I love homeschooling for so many reasons.  I love going the pace the kids need.  I love focusing on things the kids are interested in.  I love being able to let the kids sleep in as they need to.  I love going places where the kids learn things they wouldn't normally be exposed to.  What I don't love?  The way so many people think they know better than I do about what is right for my children.  I don't love how hard it is to stay on task and get things done.  I don't love having my house look like a tornado went through because the kids were building cardboard box space ships.  But I love spending every day with my kids and that they have the freedom to build cardboard box space ships.  And I especially love how our school happens anywhere.  Since my last post we went to the CT Historical Society Museum taking a class there, we went to the Imagine Nation children's museum, the Beardsley Zoo, and the CT Science Center.  In the car we brought whiteboards and brainquest workbooks, and did math, history, study of Greek mythology, practiced writing our phone number and address, and did listening centers and comprehension practice, all while traveling to great educational experiences.  I love the freedom we have to do this.  We have spent time outside in the garden, planting, and observing seasonal changes.  We have practiced math problem solving, and watched Cosmos.  We studied medieval food.  We did imaginary play about space, and we acted out stories we love.  We made crafts, built legos, studied world history, studied maps, played chess, did playdough, art lessons, computer and kindle, measuring activities, and are in the process of building a barnyard diorama with Daddy.  We are working on snap circuits to study electricity, and we have done cooking and baking together.  We practiced sight words and worked on lacing and tracing.  We watched a 3D movie on the universe reinforcing our continued study of space, and we spend a lot of time playing games and discussing questions together.  We learn so much from each other every day, as we journey further together.

Update

First I want to update on my New Years Resolutions:

1) Practice yoga weekly    I have been fairly good about this, except when really sick, and will continue to try to work on this.
2) Spend time outside with the kiddos every day it is not dangerous to do so.  Trying really hard on this one, but the weather has not really been cooperating till recently.
3) Spend more active time with the kids  Rich and I have been much better about this, we have been taking walks, playing at the park, and spending quality time together.
4) Pay closer attention to my own health  I have lost 65 pounds, continue to modify my diet as I realize what works for me and doesn't, and had Lasik surgery.  I also have been making healthy food choices and physical activity a priority.  I have made lots of improvement here.
5) Be more intentional with lesson planning and lesson implementation   I have made tons of progress here.  I make weekly basic plans, and have made several lessons and units ahead of the time I need it.  I like having some things prepped for whenever I decide to do it.
6) Continue to organize and simplify our home  This is hard, but is a continuous activity in our home.  We have rid ourselves of a lot of stuff, and will be having a yard sale soon.
7) Blog weekly here and in Peace, Love, Laundry and Food!  I was doing great until a few weeks ago when life and sickness got in the way, I am working my way back to this :)

 It has been awhile since I updated because we have been crazy sick followed by being crazy busy.  In the past 5 weeks or so since I last posted we have been ridiculously sick, where the kids both spent days throwing up, and I passed out, literally.  In addition I had Lasik surgery a week ago, so I was focused on getting stuff done beforehand, so I could heal and not worry about housework.  So I just didn't worry about blogging.  In fact I keep forgetting to take pictures of things too.  Though I did remember to take pictures of my little girl's sixth birthday!  We spent the day at Old Sturbridge Village, her choice.  We had dinner with my parents and grandparents at my parents' house afterward, and it was wonderful.  I just can't believe how fast these little babies are turning into big people.

We forgot to charge our phones enough to take pictures the day we took the train into Boston to visit the Boston Museum of Science.  It was such a fantastic educational experience.  The kids just loved it, and so did we.  We will be going again.

 We have been working on draw, write, now, and learning about fractions.  We have finished science kits on stretchy elastic, bouncy balloons, floaty bubbles, and continue to learn about space.  We are continuing work on Roman numerals, and the kids are extremely proficient in three digit addition and subtraction with regrouping.  We do chess lessons weekly, and finished a huge unit on map skills.

 We finished our kindergarten art lesson dvd.  This was the final project.  They are so cute, and was a great multi step, multi media project that really used so many of their new art skills.

 Our good friends Jen and Ron were so kind to bring the kids an amazing keyboard.  CJ is teaching himself to read music so that he can learn to play.  In the meantime they are thoroughly enjoying exploring the musical possibilities with it.  They are so musical, and I can't wait to continue this.

We have visited the Florence Griswold art museum, the Lyman Allyn art museum, lots of outside playtime and exploration, playdates, a visit to Stay and Play in Old Saybrook, reviewed time, place value and money.  We used our new microscope to look at blood cells, did cooking lessons, and geography games.  We have written acrostic poems, haikus, and couplets.  We have built with legos, goldie blox, tinker toys, and lincoln logs, as well as with skill sticks.  We have worked on math number stories, and other types of problem solving.  We finished our grade 1 brainquest workbooks.  We visited the CT trash museum and the CT Science Center, and spent lots of family time together running errands and taking walks.  We started building a solar car with a kit.  We are continuing with our Human body kit.  We have worked on grammar, watched Cosmos, watched shows on meteors and Ancient Egypt.  We have learned about different types of classical music, and made up songs.  We  have done puzzles, centers, and measuring.  We have done crafts and made glow in the dark gel from a science kit.  We baked together and cooked together a lot.  We have been working on retelling and reading comprehension.  We have done starfall on the computer and skills programs on the kindle.  We did a homeschool meet up at a local library.  We have done a lot of listening to audiobooks.  We have started learning about Greek and Roman mythology.  We have done seed planting, handwriting practice, and sight words.  All of a sudden Eliza knows all her sight words and is becoming a super great reader.  We have worked a bit on American history.  We have looked at similes and metaphors, learned rounding and multiples, and loved playing games together.  We visited the USCG training ship the Barque Eagle.  We did review of the water cycle with experiments.  It has been a busy few weeks, and I am looking forward to the coming spring.

