Yep that's me!

Melissa Wiley posted this quiz and I couldn't resist. It does describe me pretty well don't you think?

You Are An Exclamation Point

You Are An Exclamation Point

You are a bundle of... well, something. You're often a bundle of joy, passion, or drama. You're loud, brash, and outgoing. If you think it, you say it. Definitely not the quiet type, you really don't keep a lot to yourself. You're lively and inspiring. People love to be around your energy. (But they do secretly worry that you'll spill their secrets without even realizing it.) You excel in: Public speaking You get along best with: the Dash

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

Unschooling what comes naturally

Unschooling is a controversial topics among homeschoolers. It think the reason for this is because unschooling is hard to define. I have never considered myself to be an unschooler, but... If unschooling means not going to a traditional school , then we are unschoolers. If unschooling means never requiring your child to do something academic then we are not unschoolers. If mean being entirely child led then we are not unschoolers. If unschooling means provided materials to inspire your children to explore a topic independently, then we have moments of unschooling in our home.

I have discovered that certain subject unschool more easily in our home. And I have noticed that other subjects come more easily to other families. In our family the subjects that are explored without effort are art, music, and literature. Art happens everyday in our house. Without much effort my girls have become familiar with famous artists and composers. (Thanks Little Einsteins!) The girls beg for one more chapter of reading at bedtime and yell, "turn on the book on cd!" every time we get in the car. They don't even consider any of this learning to be part of school.

The girls also get lots of unschooling moments with their dad. He often discusses science topics with them at dinner time. He was so excited to find out they we were going to be learning about geology that he spent a half an hour one evening explaining tectonic plates and the ring of fire. Last night he and Sierra stood by the world map discussing places around the world. One day he explained why the sky is blue. Something about light waves... And he does it all without preparation. Me, I need a book to help me explain most of these things.

So, I try not to get caught up in the unschooling debate. I watch out for and encourage unschooling moments, but I also plan and present topics that don't happen as naturally in our home. But on days like today when I am sick, I try not to feel guilty for not "doing school." When I observe the paintings made from soap water and food coloring (Art AND Science) and the scenes from various Magic Tree House books being acted out (Science and History), I realize that there are times for schooling and time for unschooling in every homeschool.

Oh, and of course

to conclude our Geology unit, we made a volcano that erupted!!

Rocks and Minerals and more, oh my!

We have spent the last week or so learning about Geology. Here are some books and acitvites we enjoyed:

The Earth
The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth
Planet Earth Inside Out
I Fall Down
Continents by Fradin
Our Earth by Rockwell
The Earth by Nicholson
*made edible earths from Geology Crafts fro Kids

Rocks and Minerals
It could Still Be a Rock
Rock Collecting by Gans (also called Let's Go Rock Collecting)
The Super Science of Rocks and Soils
* used kit 7 from Young Scientist Series - minerals
*did gummy bear experiments from Adventures with Rocks and Minerals ( only the igneous rocks turned out...)
*used kit 8 from Young Scientist Series - crystals
*used kit 9 - Fossils

Volcanoes
How Mountains are Made
Mountains by Owen
Mountains and Volcanoes by Taylor
Volcanoes by Clarke
Hill of Fire
Magic School Bus Blows its Top

Earthquakes
Earthquakes by Collier
We Shake in a Quake

We also watched the Magic School Bus videos - "Blows Its Top" and "Rocks and Rolls"

I planned this topic and got the books from the library, but this topic has lead to some interesting independent fun and learning for the girls. The other day they decided to make their own dinosaur digs. We were using plaster of paris with the fossils kit from Young Scientists and they remembered the Dinosaur dig we had bought last year. They came up with the idea of burying toy dinosaurs in some plaster and letting it dry. Today they dug up their dinosaurs and then came up with the idea of making their own Natural History Museum. As I am typing they are setting up displays of fossils, moon rocks and minerals and more. They are planning to give me a tour of it all when they are done. I had hope to get to math today, but I think we may have to skip it in favor of this grand project.

Book Review: Chasing Vermeer

Our most recent book on Cd for the car was Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliet. I have to say that I really enjoyed it. It is a mystery involving art. The main character are two 11 year olds - a boy and a girl. They become involved in solving a mystery of a stolen Vermeer painting. The boy is very into pentominoes and uses them to help solve the mystery.

Not only was the book really good, it lead us to some fun learning. We got on the internet and looked at Vermeer's paintings. then I got out the pentominoes that I bought last year and have been ignored and left them laying out in the living room during the few weeks we spent listening to the book. It took until the end of the book for the girls to become interested in them (It almost killed me to have the "clutter" laying about for that long, but I endured). It was so fun to watch them get excited about making rectangles with the pieces. They spent a large portion of an afternoon playing with them and even discovered that most of the pieces in the Blokus game are shaped like pentominoes. I can't wait for Balliets next book. The main characters return and the plot involves Fibronaccii's number...

While I would not consider us "unschoolers", I love these unschooling moments where the learning just seems to happen. The are several subjects that seem to unschool easier in our home, but that is the subject of another post.

Note: For those with sensitive children. I will mention that there is reference to a murder and the bad guy dies at the end of a heartattack.

Birthdays and grade levels

As you can see from my last posts, I get kind of obsessed about grade level every once and a while. I really try not to, but my mother was a teacher and is always concerned about whether my kids are on grade level. And my poor oldest gets the brunt of this worry. My middle has an October birthday, so she would have just missed the cut off for the next grade. If she were in first grade now, she would probably be advanced for her grade, so I don't worry about her. But my oldest has a June birthday, so she would be in 4th grade. We are just now finishing up Right Start Level D for math which is the 3rd grade level, so if I think in terms of grade level she is a semester behind, but if she had a October birthday like Kali and she would be right on grade level finishing third grade math at 9 years 7 month.

It's crazy, I know. I'M crazy. I should just chill out because I am a homeschool mom and I don't have to worry about grade level. Again, I need to remind myself to keep the end goal in mind. If I can prove in the end that homeschooling is as good as, if not a better way to educate my children then all will be well.

It's that time of year again...

Around this time last year, I started getting that sinking feeling that I am a doing a bad job homeschooling my kids. Well, the other day that feeling came around again. Luckily it was shorter lived this time and I only felt bad for one evening. The feeling was set off by my oldest crying over her homework for her one day a week homeschool program through the school district. It was not hard homework. She had to write 4 pretend checks and record them in a check register. Now I am sure it didn't help that she had put off doing the homework until 9pm the night before, but really, she is 9 years old. If she went to school she would have homework every night. I suddenly felt like I was doing her a disservice by not requiring her to do more writing and math. If I made her do more it would get easier and she wouldn't be crying over something so simple, right? Maybe, Maybe not.

A day and a half later she and I were working a story for her monologue that she is preparing for a program called Young Chautauqua. The program is for children 9 and up and each child researches a historical character and presents a 15 minute monologue as that character. This is a huge project for a 9 year old and since Sierra has never done anything like this before I am guiding her through the process. Since has trouble writing for long periods of time - like more than 5 minutes - I offered to type the story while she dictated. I offered suggestions, but she came up with most of it and I was very impressed with her "writing."

Although I am still finding my way, I feel better when I realize that my daughter is only 9 years old. And while I worry that if she ever goes to school she will be behind, I know that my goal is not to have a 9 year old that can write and do math for long periods of time without complaining, but to have a well educated child by the time she is an adult.

Julie at Bravewriter has some good posts what to do when your child is complaining about homeschool work.