October's Home Depot Project

Helicopters!

My New Favorite Author

I am loving Melanie Benjamin! She has written two novels that I am in love with. Alice I Have Been and Mrs. Tom Thumb. Alice I Have Been is the story about Alice In Wonderland after she tumbled down the rabbit hole, the story of the real girl Lewis Carroll was inspired by. Mrs. Tom Thumb is the story of the mid-18th century entertainment Miss Lavinia Warren and her husband Tom Thumb. These books are both historical and fiction. I love them!

Science Center

Every September, the science center admission is only $2 per person. Quite a discount. Yesterday the littles and I took advantage of it. It was strange not having Molly with us, with her in school, she can't go on our field trips anymore :( Saturday I'm taking her to the very cool American Visionary Art Museum. I got two free tickets for that off of the Smithsonians Free Museum Day promotion.

Sophia : Pueblo House

Lake Elkhorn playground after church

American Story Pueblo Houses!

New Church

We went to a new church on Sunday and loved it! The kids loved the classes for them, and Molly and I really enjoyed the service. It is beautiful and peaceful. I feel so good about it, I can't tell you how much. I think this is a new chapter in our lives. Molly starts her class next Sunday evening. Bonus: it's right across the street from a park with a lake, do I hear picnic time?
It's a Unitarian church, Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Columbia.

American Story

for history this year, Sophia and Ben are using Winterpromise's American Story 1. This program is alot of fun with lots of reading and fun projects. Today we finished up our Plains Indian teepees.

New Kitty

Did we need another pet? No, we already have a bunny named Hagrid, a beautiful ragdoll cat named Annie, a doggie named Poochie, who is on her last leg literally, numerous fish and nine hens. Annie most definitely did not feel that we needed another pet in the house. However, my little Sophia has been begging for a kitten all her own. Friends of ours just happenned to have a momma cat who just recently gave birth to five adorable kittens, one of which was an oarnge tabby, just the kind Sophia wanted. She named the little fellow DJ. Annie is begrudgingly allowing him to stay.

Nose Piercing!

So I took Molly to the mall a couple of weeks ago to get her 2nd ear piercing, after a couple of years of putting her off abt it. Instead of satisfying her need for holes shot into her body, it seemed to have started us down a veeerrry slippery slope. I took Sophia and Benny on a hike last Sunday, and as I was unloading our muddy gear from the back orf the Tahoe, Molly and two girlfriends popped out at me with guess what??? Nose piercings! Molly's was only half in, and she a bit belatedly, but not completely, asked for "permission". I was really hesitant at first, I always thought of nose piercings as well disgusting if you must know, but I decided to ok it. I mean, it is her body, it really isn't that big of a deal in the scheme of things. It's not that permanent, its a tiny tiny tiny hole that will close up, or be hardly noticeable if you don't wear anything in it. I've always let Molly dye her hair whatever color suits her mood, so this isn't so different.
I did admire their bravery. I mean sticking a needle in your nose takes guts and determination. Think of how badly they wanted this. They did sterilize everything, thank you very much. Any way, no infections yet. One of the girls is grounded, the other girls mom just said she was glad it wasn't a tat, and Molly's mom, well, I think it's kinda cute.

Back to School...for Real This Tme

So Molly, my 14 year old, started school at Liberty High last week. I can't believe it. I have a kid in school. I have a kid in school, I have a kid in school!!! You must understand how totally weird this is for me, after all these years of not being a part of the public, or private for that matter education system, I am now part of a school. A government school, no less. WTF??? How did this happen? Isn't it funny how things change? Things we were so sure of at one time go up in a puff of smoke. Oh well, if you don't change, you die, right? Or something like that. She is loving school. I mean loving it. Loves the teachers, the kids, the classes, the clubs. She's joined four clubs. Drama, Debate, Dance and Gay/Lesbian support/rights group. She's trying out for A Christmas Carol next week and starting piano, and ballet too if I have the $. Ballet sucks bc you have to pay for the whole year at once. yeah, that's realistic. Oh she even likes riding the bus. My head is reeling. Re-thinking and re-adjusting.

Home Depot Fun

I love the free Saturday workshops at our local Home Depot. Today they made pencil boxes. Fun!

