FREE STUFF!!!!

Click here to get some free wooden nickles to show support for our troops! You can also get a free ebook from this link. Enjoy!

Did dinosaurs really go extinct?

Jonathan just finished a fictional book about dinosaurs that got him to thinking about them. He started asking tons of "what if" questions, so we just looked up dinosaurs on the internet.

This is an interesting site. I haven't verified everything here, but most of it is all over the web.

And here is the popular dinosaur(s) in Congo.

Oh, great.

We're about to leave for our vacation soon, so we are trying to get a lot done this week. Jonathan is NOT a good helper around the house, unfortunately, so I thought that when he started whining and telling me he felt bad that he was just trying to get out of helping. (There have been a couple of cartoons on recently where the kids fake being sick so they can stay home from school. Gee, thanks for giving him that idea.)

First he told me he wasn't feeling well, then his tummy hurt, then he finally said he thought he had a fever. I was about fed up with it but thought to myself that if he really is sick and I just keep blowing him off, I would really feel bad. So I humored him and felt his head. He was burning up! I took his temp with a thermometer and it was 101.6, so I gave him some Tylenol.

So here  we are, about to leave on vacation, and Jonathan has a fever! These things usually only last 1 or 2 days, so he will probably feel fine by the time we leave, but if it's contageous, we could all have it while we are ON vacation! *GROAN*

Please pray for us; for our health, safe travels, great family memories, etc. If I don't get a chance to post again before we leave, I assure you I will have PLENTY to write about when we get home!

Oh, something cute Jacob said yesterday that I wanted to share. I was getting them all loaded up in the van to go to AWANAS and Myles was giving each of them one bar of his KitKat candy bar. He didn't say anything about it, he just gave it to them one at a time when they least expected it. (He likes to surprise them that way.) He gave one to Jacob and as we were closing the doors about to drive away, Jacob said "That was so thoughtful of Daddy!" It was sweet. He's finally just getting to where we can really understand almost everything he says and now he's using big words like that. :) A few weeks ago he was telling me about a dragon in a cartoon that was a "friendly dragon". The way he says 'friendly' was just too cute. I know, it's not as cute to everyone else, but I just had to put it on the blog! :)

Now for some of those pictures Jacob just took

Jonathan, humoring his brother.

Jack, just after being woken up from Jacob taking pictures of everyone. This is where he sleeps. In the corner of our king-size Temper-Pedic bed, between me and a pile of laundry. :)

And this is me, TRYING to sleep a little longer!

And a self-portrait. He was pretty proud of this one.

I think Jayla was still asleep, and the kittens must have been out of the room at the time. There were a few other pictures, but most of them turned out blurry. He's getting much better at centering them though!

Another Jacobism

He's so full of them these days! I just wish I could remember them all!

He was taking pictures this morning.

Jacob: Jonathan! Cheeeeese!

(long pause)

Jacob: SAY CHEESE!

Jonathan: (not very enthused) Cheese.

F L A S H !

Jacob: (in a sweet, babyish voice) You are SO CUTE!

Jacobism

I was making eggs today while Jacob watched. I explained the simple process as I scrambled them and started cooking them.

The boys are always playing some kind of super hero imaginitive play, and they frequently watch movies, cartoons and read books about super heroes, so he is very familiar with many of them.

I finished cooking the scrambled eggs and started making them into egg sandwiches. He was very hungry and very excited about the whole process, so squealing with excitement he said "I get a Dare Devil sandwich!"

I wasn't even making deviled eggs, but okay. If that's what he wants to call it!

So how does unschooling actually work?

I often get asked this question, and though the person asking usually has no interest in actually unschooling their own children, I am happy to share some specific examples from my own children's learning experiences to give them an idea. I also tell them that it really is hard to understand, nearly impossible for some, unless you've done it yourself for a while because it is so much more than an education style, it is a LIFEstyle. Unschooling does not equal un-educating or un-parenting, but quite the opposite!

Sorry this is so long, but if you are really interested in how unschooling works, I think you'll enjoy the read. :)

The main "subjects" that most people are concerned about in the early years are science, math and reading. My two "school-aged" kids are 6 and 8, which would be 1st and 3rd grade, so I will give examples for the two of them. Most preschoolers are unschooled already! I think it's kind of funny that when children turn the magical age of 5, they suddenly have to "do school" to learn!

