Thanksgiving Break and the (Sort-Of, but Not Really) Case for Unschooling

Dentist appointments, well-child visits, and cleaning out closets all seem to get pushed aside in the busyness of life.  So, we (sort of) called off school for two weeks, scheduled doctor visits, let the kids run wild and free, and I tried to get caught up on domestic duties.  And, I have once again, been forced to give heed to that little voice in the back of my head that occasionally whispers the idea that perhaps unschooling is not as bad as I have made it out to be.

A Backpacking Analogy

I was standing at the top of the stairs, baby hanging from one hip, a basket of laundry hanging from the other.  Downstairs my six year old was sobbing over a math worksheet gone awry while my four year old lay on the toy-room floor screaming, "I don't care if you never let me out of here. I'm NOT going to clean this mess up!"  The crockpot was on, but only half of dinner's ingredients had made their way into the pot and, at close to noon, I still hadn't brushed my teeth.

What's in Our CD Player

1. Smart Symphonies:  a little something for the baby from Enfamil with the claim that the chosen classical music pieces will "stimulate your baby's brain development".  Not sure about the brain development thing, but it is calming and my older kids enjoy trying to beat each other to identifying the composer of each piece.
2. The Power of One by Israel Houghton:  recommended by a friend, but not particularly my style of music.  The kids love it though and it gets them dancing and acting goofy in the living when it is too cold or late to go outside.
3. Spanish Bop:  Put out by Children's Music World, this collection entertains the kids with Spanish and English versions of songs.  Although Spanish is not one of our official "classes" this year, I try to keep some Spanish CDs and storybooks around as an informal introduction to the language.
4. Mr. Bach Comes to Call:  a title in the classical kids collection that includes lots of factual information about Mr. Bach told in a fictional story that my kids LOVE.  It also includes portions of several of Bach's popular pieces.  My kids are big fans of anything in the Classical Kids collection.
5. Offerings by Third Day:  a little something for Mom when all chaos breaks loose and I just need to throw back my head, sing, and remember that my hope is in Him!

Some Fun Things We've Done Recently (11/8/2010)

Here are a few of the fun things we managed to fit in this week amidst our regular Explode the Code, beginning readers, math workbook, etc.  (Not that those things aren't fun, they just aren't as much fun to write about.)

Some Fun Things We've Done Recently (11/1/2010)

One of the things Logan enjoyed doing this week was sorting the vowels out of our bucket of letters.  This is my child who benefits from a lot of review, and we have been taking a break from our Alpha Phonics studies to solidify some of the basics.  In this activity, I wrote one vowel in the bottom of each of 5 muffin liners.  He then sorted the vowels accordingly and dumped the consonants into the empty holes of the muffin tin.

mathwire.com is one of our favorite go-to web sites when we need a little fun added into our math routine.  The Pumpkin Jumble Game in the October portion of the site gave us some practice with shapes and patterns and also some graphing fun as we tracked the numbers we rolled with our dice on a separate graph.  Another activity we enjoyed from mathwire last week was the Jack-O-Lantern picture my son created from plotting coordinates onto a graph. I knew the Jack-O-Lantern activity was tailor made for Logan when I saw it and he spent two glorious math periods working on his project, which he was extremely proud of in the end.  This would not, however, be a project for a six year old who does not enjoy somewhat detailed, tedious activities.  (I will probably NOT be doing this one with Sierra anytime soon!)

Sierra LOVES to "read".  While she knows her letter sounds, she is still impatiently working on getting down the idea of blending.  I have been working through the book  Wow!  I'm Reading ( Wow! I'm Reading!: Fun Activities to Make Reading Happen (Williamson Little Hands Series) and was fortunate enough to come across this little sentence-making activity for her.  We started out by cutting pictures of things she likes out of magazines and gluing them onto 3x5 cards and labeling them.  I then wrote her sight words that she knows (words like I, and, the, like, see, etc.) onto separate 3x5 cards.  Using the word cards and the picture cars together she can make sentences like "I like jello" or "I see a horse and a doll."  As you can see from her smile, she finds great satisfaction in her new-found ability to write and read sentences!

For a fall science project this week, we read Fletcher and the Falling Leaves, a cute story about a little fox who worries about his favorite tree losing its leaves in the fall.  We then drew pictures of trees in each of the seasons and decorated them appropriately: spring and summer with lots of green and bright colors, fall with fall leaves we gathered from outside and glued on, and winter with lots of silver and blue glitter to recreate the sparkling frost-encrusted tree at the end of the story.  The kids had a lot of fun working together in their tree "masterpieces". 

Logan's mapping activity this week turned into a full-scale neighborhood for his hotwheel cars to race through.  It was a big hit until it was destroyed by those of us walking through and eating in the dining room.  Next time we'll have to find a more out-of-the-way spot to create such large projects.

In the beauty department, our resident fasionista somewhere discovered the idea of these sponge curlers.  (Certainly not from me.  I have a life-long distaste for them stemming from the time my mother made me sleep with them in my hair when I was four or five years old.)  Sierra, of course, found the discomfort quite bearable with the promise of wonderful curly hair in the morning. 

Some other fun things we did this week:

Took a field trip to Underwater World at the Mall of America.  Expensive, but well worth it.  Sharks inches from your head, a room full of illuminated jellyfish with their strange movements, and starfish to touch.  And then, of course, we had to hit LegoLand and the American Girl Doll store.  For lunch at the food court:  McDonald's for Sierra who thoroughly enjoyed her meal and REALLY spicy Thai food for the rest of us who pretended to enjoy our meal amidst sweat and multiple glasses of water. 

Another highlight:  during "recess" one beautiful fall morning, the kids and I went out to play soccer.  Our elderly, but very spry, neighbor came out to join us.  I loved watching my kids interact with her and felt good all over again about our choice to homeschool.

Every day feels like a good day to homeschool.  Somedays I feel overwhelmed and under-qualified, but at the end of the day, when I look at them sleeping in their beds, I am so glad I had the whole day with them!

The Case for Rebellion

THE CASE FOR REBELLION

While driving home from the grocery store today, I had was listening to Dennis Prager (pragerradio.com).  He is a favorite talk show host of mine and always seems to give me something interesting to think about.  Today was his "Ask Me Anything" hour and someone called in with the question of why teens and college students do not revolt against the "system" like they did in the 60's.  After all, isn't that what kids this age are supposed to do?  It turns out that, yes, this is what they are supposed to to do, and, according to Prager, this is a good thing.  I found his answer insightful.