14 ---- TODAY!!!

Happy Birthday KM!!!

Every year I am more and more grateful for the incredible relationship that we have and I truly believe that if we didn't home educate, it would be a completely different dynamic! 

 We had her birthday party on Saturday. It was small, but they had a great time!

The Many Faces of A Crazy Teenager

 

 

Need I say more?

$10 in Free eBooks from Scholastic Teacher Express - Freely Educate

$10 in Free eBooks from Scholastic Teacher Express - Freely Educate

Here is what I picked for my FREE ebooks -

Jamie's Live video message on the UN Summit on NCDs

Where in the states is CJ? - U.S. Geography with a Twist!

With CJ going over the road now, we are going to utilize his travels to reinforce our U.S. Geography! We are using a topographical map, that though it has cities, capitals, and a very light outline of the states, their aren't named on it. So KM uses our atlas to locate the town CJ is in and then locates surrounding towns to coordinate his location! Even when he is not here he can still be part of her education!

You Tube Monday - Author Jan Irvin: Mind Control and The Dumbing Down of Society 1/2

Almost forgot to post today!!! But then I remembered and thought of the Trivium presentation on Unplugged Mom I re-listened to this weekend  and wanted to share a clip from Jan Irvin that really resonates with me. Irvin really explains the trivium and quadrivium in a way that makes more sense to me than anything I have heard in YEARS! If you haven't had a chance to hear, watch or read his materials - TAKE THE TIME TO!!!

Itty Bitties are getting BIGGER!

Went to visit the Littles and the Itty Bitties today and since the Littles were quite occupied with the neighbor's I was free to play with the Itty Bitties and they are getting soooo BIG!!!

 

 

 

At four months they are getting so vocal, expressive and oh so slobbery! 

Immense Praise for Joy Hakim’s A History of US

Immense Praise for Joy Hakim’s A History of US - OFFICIAL REVIEW on Unplugged Mom!


I have previously reviewed Joy Hakim's Story of Science series and since I was so enamored by her writing, I bit the bullet and bought the 11 volume set A History of US for Kali to use for her U.S. History studies. AM I EVER GLAD I DID!!! I had planned on glossing over the content so that I could figure out when I would need to order additional reading material and movies from our local library to supplement and ended up not being able to put the book down! I am no history buff, but this book captured my attention and I literally couldn't put it down.

I love that she points out what our family calls "duh" moments, things that when you are reading you think why doesn't every textbook take this approach. "When Leaders say something is all right, most people agree, without thinking for themselves." p.113

Hakim has a way of writing that just captivates and inspires you to want to keep reading. The story unfolds as if you are in a time machine looking down on what is going on. Her writing flows in an engaging and thought provoking way as she is constantly asking you to analyze and question what is being said in a conversational manner. She manages to cover even some of the more gruesome facts without getting graphic, which makes this a perfect multi-age resource.

Hakim challenges the reader to question history and emphasizes that "No one knows what happened in the past - at least not we don't know the whole story"..."You gather pieces of information and try to discover how they fit." p. 9 

When I was in school I was never taught about anything before the James Town Settlement, sure we were taught about Christopher Columbus sailing across the ocean blue in 1492, but they never mentioned all that went on from one point to the next, it was basically as if they left out the 16th century all together! And I took U.S. History in college. In Hakim's text she is truly telling the story of US, beyond the United States, but in depth to how the Americas were formed. Begining back with Beringia she has the audacity to discuss how there are actually no "NATIVE" Americans as we all came from somewhere else. She delves into the formation of settlements in the Central American islands, the Spanish onquests of Mexico and also defends the Indians, repeatedly making note of the "arrogant European" behaviors.

My favorite quote has to be - Looking back, today, it seems as if people and nations were acting just like silly little kids. Each one saying "My religion is better than yours." p. 139

I have only read the first volume, but I have already absorbed more information from this book than I did in my entire college semester of U.S. History. I highly recommend this series as a first rate, informative, intelligent text that will surely make a history lover out of the most resistant person.
I will be getting Volume 2 off the shelf as soon as I finish typing this!

What I am Reading - September - GCKMom

The First Americans: Prehistory-1600 A History of US Book 1 

I was just going to glance through this to prep movies, additional reading and projects for our U.S. history lessons, but I couldn't put it down!!! Full review will be posted soon, but for now I will just say I LOVE Hakim's storytelling skills!  

4th Annual NOT Back to school Day

I tried and tried again to plan a Not Back to School Celebration for our local home ed community, but the weather would just not cooperate! So KM and I decided to go back to our roots and do what we usually do for NOT back to school - breakfast, library and whatever we please!

After the third round of buses rolled by the house this morning, I decided to wake up K, so we could head out to breakfast with CJ. While we waited for our food we played hockey with the twisted straw wrappers and the plastic ad holder.

 Then we headed to the library and and came out with a bagful of books!

 KM spent some time chatting and playing on line with some friends and then

 we decided to bust out the hair dye!!!

While it processed we watched Cyberbully - a MUST see for all teens and parents - on the new monitor! 

It is rather difficult to get the colors to show while it is still damp, I will have to try for a better shot. There are two shades of green - a torquois and a GREEN and purple which is more easily seen! 

What did you do on your NOT back to school day?

Teachers – throw out everything you ever thought learning should be!

Check out my latest article on Unplugged Mom!

Teachers – throw out everything you ever thought learning should be!

You tube Monday - Annoying Orange - Orange Potter and the Deathly Apple

Summer/Fall Book Break

We will be on our 3 week book break from now til the last week in September. In case you are new here, our 10 week on 2-3 week off schedule allows us breaks at key times in the year - like our birthday month - when we don't have any lesson plans or book work, so that we can take full advantage of the season! We take one now because the schools are back in session and our birthdays are this month, one in Dec to get through the Holidays, one in March to get our yard ready and take advantage of field trips etc that start up again when everyone is ready to burst from cabin fever, and then one in June to be able to enjoy our local museums, libraries etc. before school kids are back out for the summer. Generally we have activities and projects planned, but KM just wants to do NOTHING and it will be interesting to see how long that lasts. It might be quiet here for a bit, but on the other hand this nothing time, might give me some time to write, so it might not!

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! 

Trying some new things

We generally begin our "learning year" over the summer and I tweak and twist things around until I get it just right. This summer I found two things that needed a bit of adjusting.

The first was our posters - they were taking up far too much wall space and making my living room look like a "classroom" I love them because they are great quick reference tools if they are out and visible, but really i don't like the feel it gives my living room! So I finally thought of a solution - we have a stairwell that goes down into the garage that had three very large, vary blank walls -

 This is the perfect solution because really I would not be able to put the 6 foot C-SPAN presidential poster anywhere else, the posters are easily accessible AND I DON'T have to look at them 

We downgraded our cable to bare minimum as we discovered that we can stream 90% of what we watch and save over $120 a month! Since we stream a lot of our ed things I decided to take a monitor that we no longer use - since we all have laptops - and make it much more useful - 

Are you trying anything new out this time of year? I would love to hear about it.