Friends With Boys - a webcomic by Faith Erin Hicks

Friends With Boys - a webcomic by Faith Erin Hicks:

This was recommended for KM by one my very bestest buds and I have to say she read the whole thing in under an hour!!!! So it must be good! Check out online before it is available in print until March 6th

Weekly Update - Midpoint of Winter

We are halfway through our winter session and for the most part things are going smoothly for KM. She is really enjoying the choices that she has made in her lessons. Her skype poetry class is finishing up next week and although she is really anxious about her critical analysis essay, she is fully enjoying the class. She is working hard to complete her French by the end of the session, as she would like to move on to Japanese, but wants to finish this book first. She has also started researching cosmetology schools and what it will take to become a cosmetologist. We have started in on the "animal" section in biology and have started our ant observations - check out the page where we are chronicling our discoveries! She is also practicing for the World Education Games and can't wait until the Science practice opens next week.

DN on the other hand - not quite so smooth. He is fully and completely compliant, but I am having a very difficult time getting him to truly understand that learning is part of life. Not something that you just "get done." That is what school is about right - but that is NOT what education is. I am trying to be patient and keep things in perspective as I know that it has only been a few months, but it gets really difficult when I am bending and twisting and feeling like there is no appreciation of the lengths that I am going to. I have to remind myself that hindsight is most effective and the fruits of my labor might just take a bit longer to ripen than I would like.

For a sneak peek of our first day with the ants check out our montage ---

Oh and KM's room makeover is complete ---- 

The green looks a bit more yellow in the pics, but you get the gist of it and KM LOVES IT!!! She was so over all the pink! 

What I am Reading - December - Music Kid

I have been really enjoying drawing Manga characters the last few weeks. I picked this book up at the library to help me work on the eyes. I will post some of my work here soon.

What I am Reading - November - GCK Student

What I am Reading - October - Music Kid

One of my all time favorites!!! Great for a Sunday morning!

What I am Reading - September - Music Kid

If at first you don't succeed....

try, try again - so they say.

So we have tried in the past for KM to set her own schedule and it really didn't work out all that well past the first day or two. She did get the swing of getting her things done daily when I gave her a list and the freedom to complete things as she wanted, but it seemed like everytime we tried for more than that it just wouldn't work. She would become overwhelmed and feel like she needed more structure.

Our summer session begins next week and we are trying it again . This time, after some simple instruction and guidance on how to use the Homeschool Tracker, KM has set her own schedule up. We both agreed that this would be the perfect time to try it out because we have far fewer pressing time constraints, places to be at specific times, a lighter lesson load and we are already adjusting to changes in the house, so this can just be another one of those adjustments that should hopefully be all worked out by the fall.

She is very excited about the programs that she will be doing over the summer and feels that she has set things up in a way that makes sense and won't be overwhelming for her to handle in her own way. Here is the schedule that she came up with.

There are no actual guidelines for "timing" other than getting things done on those days and/or within reason. Like if she knows that she wants to go to the beach on Tues, she may want to do a little extra math on Monday so that she can have less to do that day. 

Here is an example of one weeks assignments -

Her assignments are quite short so she can easily bump them around here and there with little problem. I really think this will be helpful in her managing her time in a constructive way so that she feels as though things are flowing.

Her program choices for the summer include

• beginning a year long Shakespeare Study
• Math & The Cosmos - a Duke Tip program
• an overview of U.S. Government, Economics and Citizenship
• Keyboard Level 2B
• Beginning French with some online and computer games
• CNN Student News for Current Events
• Some more advanced Nutrition study - including cooking and baking
• Bowling Camp, Swimming, Basketball and Dance for P.E. 

You Tube Monday - Julian Smith - Jellyfish

Some thoughts on Summer

It feels like summer these last few days, but I can't wait for the real thing, the lazy, lounging days of summer that come once "school" is out. Not our learning path - we home educate year round - but when the schooled kids get out for summer vacation almost all organized home learning events, from co-ops to park days, seem to come to a screeching halt, as we begin to wait for "them" to head back into the schools and leave the playgrounds, beaches, libraries and museums to us again in September.

WHY is this? Well I can't speak for all home learners, but for us it is an aversion to crowds, rowdy ill managed groups of people, broken and mistreated exhibits, parents yelling and threatening their children, and a general discontentment from all forms of staff at said outings - from volunteer exhibit workers to life guards to cranky ice cream scoopers.

