End of 2013 Art Work and Happy New Year!

This is what our daughter was up to the last week of December, even the photo of the bruised arm is art! 

She drew the 3 adorable characters, something she usually does while watching TV when the inspiration hits her.

The bruised arm is done with makeup as she is taking a real interest in special effects 3D makeup and watches a lot of youtube videos on it.

It has been one very long emotional year for us and while my battle with Stage IV breast cancer continues I am in a much better place today than I was this time a year ago when I was diagnosed! On that note I am very happy  to say:

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I am so looking forward to 2014 while in a better state, to embrace our life of learning, breathing in new life to it again.  I am excited at what we may be able to do this year and have this blog get out of quiet mode as we move out of just survive mode!

It has been a heck of a ride 2013 and my family has been amazing throughout the whole journey and I am very thankful for that. But now for 2014, it is a new year, time to bring back vital living full of life, energy and joy.

May your New Year be amazing, full of joy, health and love.............let the learning through living continue!

Taking Advantage of Awesome Weather

September has just been a gorgeous month where we could not ask for more beautiful weather, something we like to take advantage of when we can! Last week found us parking our truck and taking a leisurely stroll around town. I love when we do this, as everyone is free to explore anything that catches their eyes that may seem interesting, no hurries, no worries, go where your interests and feet take you kind of days.

Over this past year we had watched several small local stores close down, yet now many new ones are opening up that we could explore. Such as the Coffee Cops and Doughnut shop where we ended our walk and yes of course ate a nice doughnut! The Neato Shop where we got a brand new condition bike for our daughter for $35! Yet sad the old Hobby shop was one of the ones that had closed down after being a local store for around 50 years! But at any rate it was wonderful exercise and a wonderful way to spend the day.

In other Areas we have watched Documentaries - Warrior Graveyard, The Science of Dogs ( National Geographic one) and then Mythbusters.

Baking has involved Peanut Butter Cookies and Brownies.

Watching YouTube videos on Dog Grooming, Music, Wildlife, Cake Decorating and many other things.

Writing letters to Sissy from a Monster High character perspective.

Math apps on the kindle, Math Games on computer Software and real life math applications.

Still Reading library books.

Life Skills are usual activities as well like doing dishes and vacuuming.

Of course since I have a hard time keeping up with blogging right now as I am catching up on many areas in my real world, there has been many other things I am forgetting too at this moment! I will have to work harder at regular blog posts here! Wink!

So that was last week and we are on a new week now.............with new things happening! Not to mention we are on a new MONTH already! Alright October lets Rock it out!

How did your September Go?

 

Just Dance, Cooking, Sewing and Documentaries

Been a nice week with a very natural and pleasant flow going on, and here is a glimpse to what we have been up to!

TV shows:

4400-  an older series we had never heard of that Corin found for us and we all are enjoying!

Sleepy Hollow- New series on Fox that just started Shae Loves, Corin does not watch this one, just not her cup of tea,  the rest of us like it though!

Netflix Documentaries:

H. H. Holmes-  while a dark subject on this serial killer, it was a fascinating documentary on him

Corin watched one on Youtube about Wolves

Corin also spent a day of sewing dolls of different sizes and Daddy helping her drive around the yard a little bit and parking in our driveway. She does a really good job and has always loved doing this!


They both have been cooking this week, chili, peanut butter balls and barbecue sauce! The photo above is a raw foods Mango Mango Coconut Cream Pie with  Raspberry Frosting! Amazing!

Shae has also been reading his library books and talking about the invasion of Greece and such from World War II.

Of course there has been walking the dogs and dancing to Just Dance 4 too! Matter fact if you want a good laugh, go here to see Daddy creating his own dance for Corin to follow ( how many stars she can get, a good little competition.  Hilarious! You may want to subscribe to my channel there too as I will be trying to get a variety of videos up on a regular basis!

Math has been being done this week on the computer called Baggin the Dragon, I was going to do a few other activities with them, but ended up being sick for 2 days, but then the week is not over yet! :)

Of course there has been doing dishes and vacuuming as always.

My son does not like being photographed so you will most likely see a ton more photos of our daughter than our son.

I love when learning flows so naturally with a rhythm all it's own.  Some of the learning that would be considered life skills, others academic yet none of it separated from daily living. It is our living and what our days can look like.  It is a beautiful thing to watch, encourage and be a mentor in.

 

First Day of 2013-2014 School Year

In our home, we do not separate learning from living, for it is within living that learning is thriving and happening. So normally we do not really mark when one day begins  and another ends such as the beginning of a school year. This year however I wanted to mark it, I think in part due to me feeling healthier and my energy returning after a long year of chemo treatments. Last year I was very sick with my cancer and I was  not able to be as active or involved as I would have liked. This year seems......... oh  I don't know, special and magical so with that kind of excitement, it just  seemed fitting to celebrate a new beginning, a new year of learning!