Science:
Well, the science is easy because my kids explore everything all the time. They love anything and everything in nature, so it all just comes naturally. We sometimes do "unnatural" things though, like experiments with vinegar and baking soda, for example. (I just say that is unnatural because you probably won't find the two mixing in nature!) We have in the past (I need to do this again and post the recipes) made the most awesome play-do and floam! We get experiments off the internet too, like the mentos and diet soda. That was a blast! Literally! LOL! Messy, but fun! (Check out that site for tons of awesome experiments!)

Other "sciency" things include taking care of our pets. Jonathan has a toad right now that he is taking care of. He is supposed to be taking notes about it every day to closely monitor his health (one of the compromises for letting him keep it as a pet), but he is not doing so well with that, so we may have to let it go soon. We don't want a wild little creature dying in our care just because of neglect! :( But they have also watched a dog and a cat give birth to new puppies and kittens, caught numerous snakes in our yard over the last three years (Jonathan can easily identify the venomous ones now, and I'm not scared of snakes anymore!), and use field guides to identify birds, wild edible plants (and poisonous ones), reptiles, trees and other things. This is just part of my kids' science that they do in an unschooling fashion. I don't think we've ever really done any kind of structured science unless you count the experiments, but they don't know it is "science", they just think it's great fun!

Math:
Math is easy too. My kids count everything! When Jayla was three/four years old, they would lay in bed at night and count to 100 out loud in funny voices! LOL! She was probably four before she could get to 100 without skipping numbers, but she picked up on it fairly quickly just be "playing" with her brother. They also play games in the van where you get points for certain things. This teaches addition, subtraction and often times multiplication and division. A specific example is one game called the "Mustang game". For every mustang they call, they get one point. Also there are two points for Corvettes, three for Hummers and ten for Mustang Cobras! So sometimes they may see two Corvettes and add the 2 + 2 or sometimes they multiply 2 x 2....you get the idea. They have been playing this game for a very long time now, like since Jayla could barely speak! Well, I guess we started it with Jonathan when he was very young. :) They play other similar games and are very good at basic math. Jonathan was even doing some multiplication and division when he was 6 years old, and now Jayla is doing some on her own. If they need to use it for something, they can usually figure it out on their own! It's pretty cool watching them as they learn how to calculate different things on their own.

Oh, I have a funny story relating to math. Since we don't really do any written work, they don't always know what the different signs look like. We were at the doctor's office the other day. They had to read an eye chart and all three of them called the plus sign an "X". LOL! Now some of you may be thinking "There! That's the reason you should do seated, written work!" Well, what other times in life do they need to know what a plus sign is though? The nurse knew what they meant. They didn't fail the test. As far as when they go to college, well, they'll know it all by then just by seeing it from time to time, and whatever they don't know, they can pick up in about 5 minutes if they *need* to know it. Does that make sense? Like I was telling someone a few days ago, I don't want to torture my kids for hours or days just to teach them how to make an outline and write a report because they *might* need it for college someday and then have to reteach it next year because they have forgotten, but instead, I will let them pick it up much faster when they are actually ready to use that skill. It really makes my life easier as the "teacher", and the kids all love to learn and learn from everything they do!

Reading:
Okay, this is easy to give examples for too. :) Jonathan taught himself to read starting at age 3. Seriously, I didn't help him hardly at all! The only thing I did would be to occasionally ask him "Can you tell me what that sign says?" or something like that, or I would help him sound out a word if he asked me, but honestly, he completely taught himself. How? Those Leap Frog DVDs are wonderful! He didn't even have to watch them very many times. He picked up on the "rules" from watching each episode just a couple of times each! (You can get them at Toys R Us and Wal-Mart....places like that for around $10 each.) He would read the warning signs on all kinds of products and then he would inform me of the "rules" for a particular item. He read street and store signs constantly. One time we were driving by a pharmacy that had Rx on the building when he asked me. "Mommy, what does (sounded it out) 'Rrrrr-x' mean?" LOL! The DVDs helped Jayla as well, but she didn't have the "need" to read, therefore it wasn't as important for her to pick up on so quickly. Jonathan reads everything to her, so if something comes up on TV or a sign while driving down the road, she just has him read it to her. Smart girl, if you ask me! She is reading now, but she is still slowly sounding out small words. And she really loves more structured activities, so I will sit down with her sometimes and help her sound out words and read books, or she will sometimes do Wal-Mart type workbooks. There are also lots of computer games online that she loves. One of her favorites is Starfall. She was just playing that this evening. :)

We were at Toys R Us earlier today for the Thomas the Train playdate. While there, Jayla and Jacob both played on the Smart Cycle. I am thinking about getting one for Christmas! Jayla is almost too old for it (if you go by the age on the box, she is too old already), but she's definitely still small enough for it. She loved it and did really well! Jacob though, being much younger and on the lower end of the age level, really was learning. He had to tag the letters of the alphabet while pedaling down the track, and sometimes he had to skip letters because they were not the right ones. He was really catching on and doing well!