I love that we can do school in our pajamas, in tutus, in silly hats, and in our kitchen.  Last week was a rough week, we all really need to stop getting sick.  This week we have been home all week and totally focused on learning.  We have continued our study of Egypt, and finished our Pyramids of Egypt Science kit.  We learned about sundials, hieroglyphics, and lots of other amazing things.  We have been playing games every day.  Above you can see the kids playing the money game, also called first to a half dollar.  I put real coins in a container with sections.  The center is half dollars and a die.  There is a section for pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters.  They roll the die, take that many pennies, then keep exchanging them for larger coins as they can.  The first to get a half dollar wins.  It is a great fun way for them to practice counting money and recognizing coins.  I use real coins because not only is it better for them to learn it is also cheaper than buying plastic coins.  We play Qwirkle every week now at least once, and we play Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders.  Other favorites are Catan Junior, Ticket to Ride, Cootie, and Uno.  We are certainly a game playing family.  Two weeks ago we introduced them to the Game of Life.  My parents stayed after dinner and we all played it together.  Then we played again twice the following week.  This weekend we may try Sorry and Parcheesi.

Every week we do play dough or clay.  We also have cloud dough, lavender scented, and Eliza LOVES it.  CJ doesn't love it, but will play with it occasionally.  We have done our binder daily this week, and progressing in chess every day.  We have a book teaching it step by step, along with a coloring book and cd of songs telling how the pieces move.  The games begin simply with one pawn, progressing to two pawns, slowly adding pieces until the kids are completely comfortable using all the pieces on the board.  They love chess, and ask to do it every day.  Other weekly activities are pattern blocks, puzzles, lacing cards, tracing center, legos, and building marble runs.  This week all of those activities have been done repeatedly.

This week I also started teaching them poem types.  We learned about acrostic poems, and wrote them.  Today we will type them on the computer, print them out and decorate them to hang on our wall.  We learned about Jane Goodall and the Wright Brothers.  Today we are working on three digit addition with regrouping.  We have been working on sight words, reading comprehension, and we have done art lessons and craft projects.  We learned about synovial fluid lubricating ball and socket joints using our human body science kit.  I really feel that this week has been very productive.

We went to Florence Griswold two weekends ago.  The concert was enjoyed immensely by the kids, and they did some great crafts, and we all loved the new exhibits.  With the snow and being sick we haven't taken any other field trips recently.  We have done some classical music appreciation, and discussion about aspects of music and instruments.  We listened to different pieces of music illustrating different tempos and accented and unaccented beats.  The kids have really been working hard all week on lots of different activities, and have shown great effort in all their work.  So last night we took them to see the Lego Movie as a treat.  What a great family outing, we all loved the movie.

This weekend we are going to Florence Griswold again, and maybe somewhere else.  We are going to do some projects together and do some baking.  Next week I want to start studying a different area of the world, and start studying more United States history and geography.  Next week we are going on a field trip somewhere, not sure yet where, as it depends on the weather.

This week has been a real treat, where we didn't have to go anywhere, and were able to really focus on spending time with each other and learning together.  It makes me feel better about those weeks where we spend a lot of time running errands and are too tired to really spend good time on learning activities.  It is all part of the journey.

Weekly Recap

The kids learned about football, watching the Superbowl :)  All kidding aside, it was a nice evening snacking together, cuddling, and watching the game.  We had a very relaxed day of learning that day, focused mostly on cooking and making together, and practicing sight words with Eliza.  She has come a long way in her reading skills, but we practice daily, to be sure she keeps progressing.

Our favorite part of the week by far was our trip to the CT Science Center to see the new exhibit Lost Egypt.  The kids spent two and a half hours in that exhibit alone.  

 There were actual ancient Egyptian artifacts, and a real mummy, in addition to the many interactive parts of the exhibit.  I think this has been my favorite temporary exhibit there yet.

Of course no trip to the Science Center is complete without a trip to kidspace, as well as a change of clothes in the car!

The rest of the week we have been focusing on reading books on Egypt, doing our binders daily, puzzles, games, listening center, magnet center, educational television, cooking and baking together, computer and kindle time with Starfall and educational kindle games, and playing in the snow.  We learned about triangle types, and cleaned and organized the kids' rooms.  We even did a Valentine craft kit.

The kids helped us make dinner a few times, and they learned about a carpenter's level and other simple tools.  It has been a relaxed week, as we are still getting over being sick, and getting through snow storms.  It has been a good week together, and I am looking forward to this weekend.  We are going to the Florence Griswold Museum Saturday and Sunday for several special activities, including a Kidsploration concert, with Steve Elci and Friends, CJ and Eliza's favorite singers.  There will be art and craft activities for the kids, and new exhibits.  Rich took Sunday off so we could all go together both days.  I will be sure to take some pictures.

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is the ability to adjust lessons, and move things around as much as we want.  We can do a science lesson at 8 at night in our pajamas.  It means we can spend an hour playing together reviewing what we learned by teaching it to our stuffed animal friends.  And most importantly I can see every little thing my children learn by watching them play, watching them journey farther into childhood, farther into their education, and amazing me every step of the way.