It seems as though school gets out and EVERYONE GOES CRAZY!!! Generally the first few weeks are okay, but by the time Independence Day rolls around, they have had enough. I honestly think that the stores are do these parents a favor by having their back to school sales begin so early - IT GIVES THEM A GLIMPSE OF HOPE!

I didn't understand it when I was sending her back - every year my heart would break. Now that I don't it is even harder for me to fathom why people would have children and then long to be away from them for such extended periods of time, they miss so much of their day to day life that they hardly know their children. They get two or three standard answers to their questions with little to no insight into their actual events.

I not only love my daughter, I LIKE my daughter. I enjoy being with her. I am thrilled to experience new things with her. I have fun playing with her - that's right I PLAY with my teenager and not just video games. I know and like her friends. I am very happy to say that none of us would want it any other way. Cheers to a relaxing and peaceful summer! 

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!

Piquing Interest in Learning

In an attempt to engage the teens in the house today in a project that I thought they could really get into, I picked a topic that I knew they both would like and added a bit of constructive as well as destructive properties to it.

They began on Brain Pop! watching a video on crystals and completing the quiz together ~ they had one answer that they did not agree on and they both turned out to be incorrect! Then we went to the experiments section and decided to try it out. For a competitive twist I gave KM sugar and DN salt, so they can see whose crystal forms first and what property differences they might have. I also choose to veer of course a bit from the original instructions -- I had them use nearly boiling water, so that it would dissolve to a solution better and they would not need to "shake" every so often. There are plenty of variations of growing crystals with sugar and salt all over the web, just be sure to check the sites before you send your kids there!







Once the jars were set aside to begin growing, I took out some geodes to bash! They had a good deal of success and got out some of those pent up teenage frustrations!

With DN here for the week and learning more about how our household works on a regular basis, this was the perfect opportunity for him to engage in an educational activity where he was interested in the subject and did not feel intimidated by the process or institutional feel of learning. He asked some really great questions and when I wasn't sure on an answer he saw that we could find the answer together. Although he has difficulty admitting it, I could tell that he was enjoying himself and learning at the same time.

Sometimes in order to engage the learner, all you have to do is take advantage of an aforementioned interest area. Paying attention to the actions of a child can pay off in so many ways. Even a child who is extremely resistant to any form of "schooling", "learning" or other educational jargon will give you hints about what might interest them. You may notice that when they are walking to the car and they tend to kick the rock ever so slowly, they always seem to be staring at the ground, you find rocks in the washer and in piles in next to the bed. This is a HUGE indication that for some reason his child is interested in rocks, geology and earth science. Now your challenge will be to present it to the child in a way that will really catch their attention.

Don't push too hard and when the child is done - THEY ARE DONE! Sometimes that means that they will stay on a topic for months and sometimes that means that they are only there for a few days or even hours. Pushing them to continue a study that they are no longer interested in or that they have learned enough about is not going to do anything, but make them more resistant the next time you try a learning sneak attack.

Good Luck and PLEASE feel free to post any helpful tips or ideas for encouraging the resistant learner!

You Tube Pick of the Week - KM

Stop the Madness - Incredible Video

This video brought me to tears. My friends and I were in the generation at the beginning of this craziness! We were given label upon label and many of us often wonder WHERE we would be if we hadn't been. We have friends that AREN'T around, is it because their dreams were squashed? Because they were told they needed to be fixed? Because they were told they weren't good enough? Because they were CHANGED into what others wanted them to be?

Stop labeling children! Start supporting the incredible things that make us all individuals!

City of Bones - Teen Book Review By KM

The City of Bones is an incredibly well written thriller with suspense, action, and myth. This book is a favorite of mine and I believe that others, teens and adults, will agree that Cassandra Clare is an incredible writer who is always throwing things at you that you would never expect. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this series.

~~~I have asked KM to start adding her own posts to the blog to get a teen perspective, so hopefully we will be hearing from her more often! 

Time for a new hairdo!

 

We will be discussing colors next.....

More and More Color...

She wanted more colors....

so we got more colors....

This time they are however extensions! I will say we gave the director quite a fright when she saw her walk into rehearsal a few weeks ago with MANY shades just days before the performance. I decided to go with the extensions so that she can have more of a variety and LESS damage to her hair!