So these are just a few of the ways my children learn in these various "subjects". We don't really divide everything into subjects because it is all intertwined in real life. For example, when they spot a Mustang Cobra, it is usually because they read the word "Cobra" on the back of the car and/or they identify the snake on the side or front.....math, science and reading all at the same time! Another example is when they make a recipe. There is reading involved by looking at the written recipe, math by measuring and even includes fractions, multiplying (to double or triple the recipe) or dividing, and science by mixing everything together and see what comes out! Spelling comes through reading and by Myles and I setting a good example. Some children are just better spellers than others too, so even with great examples and a lot of reading, some kids just don't get it, and that's okay! Jonathan still can't spell our last name (LOL!), but he is really good at spelling most things. Problem solving happens every day, when they have to decide which shoes would be most appropriate for certain activities, while they build with Legos or when they are having a disagreement and need to come up with a compromise. This is a good example of how unschooling is a lifestyle. We let them (for the most part....there may be a few exceptions) decide what to wear, solve conflicts on their own and strategize to come up with the best solution for something they are creating. I think it is safe to say that most attentive parents do these things a lot, but it is a lifestyle because we make a conscious effort to do these type of things on a regular basis, not just when we think about it or when we don't really care what they look like when we go out. (They are often wearing stained play clothes and are dirty from playing outside!)

Other things off the top of my head. Penmanship. The kids both like to scrapbook, and they do their own journaling. Granted, at their ages, they don't really journal a lot, but they do get their own handwriting down in history and their own memories. :) I love it! They also write thank you letters (not nearly enough because Mommy is terrible about that!) and will sometimes make lists of things, like a Christmas or birthday wish list. Jonathan will write super-hero stories or jot down the names and powers of various super-heroes he has created. Honestly, they probably write more than I do! I mostly type on the computer! LOL! Geography. Jonathan has recently started collecting world maps. He loves them! We play a fun little game where one of us will look at the map (or globe) and pick out a place then the other has to find it. Now, we may not remember where certain places are the next day, but they are getting an idea of how big the world is. When they *need* to know where a place is, they look it up! They don't need to memorize the state capitols (for example) at this point in their lives. I learned them all at one point but only remember a few, so what's the point unless they are going to use them? Language. Again, they learn proper use of language (such as no double negatives!!!) by proper examples. For foreign language, they already know almost as much Spanish as I do just from watching Spanish-speaking cartoons, and I had three years of it in high school! I just don't remember much of it because I almost never use it. Jayla surprised Myles the other day when she counted to 10 in Spanish. We went out to CiCi's Pizza, and they will spurt out "Uno! Dos! Tres!" and then something else, I think whenever a pizza is ready. I'm not really sure why they do that! LOL! But Jayla continued on after tres and went all the way to diez! Yea!!! All this from those little kid cartoons like Dora. Oh, and there are lots of Spanish-speaking toys out now too!

So there you have it. I would be here several more hours if I wrote down everything that came to mind. Some final thoughts, if you are still reading....unschooling really is a lifestyle. It teaches (naturally) the child self-discipline and self-directed learning. If we as parents tried to step in and make decisions for them or stop them from making mistakes or experimenting with certain things on their own because it is "too messy", it would hinder their learning. As stated previously (above), preschool-aged children are almost always unschooled without the parents even realizing it; babies figure out on their own how to sit, crawl and walk, they learn to talk by listening to others and imitating, etc. Even if there is some structured activity, it is usually PLAY of some sort, whether it is sorting colored bears into cups, coloring all the circles green or sorting out various types of beads according to size, shape and/or color, if it is something the child wants to do and enjoys doing or something they use regularly, they will retain what they are learning. That's really the basis of unschooling. The child is allowed to follow their interests and therefore they retain more. They also will retain the things that they use daily, such as how to brush their teeth or put away laundry. The things that they do not use regularly or are not interested in, such as learning all the presidents' names or memorizing the Preamble of the Constitution, they will not retain usually, so why waste their time, and mine!

So now hopefully you can understand why it is so hard to sum up unschooling in one or two sentences. If I could do that, I would have to say it is "helping my kids to learn through everyday life the things they WANT to know about and the things they NEED to know about." I'm not sure if that is adequate, but it's the best I can do in one sentence. :)

Pretty funny!