Sadly I did not get any photos like I wanted yesterday but we are starting the year with my son being 15 and our daughter being 12. I will get photos soon and update the side bar pictures of us. Also our adult daughter is no longer here, she has moved out to start her own adult life. However our first day went something like this in a very relaxed way.....

My original plan was to spend it at the beach with the kids, but hubby's allergies were severely acting up and it was a little too chilly to want to go. So instead we rented and watched 4 episodes of the Walking Dead, Season 3!  Since we do not have cable television, we have had to impatiently wait all this time for the DVD to be released! Our family are HUGE FANS of anything zombie related and the Walking Dead is just AWESOME. We have plans for activities related to national disasters that we are all looking forward to, even if it is preparing for a zombie apocalypse! ( or War, Earthquake, Tornado.......... um yeah those may be  more likely ha ha!)

We then went to the library for our first day, which the kids love going and I love the fact we can get  books for 1 whole month at this library. Our son, Shae checked out 2 books, one on War Maps ( how cool  is that?) and one on the Samurai. Our daughter, Corin checked out 4 books, 2 Warrior Cat books and 2 Monster High books.

30 minutes of  chores were done which we consider part of life skills.

The day was wrapped up by hubby and both kids going through the 2 new basic cookbooks we go recently and picking 2 recipes they will work together in learning how to cook. They chose chili and pizza for their first 2 recipes to try.  All three of them will work together on these 2 recipes where they will cook 2 times a week. This is occurring because last year  I became to sick to cook and nobody here could cook and even though I am better now, we feel all 3 of them should work on basic cooking! Although I am better now, we know with Stage IV breast cancer, that all could change at any given moment and they need to be able to step in on things I usually do  around the house.

This is not something that is being forced, they are all actually looking forward to it as they do like to be in the kitchen. They just like my cooking better so sit back and wait to see what I will  make usually HA HA! The only rule is hubby said I will not be allowed in  the kitchen, only him and the kids! Also what a fantastic connection activity for the 3 of them!

Now that they picked their recipes, they will make their grocery lists and we will go shopping for the ingredients on Thursday. Looking forward to it!

In the evening, was spent on the computer as well as reading the library books. Corin read hers while I fixed dinner, spelling out the words to me she could not read so I could help her. After dinner I read to her for awhile. It ended the evening by her wanting to read to me, while I just read the words she could not get ( shared reading) and it was remarkable seeing how well she is reading now. ( It has been a very long difficult struggle for her with Dyslexia.)

Well so that was our first day, nothing major but a nice relaxed, very enjoyable day!

How was yours?

Working In New Things

While learning happens all the time, I do like marking beginnings, especially if we have had any time of set back or dry spell. Fighting cancer along with financial hardship for certain had a bit of a rough path and dry spell for us. So this year seems even more special this year to mark the start of a new year of learning, new beginnings and with it new sets of challenges.

While I have all sorts of ideas what I want to buy, plan, do, we have to start small and start anywhere! We already have quite a few things in our home we can continue to use, or things that are here waiting to be used for the first time, there are always things we want to implement or of course purchase as the year goes on in addition to what we already own.

These are the three new additions to kick off a new year.

Hubby and both kids are not comfortable in the kitchen and really lack cooking skills and is something hard to learn from me as I am a no cookbook a little bit of this, a pinch of this and never make the same thing twice kind of cook!

So I purchased 2 very basic cookbooks and we are all highly delighted with them!  The "I don't know how to cook" book 300 great recipes you can't mess up has no photos. But it makes up for it in clear steps and truly for a beginner cook with no cooking knowledge at all. Some really easy recipes using things like canned biscuits or frozen broccoli but also others making it completely from scratch and explaining things a seasoned cook takes for granted.

The Anyone Can cook has beautiful photos, time management notes and also a key 1, 2 or 3 letting the cook know the difficulty of the recipe. Easy, Medium, Hard so they can take one look at the recipe and know if they are up to a more challenging recipe or not.

The South Western Advantage Software Set shown here is similar but not the same one we have, ours was purchased through a college student and Amazon did not have the exact one we got. Same Company and similar but ours had different software in it. Ours came with a Spell Jam ( a spelling bee game) , I can speak ( a language program covering 16 different languages), Baggin the Dragon ( real life math game) Ultimate Math Invaders ( facts type math game) and Words Rock a typing game.

