to get mail.  Especially with crocs on it all the way from Australia.  Now he desperately wants to go to the Australia Zoo.  We are constantly looking at pictures from there.

The past week has been a bit slow on the homeschool front.  A lot has been going on that has kept us busy.  One thing that we have been working on is eating more "real" food.  I have been busy learning how to can.  Isaac has helped me make a lot of soups out of the scraps we have left over from meals.  Then we can it.

This month we ended up with 4 jars of Turkey/Rice Soup, 8 jars of veggie stock (there was more, but we used it), and 10 jars of chicken/veggie soup.  I am happy with what I have so far.  I still have 2 bushels that I need to make applesauce with.  I just keep forgetting to get it out of the car before Derek leaves for work.

We also decided to give Isaac a book allowance.  It was a recommendation from the Read Aloud Revival Podcast to encourage a love of books.  The way we have decided to give it to him is that every time he finishes a unit he will get 5 book bucks.  In each unity is a weeks worth of work.  He can choose to finish it in less than a week, or more than a week.  We put each unit in a folder, and check off the work he has done with stickers.  It has been a pretty good system.

Then once a month has gone by we will take him to Half Price Books (or any book store) to get his books.  He can choose any books that he wants.  We like Half Price Books because they are cheaper, and they give a homeschool discount.  He was able to get 6 books for $10 on our first trip.  He kept choosing books that were more expensive, and he didn't want to use most of his money on one book.

Anyway, tomorrow I will take Isaac out for breakfast and see what fun stuff he wants to learn about in February.

What's been gong on

I have been a slacker about blogging.  I have just had so much going on emotionally that it just fell by the wayside.  You see, I struggle with severe depression and anxiety.  I have had multiple stints of being hospitalized in the past year.  I still struggle every day, but I have given myself permission to not be a perfect homeschooling mother.

There have been many weeks where all I could do was stay in bed, and only get out to feed my kids frozen pizza's and peanut butter sandwiches.  My goal was to just make it through the day.  Miraculously, my kids still learned.

My son decided that when I was crying it was his job to bring in a big stack of books for me to read to him.  So I would.  I wouldn't read it enthusiastically, but I would.  This helped me bond with him more (again?).

Once I felt okay with reading all the time we started adding in math.  We do Math U See.  My husband tried filling in when I couldn't, but I decided that it was my job.  I bought a little travel lap desk, and my son started bringing that in to me when it was time to do math.  Then he decided he wanted to write letters to family and friends, so we started focusing on writing.

Now things have come together somewhat.  We read books on any subject, and my son has started to be a little bookworm.  Not only him, but his sister too!

This was taken out one of the metropark lodges during an activity my son attended. 

I have made it a goal to have the car at least twice a week, and do outings with others.  It's extremely stressful and anxiety provoking to me, but it helps me at the same time.  We try to go to an activity at a metropark once a week, and then we have our homeschool coop once a week too.

This was an activity at a metropark on snow and ice. 

Today we went to Highbanks Metropark to take part in a homeschool activity about Water Science.  It was lots of fun.  They talked a bit about chemistry, and did lots of fun things.

 One of the experiments they started took too long to complete, so we decided to do it at home.  I asked my son to make a hypothesis about what would happen.  Hypothesis:  The water will turn purple because blue and red make purple.  (he's gotten too smart)

I hope to be a more consistent blogger because I need to get in the habit.  This is how I want to keep track of what we do (since we primarily unschool) for our portfolio at the end of the year.

Fun with Bubbles

Today as part of our homeschool coop we had a day of bubbles.  Unfortunately, I didn't take many photos of Isaac with the bubbles.  (ever since mud day he has preferred playing in the dirt)  Here is the one I got.

As for the rest of his schooling we have hit a road block with the math.  He refuses to watch the video for the next section, and I won't move on until he does.  So we are at a stand still.

Reading Kingdom is working really well.  He is learning how to spell and I keep quizzing him on them.

I know it's summer time, but we have been keeping busy.  I have to say that Pokemon Go is a blessing to us.  It gets us to a different park every day.  Recently we went to Park of Roses and we had so much fun!  We spent about 4 hours there.  Isaac made so many friends there because everyone was playing the game.  When my phone died they were kind enough to let him use theirs.

In the middle of the playing Pokemon we did a lot of exploring.  Isaac found a bird nest and he was so excited about it!  He even put it back in a tree (it was on the ground) so another bird could make it their home.  And then he proceeded to ask everyone he saw to go with him to see the bird's nest.  Eventually this nice college student agreed.

 When we first got to the park a guy came running up to me telling me I needed to take the kids down the trail.  I did, ad he showed me this owl.  I wish so much I had my good camera there!

