Saturday, March 9, 2013

I got mud in my boots mom, and other tales


Luckily I'm not one of those people who needs a plan to get things done.  Actually I'm pretty used to waiting until the last minute and cramming.  That must just be how I operate, I think it's a Right-Brained personality trait.

Not that a plan wouldn't be helpful.  But I'm more of a
dive-in/trial-and-error type learner than a
research-the-perfect-solution-and do-it-right-up-front 
kind of person.

So I see us experimenting with different schedules, structures and programs for the rest of the year.  And then hopefully having a clue about what we're doing and where we're going next year.

I'm getting closer to understanding what we need out of homeschooling.  I've broadly defined success as: happy and monetarily self sustaining.

Basically I'm just trying to teach my kids to be happy and provide for themselves.  That doesn't sound so hard.  But I've been known to f up easy tasks before, gullible and oblivious I am.  

We're Ninja Turtles



She's never seen the movie, but I imagine Nala like Aurora in Sleeping Beauty, surrounded by animals in the forest, singing to them as birds land on her fingers and baby squirrels prance over her shoulders.


I caught them sleeping together


Even on the snow day we held homeschool.  Why not?  The kids like it.


The neighbors had a snow man kit


Kaio built a snow penguin



Then Kaio's vertically challenged snowman.  He's all about short cuts.  Just like me.  If I can get the job done in a third of the time and call it a day. done.


Nala's first snowman.  "I want to take her inside so she doesn't melt."


I promised them I'd make cupcakes if it snowed.  My cupcakes resemble Kaio's snowman don't they?


This is the schedule from one of our homeschool days.  I'm trying to integrate Eastern medicine and philosophy into our studies.  Since the most basic principle of oriental medicine is the theory of yin and yang, I've been introducing this through talking about opposites.   I'm trying to get them to notice the dualities in life.  There are tons of Star Wars moments which capture this, so our discussion kept Kaio's interest long enough for him to get it.  Next week I'll build on by playing with magnets.


At the Reston Walker Nature center I perused a book on cartography for children.  Before 7 years old kids' maps usually revolve around their interests.  The author said asking kids to draw a map from their house to their school, or somewhere else recognizable like that was a really fun activity.  I've always loved maps.  So I tried this and I asked Kaio to draw a map of something, like from home to school.  He started by making the Millinium Falcon on route to the Death Star.  He added some planets and a meteor belt, and a couple dotted lines for which way to go.  Ok, a map. cool. he did it.  But then he started drawing a battle with tie fighters shooting lasers at the Millinium Falcon.  I felt a little irritated that he had gotten distracted from the mapping activity and just began drawing.  But, then I realized that he was making a real-time map, like google traffic!  It's the future of maps, maps that tell you where the battles are so you can plan accordingly.


Thursday we took a field trip Widewater off the C&O Canal, at Angler's Point.  I wanted to check out a spot where, god willing, I'll be holding Stand Up Paddleboard Yoga classes this summer.



The spot is beautiful, but it was very windy when we went.  I'm worried too windy for SUP yoga.


The kids know I'm crazy about moss.


Beautiful blue herons frequent Widewater and this one was not shy with us.


We scurried up some rocks for a homeschool perch.





We've taken three trips out to play at homeschool meetups and the kids have a blast.  They always leave saying the funnest part of their day was playing with the "homeschool kids."




At home, I asked them to draw more maps.  Kaio made a starfighter.  I think it's more like a product design print, but ok.


Nala: "The reindeer is going to land in the sunny of the rainbow of the little animal of the garden of the prettiest place in all of reindeer land"  (the reindeer is her, by the way)


We stumbled upon a DK anatomy book at the library and Kaio's fascinated.  He wanted to build layers of skin out of clay.  Although when I broke out the clay he found that a little daunting and decided to make food instead, explaining that food goes into your body and becomes your skin.  We've been reading the Magic School Bus human body book all last week, so this fit right in.  I also showed them the TMBG Blood Mobile song , which was fun.


Nala made a Chipotle burrito, "I like white rice, black beans, carne, guacamole, and a little bit of spicy things."


She loves stomping in puddles.




I got mud in my boots mom.


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