This is where things lead to confusion when we say we don't use text books, people assume text books is the only way to learn and they we do not use other methods. We use all sorts of books, computer software, games and media in our learning, just not TEXT BOOKS, usually. 

I am thinking of something fun to kick off the marking of a new year too, just not sure on the details yet , coming up soon though. We will be starting either September 2 or 3rd, not sure yet as my son will be with his Dad and it will depend if he comes up Sunday or Monday which will determine if our new year will start Monday or Tuesday!

What fun new things have you gotten this year?

Living Math at Work

My son purchased a computer game after looking for several days for something he may want. I love his process he goes through as it is such a frugal one that is so natural to him! He looks and looks between computer games, Xbox live games, and even books. He looks at Walmarts, Game Stop and online at Amazon.com, and after each look takes a day or two to THINK about it and see if it is really something he wants. He does not part with his money easily, and takes his time with the purchases he does decide to make.

When he finds something, he calculates the shipping costs or if there will be a sales tax, in order to make sure he has enough money and will not have to ask us to cover the difference if he by chance goes over. He makes sure he will not go over!

On this particular purchase, he went for a computer game which he received fairly quickly through the mail after he purchased it from Amazon.com. When he went to download it, he found he needed something downloaded in order to even run the game. Well this download has tons of updates it needed to do as it has never been downloaded on his computer. This is taking a painfully long time, we are talking DAYS to download! 

Each day he has been calculating gigabytes and estimating when the update may be complete.  He looks at how much gigabytes is downloading a day and comparing that with the percentage of how much it says it is downloading.


My daughter on the other hand has been using a lot of math skills that started with our grocery shopping endeavor. She knows her food has to last 2 weeks before our next shopping trip where she again will receive $50 for a 2 week period of food, making her own food choices. At the store, she was keeping a close eye on her purchases, determining how much more she could get, how many meals she needed and if she had enough for some snacks.

As we are completing week one after shopping, she was fully aware of going through her food a little too fast. She really started going through and thinking of all the meals she had left, how long it needed to last, did she have enough dinners? Enough Lunches? Cupcakes can be considered a meal, right?  How many days can a person go without food? How hungry will I be if I run out?  Wow I should have enough! ( after talking out all her meals left, and counting in the fact mom will cook family dinners on the weekends giving her 2 free meals!)

The other thing that happened this week is that we bought a brand new push lawn mower with a grass catcher on it. The neighbor then put their riding mower out by the road for sale, a highly used riding lawn mower.

This had her asking how much we spent on ours, so she could determine which would be the better buy.  Okay, well ours was $220 and the neighbors is for sale at $250. Ours is a little cheaper but requires much more work to mow the yard. But we saw how much the riding mower was breaking down all last summer...........highly used..........all the way around she determined OURS was the better buy.

While they do not always figure out math in a manner of how it is taught in the public school system, they are still highly capable of reasoning out problems in their own way.

Living Math gives them a reason to  figure out because it is real and in the moment, it is not separated from life. When you separate math from living, it becomes some abstract affair that just does not make sense for many no matter how many times someone tries to show you. Living Math gets them excited  to figure it out because it actually applies to something they want to know right here, in the moment.

It was a beautiful thing to watch as I got to "hear" them without interfering figure it out.

Text Books are BORING

Let's face it, while textbooks may certainly have their place at least in the form of a reference book, they are BORING! Learning in the modern world we live in today offers so many more exciting ways in which one can focus learning on. There are many alternatives to textbooks that could be used to truly excite and ignite ones desire to learn any particular subject, why would you choose a textbook? If you find a textbook useful for a particular subject like zoology for example, then why not supplement it with material that would be far more interesting and beneficial to retaining what is being learned?

When thinking of any subject, think of as many alternatives you can to offer the lessons in an exciting way.

Think of:

Games of all kinds, from board games to group games, car games , made up games and even electronic games that could be used!

Movies that have the historical or theme of your lesson within it.

Edible projects that may be made to drill the point home, edible habitats, maps, mobiles, whatever you can think of pertaining to the lesson to make it an edible project!
Unusual items for unusual places such as Shower Curtains with the Periodic Table on them or the Weather or the World Map ( yes they have them!)

Real Books about Real People, Places or your Subject Matter ( historical Fictions are great too for history!)

Audio Books or Cd's

Music- sometimes you can find music CD's with the theme of your subject matter so be sure to check!

Play- role play, any kind of play that would implement the lessons into an activity of play

Museums that relate to your studies of the month.

People- relating to your subject matter may be able to help or be invited over depending on who they are and how well you know them.

