June 21, 2012

All

• Driver's Education (just Lego-Man)
• Piano practice
• IXL Math
• Mythbusters
• Jonathan Park

Day #170/175 Days

June 20, 2012

Cooking Class again today. We're nearing the end, but it's been a lot of fun and we certainly have learned quite a bit.

We made a fruit salad today.

We also made homemade salsa (and toasted our own chips).

We also made our own "soda" with seltzer water and juice.

There is a story behind this photo....Lego-Man became the "project" of this cooking class. He dislikes any and all fruits and veggies. The chef and nutritionist had taken it upon themselves to get him to try and like them. At the last class (which he had to miss due to Driver's Education class), we were given chocolate cupcakes. However, they were "special" ones. Inside were pureed beets, carrots, and spinach and they were the best chocolate cupcakes I've ever had. Lego-Man thought so too.

Day #169/175 Days

June 19, 2012

All

• Drive Thru History - 3 episodes (We're going through the American History ones.)
• Work on filling in Fair Judging Cards to enter projects
• Practice piano
• Read aloud from A Nest for Celeste - 3 chapters
• Watched an episode of MythBusters
• Lego-Man went to Driver's Education class
• Listened to Adventures in Odyssey

Day #168/175 Days

May 22, 2012

Today was a "real life" / unschooling day.

• We began our day at the Social Security Administration. I needed to replace Social Security cards that were misplaced years ago. 
• While we were driving we listened to one of our favorite audio dramas - Jonathan Park.
• I took a bike ride with my two youngest boys.'

• We visited my sister and watched How Big is Our God video.
• The boys then microwaved Ivory soap and ended up with this:

• We also microwaved grapes, but did not dry them first. It didn't flash as much as the video linked shows.
• The boys also made film rockets and had a lot of fun setting them off. This was to make sure we could  recreate it all when we got together with our 4H club to do this.

Day #156/175 Days

March 7, 2012

All

• Piano Lessons (20-30 mins each)
• Eye Doctor appointment (videos in waiting room about eye care/disease)
• Audio books
• Independent Reading

Day #110/175 Days

January 5, 2012

A short day - getting back in the swing of things.

I have to admit to loving our Netflix streaming account. We watched a 45 minute documentary on Denali National Park. The boys also

• practiced their piano
• read for 30 minutes
• hauled wood (PE)

Day #62/175 days

November 22, 2011

Yup - it's been that kind of a month - another unschooling day....

• Reading independently
• Playing board games (more Axis and Allies)
• Helping with chores - inside and out
• Playing with their Legos and creating various things
• Conductor spends hours making paper airplanes (note to self: get some photos)
• Piano Lessons today

Day #56/175 Days

November 8, 2011

Today was another unschooling day. The afternoon was spent at piano lessons. We are there for two hours while everyone (myself and each boy) has a 30 minute lesson.

The boys ....

• read independently
• helped haul wood
• helped with animals
• did inside chores (home ec)
• played board games (Axis & Allies is a new favorite)

Day #51/175 Days

November 1, 2011

Unschooling day....

The boys....

• went to piano lessons
• played outside
• played Axis & Allies together
• read independently
• helped clean the house
• used their imaginations

Day #49/175 Days

October 7, 2011

Today was a "Life Skills" day. We had a lot of work that needed to be done on the farm so the boys helped do lots of outside chores. The biggest thing we needed to do was put up fencing for the sheep that will be arriving tomorrow. Toss in to that mix a number of other stressful things and it was a FULL day with too much running around and frustration - mostly on my part.

The boys helped with....

• fencing
• weed whacking around the fencing
• trimming brush around fencing
• cleaning out animals
• hauling brush

We did have a 4H meeting today as well.

Day #33/175 Days

Day #169/175 Days

Today was a fun unschooling day. We began with an early session of piano lessons. I've opted to continue as we can through the summer in order for the boys to stay current with their new skills. When we go to lessons our teacher blocks out two hours for us and we each have, on average, 30 minutes with her.

Today was a bit interesting though as I had H&H with me - otherwise known as Miss H and Mr. H. These are the two children I used to babysit full-time and now only baby sit on occasion. They did relatively well at piano. Actually, it was my boys who were a bit more out of hand than normal.