I really don't like to get into politics, but I thought I'd share this link. Enjoy!
http://www.redstate.com/diaries/redstate/2008/aug/30/tale-of-the-tape-sarah-palin-vs-barack-obam/

Funny fruit!

My good friend, Sasha, in Oregon grew a very interesting tomato this year. She named it Fred.
Isn't that hilarious?! :) So right after I saw the picture, we went out to pick some of our own okra, and whadayaknow! We have some funny fruit too! (Yes, okra is also a fruit.) It's not quite as funny as Fred the Tomato, but I've never seen one this curly before!

Jacob thought it tasted pretty good, despite its funny appearance.

Wednesday PE

Well, I'm up because Jack woke up and was very restless, so after finally getting him back to sleep, I am wide awake! What to do, what to do.....BLOG! Dishes can always wait. :)

I had to kind of take a break from the internet for a couple of days. Not a complete break, but I mostly just kept up with my email and stayed away as much as possible from blogs. I get sucked in too easily! So I am just now getting to the pictures from Wednesday. The kids ended up not going to AWANAS. That day was actually my birthday, so they stayed home and we just hung out together. It was fun!

Here they are in PE class. This was their 2nd time, and they totally love it! (I'm not really sure why some of the pictures look green!)

Thanks to my good friend Holly (also unschoolers), who also has a little boy who is not old enough for PE, Jacob always has something to play with. :)
They played this game with bowling pins and balls where everyone each got one pin each. The two teams had to try and knock each other's pins down while guarding their own. It was really interesting to see all the different strategies. Holly's daughter and Jayla paired up and would take turns. One would guard both pins while the other would go knock the other team's pins down with the ball. Clever! They played it safe while still being able to attack. They were a good team together and really trusted each other!

Jonathan chose to be on his own (he paired with Holly's older son last week) and preferred a more challenging approach. I even asked him later why he chose to be out in the middle of the court and he said he likes it to be more challenging. He did get out a lot faster, but he really enjoyed it! He said one of his teammates accidentally knocked his pin down again. LOL! 

Jayla is a very athletic girl, but she's very small. She couldn't really jump very far, but she had fun trying. :)

I'm not sure what she tells them at the end of class. They did play other games as well. One of their favorites is the "Bear" game where a few of the kids wear green targets and they are bears chasing everyone else. When someone gets tagged, they have to go to the middle and wait for another non-bear (not sure what they are called) to come get them out. I guess it's very similar to freeze tag only there are several people who are "it". Jayla was just DYING to be a bear this week, and they both got to!

Frolicky Friday

Well, honestly, today we didn't get to play much at all. :( We're about to leave for vacation soon, and there is a long list of things that we would really like to have done before we leave. So I already had everyone working hard when Myles arrived home, and then he made them work harder on something totally different. We did manage to get a little play time in though.

I played just a bit of catch football with Jacob. I always have a few minutes here and there throughout the day to play with Jack (making noises, funny faces, walking him, etc.), but the most fun we've had today all together is right now. The kids worked hard today, so they are having a slumber party! They have lights and are going through the dark house hunting a "crystal" of some sort. Myles is scaring them. I guess he's some kind of monster or something, but I already knew that. :) So they are running back to him for more every couple of minutes and then they run back in here screaming. I'm just guarding Jack as I type, but I'm starting to feel sad because I'm missing out on all the fun! Gotta go join in now. :)

Oh, a couple pix really fast. Here they are enjoying some ice cream, a rare treat that they got for doing such a great job today, and also part of the slumber party fun. :)

Have fun playing with your kids!

Right now Jack (14 months) is playing with a plastic spoon, using it as a drum, and a big piece of plastic. It's like the clear plastic that covers packages. I'm not sure where he got it, but he is making all kinds of music with it.

Jacob (3) is building a train track and playing with the train set. He sleeps with it sometimes. LOL!

Jayla (6) is spritzing some body spray on the back of Jack's head. This is little girl "glamour" stuff that she got when she spent the week with her Aunt Amy in TX. They did all kinds of girly things together. :)

Jonathan has about 30 or so little tiny clay pots. He is stacking them, lining them up and trying not to break any more!

That's about it for this moment! I think I'll go make us all something to eat now. :)

Another symptom....

While reading something on paper, if you instinctively want to press 'control' + 'F' to find a certain word, there is another sign that you've been on the computer WAY too much.

Oh, boy.

You know you've been on the computer way too much lately if you mistake the orange square light on the dash board for an RSS feed icon.

Tuesday activities

This year all of our activities are in two days. So tonight we started with ballet. Jayla is a little nervous being the youngest and tiniest one, but she loves it! Nevermind the boots....she changed just before class began. :) This is her first year in a "real" ballet class, not a "little kid" ballet/tap class. We'll see how she handles it, but so far so good!

