Weekly Update - Taste of Summer

We are on "book break" this week and BOY OH BOY did we pick a good one. The weather has been incredible and we have fully been taking advantage of it. DN survived his first road trip with CJ and it seemed to be a good turning point and bonding experience for them. KM and I spent the week cleaning, yard-working, finishing projects, KM finished up Wuthering Heights and completed the work for her last Skype class which will be held next week, spent an afternoon at the beach, watched LOTS of shows on the ROKU and KM went to her first semi-formal!!! OH and our FROG EMBRYOS ARRIVED!!!!

Busy week - catch up with some photos

We wee quite busy this week and our calendar does not seem to be letting up much this week either, so I thought I would take a second to post a few pics that I found on my camera this morning -

K enjoying a warm afternoon and her books

K figuring out how many shingles we will need.

I finally got K's bowling badges from LAST year on her bowling bag and her punk costume for the library Halloween party really wasn't that far off from her everyday outfits. 

Took the Littles to the library and playground while K was at theater.

The Itty Bitties are getting so big!!! I don't know where the time has gone! They are almost 6

 months old already!

Herring Run Adventures

We had a fabulous picnic with some friends and the littles yesterday at the Herring Run! The day was gorgeous and the kids had a great time splashing and playing pooh sticks! 

NOT Back to School Day - TAKE ONE!!!

We had planned a NOT Back to School Beach Day for a large group of home learners in our area, but unfortunately we had to postpone it because of Hurricane Irene power outage related issues. We are hoping that it will be able to run later this week, but today we got to take an adventure to a new spot that we have tried to go several times, Ellisville Harbor in Plymouth. We brought a few friends along and ran into some more as well!

It was a really nice relaxing day. The kids climbed on rocks, hunted crabs, relaxed after their lunch and I got to take some interesting photos!

Ironically we had to reschedule our day and our local schools are all had to do the same as well - they won't be going back until next week as they are all in outage zones! 

NOT Back to School Planning

I was in a big buy store today picking up pet food and some other things and I was so disturbed by the parents shouting at children, juggling school supplies and seeing the children agonizing over the choices that the parents were presenting to them, that it seriously turned my stomach into knots. Each year with all the craziness going on as mainstream schools are starting back up  I appreciate more and MORE that we are NOT going back to school!

In fact we are planning an incredible NOT Back to School Beach Day for area home learning families to meet up with us to celebrate the day that our local school will be back in session! This is the first beach day we have done for this, but in the past we have celebrated with things like a Park Day, Bowling Party, and Family Hikes. This is a great way to get new home ed families together with veterans and to meet back up with friends who may have been busy over the summer! If you don't have a large home ed community around you, you can also have your own "Not Back to School Day" by enjoying things that you have been avoiding all summer, here are some posts of how we have celebrated in the past.

Does your family do anything fun to celebrate NOT going back to school?

All's Well That Ends Well - Shakespeare on the Common

This was one of the best performances I have seen in quite sometime! It was also KM's very first Shakespeare performance that she was not permforming in!!!

 Before the show she had a great time chasing squirrells and pigeons - you can only truly chase those creatures in the city if you want to have a chance to catch them!!!

I was amazed at the backdrop - seemed to be some sort of metallic surface - and the lightning and mood effects that it caused were incredible! The other coolest thing was that the center stage was on some sort of casters and the stagehands could spin it like a lazy susan! It was the coolest thing I have seen in an outdoor theater space!  

    

   It was a great night and we can't wait to go back next year! 

Fabulous Concert - Greyson Chance and Miranda Cosgrove

Almost forgot ---

The week was so hectic that I forgot I had taken some shots of KM before her anime/manga club cosplay party - 

Here is her inspiration - Raven from Vampire Kisses -

 Using what we had around the house I think she did a really good job!

YouTube Monday - How Do You Socialize Your Children?

I have posted this before, but stumbled across it again and thought it was You Tube Monday Worthy!!!
Look past the religious content and it is seriously funny! 

Harry Potter Murder Mystery Party

KM attended a birthday party for a friend this weekend that had a great twist - a Murder Mystery! The friend is an avid all things Potter fan, so they used the services of Murder Mystery Maniacs to create this great themed event! Once you RSVPed you were sent a character description in the mail that had an access code to go on line and get some details for your costume and character profile, but the real fun began when you arrive and are handed a sealed envelope with details of the events and your role. Everyone must stay in character and attempt to discover WHO DUNNIT!!!