Thoughts On Homeschooling

I've been thinking a lot lately about my homeschooling journey with the kids. When Molly was 3, she started preschool at a nice private preschool in Baltimore. She loved it... for about three months. After that she started hanging out under the snack table refusing to come out. I brought her home after being told preschool was her job by the director, and attendance was mandatory. Ok, after paying a couple thousand for a preschool for a 3 year old, shouldn't that be up to me? I decided to try the homeschooling thing. Why? Mainly because I valued Molly's time. I couldn't imagine forcing her to go off for 7 hours a day 5 days a week in the near future. And for what? Busy work? Overworked and tired teachers? I really didn't see the necessity of teaching things like colors and shapes and all the assorted preschool curriculum. I thought it a much better idea to let kids explore the real world. We spent our days in museums, The Walters, the BMA, Port Discovery and the Science Center. We had so much fun, and she did manage to learn all that preschool stuff too. Added bonus, she got to paint in whatever colors she wanted, not just the one or two the teacher brought out.

Anyway, we ended up having a great first year using Five In A Row, which was a unit study type literature based program. Basically you read stories and do fun projects, crafts, field trips etc based around it. What I learned from that first year or two was the value of time. Free time. Kids in schools don't get much free time. Everything is so structured and measured. I wanted Molly to have time to play, to create, to daydream. It was a gift I could give her, and for as long as I was able, I planned on doing just that.

Fast forward two more kids later, I still love the flexibility, the beauty of homeschooling. There sre so many classes, co-ops, opportunities I don't feel the kids have lacked anything. On the contrary, they got to have a big say in what we did and learned about. Molly is now high school age, and she WANTS to go to school. So I am letting her. I was so against it at first. Specifically, the long hours, 7 or 8 at school, more homework when you get home, mean girls, boys with one thing on their minds. However, Molly really wants to try it. Molly is tired of the label people put on her because she was homeschooled. She thinks homeschoolers are dorks, unsocial misfits. She's tired of hanging out with kids who don't care about fashion, but robotics or spelling bees. sigh.. What can I do? So we went on a tour of the high school, and I have to say I was impressed. They do have lots of opportunities in drama that will make my life easier and less expensive. They have chorus and dance classes. I just hope she has time to fit in all the fun stuff.
Would I let Sophia and Ben go to school if they wanted to? Not before middle school at the least. I still really believe in the free time thing. We'll see how this goes.

Mark's 49th!!

Pinecone Bird feeders

Fun Fridays

I try to make Fridays as fun as I can, while still doing school. today we made valentines and valentine boxes for our valentine dance party with our homeschool group next week. We also made pinecone birdfeeders. Two messy projects at once! it's pretty obvious from the pics that you don't have to comb your hair to come to this school, lol!

Arctic Puppets!

What I'm Reading Now

Geez this book is scary! I am not usually a Stephen King fan, but picked this up off the seven day loan shelf at the library while I was killing time waiting for molly to be done at Tacticc, and man, was I hooked right away. It's a series of short stories, the first being abt 100 pages long, called 1922. It's abt a farmer who kills his wife over her inherited farmland that she wants to sell that he doesn't. It is really good!

Snow Days

What i'm Reading Now

Molly is 14!

Winter at Piney run

Back to School

Why is it so hard to start back to school after a two week break? You would think two weeks for be plenty of time to feel rested and renewed, ready to get back to work. I'm beginning to think two weeks is too long, it seems to have put us all in summer mode in the middle of winter.
Today is definitely going to be a half day. I successfully dragged Sophia out of bed at 9 a.m. after numerous reminders of how she could have been freezing her little toes off at the corner bustop a full two hours prior. Molly took some encouraging too (aka nagging), all i require of her this early is that she read in bed her lit book for an hour, oh she has it so tough! First stop for Benny and Sophia was our animals and Their Worlds program by WinterPromise. Today was our first day in the Arctic region. We read, drew and watched a video. Now we are on break. Oh first days are tough! For English today, thank you notes for Christmas gifts. I can't even think about math today!

What I Am Reading Now

Great Epectations by Charles Dickens. I'm really enjoying this. I read it years ago but am enjoying it again. Here is a summary from the folks at Wikipedia:
Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens. It was first published in serial form in the publication All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. It has been adapted for stage and screen over 250 times.

Great Expectations is the story of the orphan Pip, writing about his life (and attempting to become a gentleman along the way). The novel, like much of Dickens' work, draws on his experiences of life and people.

The main plot of Great Expectations takes place between Christmas Eve 1812, when the protagonist is about seven years old (and which happens to be the year of Dickens' birth), and the winter of 1840.