 

Next was Girl Scouts (Jayla is the only one wearing her blue tunic!)

 

and Cub Scouts. (Jonathan is on the right with no hat, Jacob is two to his right facing the camera....he was in and out a couple of times.)

 

These are both at the same time and same location! This is Jayla's first year for GS after trying American Heritage Girls last year (we loved it but it didn't work out well with our schedule) and Jonathan's 3rd year for CS.

Thankfully there is a nice playground outside for the two younger boys.

 

 

 

Jack decided grass really doesn't taste as good as it looks,

 

but the climbing was totally awesome!

 

And I just HAD to get some close-ups of their cute little faces before it got too dark. (I don't like to use the flash.) It's amazing what a little editing can do. Don't they just make you melt? :)

 

 

 

Superheroes of all kinds!

Jonathan has been playing on Marvel Kids lately, and these are all of his creations!

Another new pet

Myles found a little toad in our yard yesterday while it was raining. Jonathan loves all kinds of animals but especially reptiles and amphibians, so he begged to keep it. So the deal is that he needs to keep a notebook every day and jot down little thing about the toad like what he ate, if anything, his color, activity, etc. just to make sure he is staying healthy. If at any point we think he is getting sick, we will let him go in the yard, back in his natural environment.

But for now he is loving the aquarium he is in. We took some dry topsoil from our yard (it has a lot of small wood chips in it), and it is completely hidden in it! The first time it hid, we thought he had somehow escaped because he was so camoflauged!

Can you see him in the upper right corner? Try finding him when he is BURRIED in it!

 

 

 

Any guesses on what type of toad this is? Myles and Jonathan have narrowed it down. I haven't looked it up yet.

It rained yesterday.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wildflowers

I love wildflowers, and so do my kids! We were driving out in the country and I just had to pull over and let them pick some.

 

 

Jayla was pulling Jacob's hand back to protect him from getting pricked on the purple flowers!

 

 

 

These sunflowers at our house are around 11-12 feet tall now! The only problem with them is that they are not out in the country (along with us, of course). Someday!

 

S E P T E M B E R F E S T

Whew! Now that I've got a few "regular" readers, I've slowed down on blogging! HA! Well, I'll try to catch up tonight, or, um, this morning. I've got nearly 200 pictures from the weekend!

Septemberfest is an annual tradition in our family. We go every year and it keeps getting better and better! Which is why I think this year was kind of a let-down. We keep expecting bigger and better things, and there really wasn't anything bigger and better this year. In fact, the free pop the Boy Scouts served all day long, in two different stands, all tasted horrible, so I can honestly say that it really wasn't as fun or as memorable as last year. :( We did still have a good time though, don't get me wrong! Here are a few pictures of our day.

Here they are getting the opportunity to do something they rarely get to do since we homeschool.....wait in line!

Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy!

And this is what they waited in line for.....the EuroBungy Trampoline!!!!!! See Jonathan on the one in the background?

He's in the background here too!

Then I ran around to the other side and caught Jacob flying HIGH in the background! I was cracking up! He looks so tiny here!

Here is a close-up. He looks like he is bouncing higher than the rock-climbing wall!

And Jayla looks like she is standing on top of the tent. :)

Will she ever grow? :) Actually, she may be tiny, but she is quick and powerful!

I love it when Jonathan concentrates. The stick-out-the-tongue method always seems to help. He was twisting twine here to make a rope.

I will spare you the other 159 photos, but they did many other FREE activities such as milking a cow, playing on antique tractors and a very old steam engine, running through an obstacle course and other inflatables, listened to a storyteller, climb on a fire engine and played laser tag. Jacob actually got to play laser tag this year, but I had to go in with him. It was also Jayla's first time for this. They all loved it, even though they could barely hold up the gun!

We all got our fill of free food and drinks. The boys said that the hotdogs weren't really very good and even the ketchup was runny, but the whole wheat cinnamon rolls, chocolate milk, watermelon salsa and the peanuts (they usually make fresh peanut butter) were all delicious! We brought home all kinds of recipes, paper activities (coloring, crafts, etc.), advertisements for pumpkin patches, pick-your-own farms, etc. I've definitely got plenty of reading material to last a while!

Okay, here are a couple more pictures I just have to add. Jacob asked the man sitting by the steam engine how it worked. He very patiently told Jacob exactly how it worked, and Jacob listened politely to every word! Then later he asked the fireman if he could please ride on the fire fighter truck. :)