We arrived home at lunch and spent the afternoon playing outside and watching some fun kid videos we don't normally watch (Word World and Dora). They also played lots and lots of board games which is always fun with a 2-1/2 year old and an almost 4 year old added to the mix.

My oldest son listened to a lot of Adventures in Odyssey or read while hiding out in his room.

Day #125/175 Days

I assigned a few things today. We lost power mid-day and the boys spent a lot of time "learning" in the afternoon as we read books and they played games.

Math
Writing Journal
AWANA
Assigned Reading
Reading aloud (Winnie-the-Pooh)
Sum Swamp
Hi Ho Cherry-O

Day #103/175 Days

I'm still working on getting back on schedule and tweaking what we are doing. This week has been kind of crazy with outside activities. This morning we spent time doing:

• Popcorn Prayer
• Reading aloud - two chapters in our Terrestria Chronicles book
• Catching up on our Easter devotional book - we were almost a week behind.
• Watching an African Wildlife cam - we saw the sun starting to set and a lot of antelopes watering
• Watching an Owl cam - we saw the owl eating something and feeding her babies. Two have hatched.
• Took our first nature walk of the spring season

Our family cemetery located behind the house.

Some snow still left - but not a lot.

Standing in two places at once. To the right of the photo above they are standing in our town (and on our property) and to the left they are in the neighboring township.

The boys will end their day tonight at AWANA club.

Day #95/175 Days

Together School:

• Popcorn Prayer
• Pledge of Allegiance
• National Anthem
• Read Aloud book
• Matthew Chapter 11
• Lent Devotional

We played two of our new games..."Plot and Plan" - 

The goal is to get your pieces from one corner of the board (the start) to other (home base). Yellow & red start opposite each other as do blue & red. There are two dice included. They was suppose to be one red and one black. We had two black so I just switched one out for a white die. You roll both die. There are two axis marked on the board - one black and one red. The black die determines how many spaces you move along the black axis. The red white die determines how many along the red. The goal is to get to home base. Along the way though, you can take our your opponent. The white area in the middle was free hunting for this part of the game. The shaded areas around home base were safe. 

It took a lot of thinking. See - I lost a piece already. I was playing yellow.

The next game we played was called "Round Up." 

The goal here was to "round up" or pen in as many sheep as you could. This game was actually more complicated than the last. It had many different variables. There was a black sheep that allowed you to assign points to other players. There was a wolf that would allow you to either have to deduct points from yourself or add them to other players - depending on how it was played. The hunter (the red one above) cancelled out all that. In the little purple circles were also either one star (go again), two starts (go twice), one arrow (skip the next person), and two arrows (reverse play). I think we played it right and it was fun. This is Conductor's favorite game thus far and he's been playing it on his own. 

These were both purchased from Educators Outlet as part of their 80% off sale. I paid about $2 for each of them. Round Up is still available. List price is $2.50 but I'm sure there was a further discount taken at checkout. Plot and Plan is also still available listed for $2.75. 

Evening:

AWANA club - 2 hours.

Day #84/175 Days

Today we headed south for a long weekend in the Boston area. We stopped over at my sister's house and helped celebrate my nephew's 8th birthday. I foolishly took no photos.

We were on the road to Massachusetts by 1pm. I had stocked up on audio books for the ride. We enjoyed listening to:

• Paddle to the Sea by Holling C. Holling (geography)
• Blizzard! The Storm That Changed America by Jim Murphy (history/science-weather)

This made the trip there go by a lot faster. 

Day #64/175 Days

Just a laid back day today.

The boys worked on:

First Facts
Math Score
BBC Typing Mat
Free reading
Wii Fit

And finished up their cars for the AWANA Grand Prix on Saturday.

Day #50/175 Days

We did "carschooling" by listening to some Jim Weiss narrated stories. We listened to:

• Robin Hood
• King Arthur
• The Three Muskateers

The boys were outside snowshoeing & sledding for at least two hours.

They had AWANA club. Lego-Man volunteers & works with the 3 & 4 year olds & does a fantastic job with that. Conductor is in T&T group & Happy is in the Sparks group. Both completed sections tonight. Club lasts 1-3/4 hours.