Records

It's a good thing that we live in a state with few homeschooling requirements. If I had to document everything (like the box-checker side of me wishes I did), then we'd be in trouble. I have 4 places that I sometimes use to describe school: here, my Sonlight Instructor's Guide, Home School Tracker + software, and our A Record of the Learning Lifestyle book. My last post here, on 10/23, was the most recent documentation that I have done. But never fear, we have been doing some awesome learning! Life has been interesting, exciting, and yes, sometimes even boring, but a day hasn't gone by where at least one of us, if not all 5 of us, haven't learned something.

In no particular order, here are some recent activities and topics of conversation:

• Homeschoolopoly - money counting, financing (borrowing & interest), percentage
• vocabulary - often from listening to books on tape such as Geronimo Stilton and Magic Tree House
• a 1880's county fair
• science (particularly physics) on a playground (several times)
• reading (them, not just me)
• School House Rock Jr live performance
• Tiger Cub Scouts
• "What's a coffin?" which led to quite a discussion about death, the body and soul/spirit, and heaven
• "Is heaven in outer space?"
• dancing
• a Halloween party
• making music with various household items not originally intended to be musical instruments
• watching plowing and planting
• watching houses being built
• meeting and welcoming new neighbors
• creating a maze
• trip to a pumpkin patch with a corn maze and a milo maze
• decorating pumpkins for Halloween
• coming up with a "not scary" costume
• trick-or-treating
• helping Grandpa with his wheelchair and walker regularly at his weekly outpatient appointment and at the dentist
• standing in line for 20 minutes (and staying fairly calm and well behaved!)
• recycling
• calling a friend on the telephone
• memorization
• discussing even and odd numbers
• building levels in a computer game
• taking photos
• having our portraits taken
• eating out at a fancy restaurant
• measuring and pouring ingredients for lunch
• discovering a new channel on TV (Discovery Kids)
• helping at a book fair
• staying in church instead of going to the nursery
• Wednesday night Kid Zone (without a parent anywhere near)
• jigsaw puzzles
• printing
• I Spy books and computer game
• creating elaborate train track layouts
• loading and unloading the dishwasher
• setting and clearing the table
• putting away clean clothes
• finding a lost remote control
• playing well with kids they'd never met before
• Speed Stacks (stacking cups)
• negotiating with each other (to avoid Mom taking the toy, TV, etc. away)
• picnic on the trampoline in the basement
• movie night
• spelling
• creating a Game Club (with rules and signs)
• teaching an uncle how to play Sorry!
• inviting people to eat with us
• P.E. class
• video games
• wishing on the first star of the night
• dismantling the bedroom furniture (We're still working on putting it back together and making the bed!)
• Giving Mom the best hard job in the whole world!