Raw Materials- this would depend on what is being studied but do not miss out on gather related raw materials! This may be aluminum cans, nature items, steel, wood, mud or clay, rocks and gems you name it!

Apprenticeships? Perhaps an apprenticeship would be possible for such things as metal work, woodworking, auto mechanic or a tutor for foreign language or certain skills.

What ever the case, HAVE FUN!
Can you think of some other ways to present learning in a fun way without the use of textbooks?

A New School Year Upon us Again!

Yeah, learning happens all the time even in the summer, but I always get excited at the start of a new school year! YEAH! 

When we Start........Tuesday September 4th!


Grades will be our daughter in 6th and our son in 9th! It seems to get more fun the older they get!



A few things we will be doing for September?

We will be using weekly checklists to accomplish academic goals.

Activities for the month of September will include but not be limited too......

Blind Food Tasting competitions

Famous Historical Role Playing  1x a week

The Colony ( for September is National Preparedness month! The background of the state of emergency will be an Alien invasion!)

Jeopardy night

Cooking School

The grocery game

Learning Lecture Sharing Council ( where each shares things they have been independently learning)


We have more ideas in the workings as well but these will be the fun highlights for the month of September and I am excited to start another year, another chapter and lots of new fun activities along the way with you all!

Day 8-10 Purchases /Organize

Day 8 and 9 of our Habitat for learning project involved me sorting through my Amazon wish list and for once getting it organized.

I admitt I am an Amazon Junkie and since I find everything so darn interesting this has left me with a list of about 1500 items on it and it was to the point I could not find anything I wanted.

So I broke my list down into several catagories into new lists and spent 2 days going through it and moving items to their proper catagory! SIGH SOOOOOOOO much better! Now at a glance I can go to whatever catagory I want and see everything in a quick and easy fashion!

Day 10 was Purchasing and Replenishing! A lot easier to do when your lists are organized!

On top of making the purchases you see here from Amazon I also......

Purchased a 3 ring binder with alphabetical page dividers, plenty of blank page dividers where I can write on the tabs as well as several packages of protector sheets to keep their school year organized. Along with this of course was also getting the printer finally for the computer!

We then had a girls day yesterday to head to Walmarts and spent $100 refurbishing Art and Craft Supplies! That is always fun fun fun! My Daughter has been so inpsired by the book we already recieved called DOODLES UNLEASHED shown above! Fantastic exercises in that book!

My daugher is well stocked in paper, crayons and colored pencils so we purchased....

3 sketch pads
package of googly eyes
pkg of yarn pom poms (variety of sizes)
pkg of foil pom poms (variety of sizes)
glitter markers
variety color pkg permananent bic markers
glow in the dark sketch kit
pkg pipe cleaners
pkg of block stamps
ink stamp pads
pkg of variety of sizes and types of paint brushes
box of acrylic paints
2 yards of 2 different fabrics at a yard a piece
(I got 3 yards of fabric for curtains I plan on sewing for the girls room as well)


If you noticed I purchased a shower curtain with the periodic table on it! I also found I can get periodic table fabric so gonna create a learning space in the bathroom with a chemistry theme! How cool is that?

New Items for October

         Since we are into a lot of Japanese things at the moment I thought I would introduce the kids to this Haiku Magnetic Poetry Kit!  They came up with the Haiku you see in the above photo here that is now displayed on our Fridge and will get updated often! The kids loved these and I look forward to using it often with them as well as introducing other magnetic kits in the future!

We also brought in these 2 new books for our home library and use as the mood strikes us !

Looking Towards a New Year

While learning never stops through summer months, I always get excited when September gets close, marking another year for us. I love seeing how interests come and go and what the new year may bring our way, it is like always waiting to open a new present, you just never know what is inside!

While we tend to be pretty relaxed in our approach, I do look at what we are all interested in and start planning what material will be purchased to feed those interests and introduce new ones as well along the way.

This year our interest list looks pretty much  like this.

Green Living

Sewing

Nutrition/Health

Chemistry

Stocks/Investing

Household Budgeting

Nature

Zoology

Cooking/Baking

Japanese Language and Culture

African Culture

Spanish Language

Art and Crafts

Board Games

Sustainable Living

Consumerism/Conservatives

Technology

Video Gaming

Community

Museums

Reading

I think that is a pretty good basis to start with and am excited to explore a variety of materials for these interests!  It should prove to be a facinating year that I can not wait to start shopping for and gathering interesting items for further exploration of these subjects!

While I am not big into hard core planning , I do like to do outlines such as this one to give me a point of starting off at and knowing where to start at bringing items in that will enhace these interests.

Have a great new homeschool year everyone ! What are you planning for the new year? Share in the comments!