Well at this party the non-permanent murderer was none other than everyone's favorite Daily Prophet journalist ---

Rita Skeeter!!!!

KM has been making it clear to everyone that she did not MURDER Ron Weasley, but simply petrified him!
The kids all had a great time and KM was a superb actress - as ALWAYS!! - Only 3 of the guests figured out it was her!

Busy, Busy, Busy, but not too much to report!

Things have been going very smoothly around here lately. KM has been keeping up with her lessons and staying very busy with ice skating, theater, sketching and spending time with her friends. We are enjoying the flow of things lately and the occasional snowstorm to keep us in the house for the day is a wonderful winter bonus!

We have been starting our days off with household responsibilities, yoga and meditation. Then after lunch we work on lessons and this leaves the late afternoon and evenings free for her to spend however she likes. It seems to have worked out that Tuesday and Thursdays are VERY light lesson days, to accommodate for ice skating - and spending the rest of the afternoon with one of her very best friends - and theater. When CJ is home he has been taking her skating at a more local place on Wednesday afternoons. This leaves a lot of the main lesson times to Monday and Friday which seems to be giving a natural flow to our week.

She has chosen to do her research report for this session on owls - BIG SURPRISE to those who have seen her lately! We have decided that she will follow the outline form that the writing mentor used with her in the fall. This method focuses on researching, getting the info down, and then editing and cleaning up the content. As I have written what feels like hundreds of posts on our thoughts about writing and the writing process, I will not go into length about it again. I will say though that I have noticed a huge improvement in her open responses now that she has no writing "guidelines" and just has to present the information clearly.

Other than that, there is not much else to report as it is pretty much status quo around here - Just enjoying our family, home and learning - all together! Hope you can find some time to do the same!

How Do You Socialize Your Children?

Though this is not 100% secular it is 100% funny!

7th Grade COMPLETED!

I can't believe it, but it is true! We are DONE with 7th grade! KM had one last field trip yesterday and now our "school year" is completed! We finished three weeks early. So we will be having a full 5 week break before summer session starts in July! We have had a fantastic year and I can't believe the amount that we have gotten accomplished. I am so very proud of the progress that KM has made! I can only hope that this next year will be just as excellent!

Check out some of the great photos from our trip -

As we will be on break, it may or may not be quiet around here! I will try to post here and there as the learning never really stops, but I am going to be focusing on getting my house in order and enjoying some much needed down time!

Geography Fair - Antarctica

Despite the wretched cold that bombarded KM last week, we some how managed to get her exhibit finished for our local groups Geography Fair. If you missed our previous post that showed our resource list for it be sure to check it out for some very interesting information!
KM did a superb job answering people's questions as they came up and explaining what different parts of her project were. I was speaking to one of the other parents last night about how fantastic it is that she feels so comfortable with this great group of families. She NEVER would have had the courage to even ask a question of others at an event like this when she was in public school, never mind being a presenter and actually having to answer their questions on the spot! We are so fortunate to have such an encouraging, caring, respectful and FUN group of families to enjoy this incredible journey with!
The kids all did such an incredible job on their projects! All the hard work is totally worth it when you see their cute little faces running up to get their certificates!
Great Job to all the kids and parents who participated!

There is nothing like friends in the wild!

Especially if they are wild friends!

We went questing this past weekend and took one of KM's BFFs with us!

They always have such a great time together!I love that they can be silly and goofy,

wear witches hats and slide down rocks

without a care in the world!


To see more pics of these great hiking spots check our our nature blog -
GCK Homeschool Nature Photo Journal.

First Hike of the Season

So yesterday was our local homeschool groups first hike of the season and we had such an incredible time!
My absolute favorite thing about homeschooling events is getting to see all the different aged children interacting with each other. It is just amazing to me having come from the PS world were children are so segregated from one another all dependent upon where their date of birth happens to fall. Two children born a week apart from one another and living on the same street could never be friends just because one is in 1st grade and the other is in 2nd - why is that? What makes people think that is okay?
ANYWAY - before I go on a tyrannical rant - here are some of favorite pics of SC and KM on the hike ----oh and I just have to mention that this was a two mile hike, the first mile SC was very content in the backpack, but then I decided I needed a break, so I took her out and SHE HIKED THE LAST MILE all by herself!!! WOOOHOOO you go girl!