Saturday, February 16, 2013

Week of February 11, 2013

Awesome Flow:


As usual, the girls spent this Monday with my parents.  My dad taught Allie how to solder and with his tutelage and supervision she created the nail polish holder.  Piper worked with my mom to create the reversible American Girl doll shirt, belt and headband.  Thanks to my mom for sending me these photos!!!


Tuesday was one of those awesome days where everything just flowed and was awesome and wonderful and amazing.  It's those rare days that are just what I envisioned when we made the decision to homeschool.  We reviewed our Latin roots; the girls each did some MindBenders and worked on Pet Shop Math; we read a little about the artist, Winslow Homer, that we are studying and studied some of his paintings.  Then the girls came to work with me, Allie was inspired by Lauren to work on a poster of a famous person (she is not quite done, I will post more when she is!) and the girls spent 4 hours creating Valentine's in the Library craft room using bits of supplies that were left over from other projects.  Additionally, I had the opportunity to do something nice for someone, something beyond the scope of my job and I think that was a big part of making all the difference for me in that day, as well.

Ipad Apps, Videos & Library Books:

Completely on their own the girls found this game, Free Flow and downloaded it to their ipads and spend hours playing it.  Problem solving, logic, spatial relations....what is not to love?

They have also been spending hours playing What's That Word on their ipads.  This is a game a friend told them about and they are now addicted.  

We have finished 3 of the 4 volumes of Story of the World and are reviewing what we learned with videos from the BIG library (a library in another town that we pass on the way to some of our activities, it's much bigger and has MANY more resources than our town library).  We've tried several videos on ancient civilizations and really found the Ancient Civilizations for Children to be our favorite, even if the guy is slightly goofy, the way the material is presented is more interesting than some of the other videos.  

We have been learning about the life of Winslow Homer and studying his paintings.  


 Yoga

We found a pretty cool Yoga series for kids on Netflix that the girls did a few times this week.  Yoga Skills for Youth Peace Makers.

Shakespeare

The girls are really enjoying their Shakespeare class at co-op.  In fact, it's their favorite thing that they are learning right now.  This week they read Romeo & Juliet and watched the movie with Clare Danes and Leonardo DiCarprio in preparation for the class.  It was pretty darn awesome!

Other Stuff...

We spent a lot of time learning about and following the stories of this asteroid that whizzed by Earth yesterday; then we questioned whether the meteor that came into the atmosphere in Russia was somehow related to the asteroid, it does not seem to be the case but we still wonder if the asteroid stirred stuff up, forced the meteor closer.  We are still reading the stories coming in!

There was also a lot of videomaking and editing.
Script writing for a play starring all of their friends.
Manga drawing.
Rosetta Stone Spanish (yes, this was at my request)
Researching small animals and trips to the pet store-one of Allie's goldfish got fin rot, even though she changed the filter a couple of weeks ago; we bought some anti-bacterial stuff but the fish still died :(  It's been a learning experience for sure!
Minecraft-a good friend is now hosting his own 'world' on Minecraft and has become a source of information especially since the girls saved their money for the paid version.
Building of a Newton meter-we are realizing that Allie loves building things!
Baking - the girls baked some treats for us this week!

Latin Connecting - we are moving more toward interest-led learning at times, but I still have some requirements such as math and Latin.  This week, Allie came to me and said she understood why I thought knowing the Latin roots was so important.  She had come across a word that she did not know the meaning of, but since we study Latin roots, she was able to decode the word.  Neither of us can remember what the word was now--but it was a cool moment!

In My Life: Friends

The plus side of a super busy schedule outside the home this term has meant more time connecting with friends in a way that I have not had since I was in college!  I guess between work and parenting I just didn't spend as much time with friends.  Now, we meet for coffee while our kids are in choir or we sit and chat over salads and garden plans while they are in art class or we just sit around and talk at co-op. These types of times together lead to ideas--like, "Let's have a bonfire on Saturday night!" and everyone present volunteers to bring something and boom!  Tonight we are going to a bonfire!  Or, we all want to know more about our astrological charts and someone knows someone and boom!  a party is set up over an iphone for us to all get our charts done over wine and cheese in a few weeks.  Or, someone knows someone who spins wool and said they would teach our kids to do it and we are all free one Saturday at 3pm, a quick email is sent over a phone and boom!  We have booked a class for the kids...and us moms want to learn so why not have a wine and cheese party and learn to spin--Boom!  Set for a Friday evening!  

Our social calendar is filling up!  Normally this kind of thing stresses me out.  I am introvert, I NEED time alone at home with a book, a cup of herbal tea and a bowl of air-popped corn to refuel and recharge my battery.  But, for some reason, I am excited by these plans.  I am invigorated by them.  I have not felt this way since college, and I think it has something to do with these women being like my college friends, open-minded free-thinkers who like to talk about ideas and are not caught up in the material keeping-up that seemed to dominate some of my friendships after I had kids.  Being with these women refuels and recharges me.  There are plans for camping and water-tubing this spring, a road trip to Plimouth and Salem planned...AND I CAN'T WAIT!!