We also found this mushroom.  Isaac also tried to get everyone to see the mushroom.  But we got to talk about everything we saw.  We discussed a lot about the different kinds of plants there too.

International Mud Day

International Mud Day.  Yes, it really is a thing!  I couldn't sleep last night, and checked out some events that are coming up for my homeschool coop.  I realized (at 2:30 am) that today was international mud day.  One of the metroparks here was having a celebration for it.  I thought.....Isaac would probably love that.  Lets see if I get up and going early enough.  (It was 30 minutes away and started at 10)  Well, I did.  And lets just say that it was MUCH BIGGER than I expected!!!!

 They had a mud slide set up.  What you can't see is that down at the bottom of the slide there were about 5 kids with buckets who were throwing mud onto the slide to ensure the fastest ride, and the messiest.

 Here is what the slide experience turned out to be.  My son that hates getting dirty is covered from head to toe.  (Needless to say he didn't go down the slide again)  Up until this point he didn't want to stick his toes in the mud.  Once he was muddy he enjoyed himself.

 He found some nice boys that brought a bunch of dinosaurs.  He had so much fun with them!  I feel bad for the mom (who I spoke to a lot) of the owner of the dinosaurs because they were feeding them mud.  Their mouths opened and everything!

 Isaac found a vacant bucket and decided to play with the mud and water.

 And here we have the final results.  It looks like he is going to war!

I admit that seeing how big this event was caused some anxiety.  Along with the idea of having to clean him off.  BUT he had a lot of fun, and I know that he won't forget it.  Plus, it was good to see my little boy that hates getting dirty....getting dirty.  Sometimes kids just need to play in the dirt and see what they can find.

First Week was a success!

I think I can call this first week of homeschooling a success!  Like I mentioned before we were planning on focusing on bugs.  It's not my favorite topic, so it is my way of showing my love for my son.

One book that we used were Caterpillars and Butterflies.  It's packed full of unique facts, and I even learned something!.

The next book we  used was 1001 Bugs to Spot.  This is a great search and find book.  It helps him identify different bugs, but also helps with his counting skills.  I love this book because it is an activity that he can do without me.

The next book is the one that gives me the heebie jeebies!  Big Book of Big Bugs is a great book even though it's on something I hate.  It features lots of big bugs to scale.  The pages fold out to be huge bugs.  My son loves it!  Me...not so much.  But, I love my son so I put up with reading it.  

We also used Usborne's Wipe Clean books.  They are fantastic!!!!  We used Wipe Clean 1,2,3 and
Wipe Clean ABC.  This is another activity my son can do himself.  He can do it over and over.  It works on his fine motor skills because there are tons of things to trace to work on his pen control.

This week Isaac's rec center classes started too.  He is doing Gym on Thursday, Art on Fridays, Soccer on Tuesday for practice and Saturday for games.  On the way to the rec center we counted as many butterflies and dragon flies that we could find.

My son is really enjoying himself.  He is a sponge.  Yesterday we had a conversation about how we life in North America (he started it).

I am hoping to start a kids exercise club and a kids book club with other homeschool families in the area.  We will see what I can put together.

Never Stop Learning

I was encouraged to read this book by my upline for jamberry.  It is geared towards the direct sales/multilevel marketing industry, but a lot of it can be applicable to every day life.  (Full review here:  http://melodysreview.blogspot.com/2015/09/book-review-go-pro-by-eric-worre.html)  The theme that I really liked was that we should never stop learning.

"There are no bad experiences and no good experiences, only learning experiences."  This is something that I want to make sure that my children understand.

Eric Worre talked about this one school that had a plan-do, review philosophy.
"In the plan-do review process children make plans, carry them out, and reflect on what they have done.  In doing so, children learn to take initiative, solve problems, work with others, and accomplish their goals-their play becomes purposeful and focused.  By making plan-do review a successful and integral part of your classroom's daily routine, you'll learn how you can promote learning and build on children's interests and intrinsic motivation."

I really wonder why the public school arena doesn't incorporate this philosophy more.  I guess it is because they wouldn't be able to create lesson plans, and totally have to revamp the system which costs money.  This is why I am grateful for the chance to homeschool!  I can use this philosophy in my children's education!

First Day of Preschool at Home

Today is the first day of Isaac's official preschool at home.  The books that I am waiting for still haven't arrived to start our bug unit, but that's ok.

We started with the traditional first day of school pictures that parents take of their students going off to school.

 We played, and had fun making funny faces.

 Isaac is ADDICTED to Shine A Light books!  We have read this book at least 2 times a day since we got it.  If you haven't heard of the shine a light books you need to click on that link.  They are awesome!

We had music time.  Sang songs and danced.  He did some ABC Mouse time too.

All in all it was pretty fun and laid back.  Just what this frazzled momma needs!