Tuplips, Toddlers, and Teachable Moments!

Hello everyone and I hope that there is someone at least reading this blog! :) Today I was out at the park with Julie and her kidos and we were letting the little ones play on the playground. My Lily, fearless and curious as she is, needed me to constantly watch her! She always does, so its no surprise. As usual she was eating more things then she should, dirt, sticks, rocks, etc. As I sat there thinking about how hard it is to always be trying to keep her out of things, I realized that she offered so many opportunities for me to teach her. Thats right, teach! I realized that I should be telling her about dirt (shes trying to learn about it anyway), I should tell her the color name, the textures, what grows in it, what lives it (dont eat the ant, the ant lives in the dirt). I realized that it takes more time, but think of all that she will grow up learning! At home, instead of grabbing her and yelling no when she tears apart the flowers, I should let her look and touch, I should tell her the colors she is seeing, tell her about the smells and the bees, etc. If I can really do that, first of all I'm a better parent because I'm encouraging her and paying attention to her, and second of all I'll have helped her love to learn and want to try new things (not just be afraid that mom will come racing over to yell at her! lol). To me that is what homeschooling is all about~ loving the learning and have a real excitement about life! So remember to embrace those teachable moments, not just for the older kids, but the little ones to. They are capable of far more learning then we sometimes give them credit for! Remember, Have FUN! :)

Miss Liberty!!!

Well I thought I would update the blog while Carly and James are out an adventure and I am home with Lily ( both of us are sick). We have started our around the world discovery days and so far its been fun! We are of course starting with the USA. and Carly now knows that it is called the United States of America! :) Yesterday we talked about the statue of Liberty and she really like her! So our craft was to make the torch and the crown. Carly was kinda into it and I wasnt sure how much she was paying attention, but when I put the crown on her and she held the torch, she stood just like Lady Liberty! It was so cute! I took one pic, but she told me that it was wrong cause she needed to hold a book too. After she got a book she made me take the pic again!

So she was paying attention! It always good when you realize that they do listen to you after all! :)

Another cute thing happened this week, Carly has decided that her life's calling is to be a teacher and teach babies! :) So she set up a school in the playroom and proceeded to teach her babies. She read stories, wrote "words" up on the little chalk board she had, and taught them to wash their hands! It was really cute to watch. I did however see bits and pieces of the lectures I give her repeated to her "kids" about sharing and being nice! 4 Year olds are SO CUTE! I hope you all are remembering to have fun too! :)

Preperation, Preperation!

Well we finished our Bird discovery days here! We had a ton of fun! Carly wanted to know why we did all the projects. She even said that she wanted her next birthday party to be a bird birthday! lol I guess that means it was successful! :)

So with that done I'm on to a ton of preparations! We are starting our Around the World Discovery this week. I have finally gotten my plans written down and I have been keeping the Library in business single handedly! We are starting with the USA and then moving down to Mexico. The Unit Study will take us about 8 weeks with one country a week. We have our books to ready for the next two weeks. I hope she likes it. It was her idea, so I think that she will. Each week we are going to color a paper doll, and glue it, and the flag into a "passport". We will do all of this on the first day. We are also going to look at art from the culture and we are going to cook their food. Carly told me that she wanted to learn about different kinds of people and eat like them, and write about them. So thats the plan here. Now I just need to get a world map for the wall so she can see where the countries are at in relation to each other. Any ideas of where to get a good one?

The other preparations that I'm working on is the Healthy Eating Discovery that we are doing with Julie and Caroline. We are going to learn about healthy food and what food does for our bodies! This was inspired by the "Food Revolution" show with Jamie Oliver! He showed why chicken nuggets aren't healthy by showing how they are made! Yikes! I will never eat another chicken nugget ever! lol

So that is what is happening here! There is of course the Easter Preparations to do here. The Easter Bunny comes tomorrow and Carly is Super excited! I dont know if she'll make it! lol She loves holidays! Well Happy Easter to all of you! I hope that you all have a great and blessed holiday!

So...Blog Huh?

Hi everyone,

My mom and I are kinda sharing this blog thing. I'm not really sure what I'm doing so you'll have to be understanding. Also I cant spell worth a crap! lol (and I tend to use some text speak). So I guess that I just post every so often to let you know what is happening in my little homeschool land! :)

Right now, Carly and I are doing Unit Studies and we are taking the unschooling approach to finding the next idea! This week and probably next we are doing our Bird Discovery Days! Which is all about birds. So far, we have visited the Black Swap Bird Observiory (thanks Julie), and the Ottowa National Wildlife Refuge. We have seen a bunch of birds and she has drawn several Pictures in her field notes (some without throwing her pencil once! Thats big for us!). On Wed. we made a nest out of clay and collect things all around the yard that birds whould use to make a nest. Then I found some blue green play dough in the cupboard, so she got some eggs too! Today we acctually started to read some of the HUGE stack of bird stories I got out at the library! We also practiced number recognization ans counting with sunflower seeds (birds eat them), and we did feather painting. The feather painting was fun, but Carly didnt really get that she was supposed to make lines with her feather, so she used it as a paint brush. What she ended up with looked like a nest, so we just made eggs in it with her thumb! :) It was pretty cool looking! After that she went to play with her new ideas (like Sid the Science Kid). She was a bird all afternoon. She made nests out of heir ribbons (and some of my craft ribbon too) and she used the eggs from her kitchen stuff, and she flew around looking for worms. I noticed that she was on the stairs alot and asked her why. She told me that her nest was on the steps cause it was like a branch in the trees and she didnt want the really big bird to come and eat her and her baby birds! lol I guess she is learning after all! Yeah!

Welcome

I just checked out the web site and I think it is great. We are trying to support each other as we educate our children at home. We also want to encourage those who may not be able to home school, because they are still educating their children at home too. This site is set up for each of us and is meant to be a tool to learn and grow together. We may not always have the same ideas or methods, but respect for each other's differences and gifts is a key element to great communication. I think that is our main goal. To have a place where we can meet, communicate, and share ideas, so that we can fufill our vocations as mothers and teachers. I HOPE that this is the place for you.