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We are Moving!  New site will be at http://www.homeschoolinghousewives.com/        come join us over there!

Beltane Brouhaha

Friday through Sunday was spent at the Beltane Brouhaha held at Kings Mountain State Park South Carolina. The event is put on by the North Carolina Piedmont Church of Wicca who did a wonderful job and everyone had a good time. I love Beltane and is a great time to come together with others in  celebration and good times. The kids went as part of the Spiral Scouts groups, where a few scout troops came together, including one that had come up from Georgia. They had activities  from crafts of making prayer bead necklaces and may baskets, Pan foot races, the Spiral Scouts awards ceremony and Dancing the Maypole where their was also workshops for the adults from chanting, to flower essences and several others to choose from. Drumming around the central fire at night while the kids played and just over all a good time. Jelly Bean made a friend that she wants to keep in contact, she also lives in North Carolina however about 3 hours away. They did exchange address and phone numbers though and I exchanged emails with her mom who I had the pleasure to talk with, she will be starting to homeschool her 3 children this coming up year.

We shared a lodge with other Spiral Scout families and spent the whole 3 days out in nature  getting plenty of conversation and exercise and renewing our spirits. The weather could not of been more pleasant and it was a wonderful opportunity for the kids to experience. While it was quite different from the Beltane we attended last year at Circle Sanctuary in Wisconson, it was just as nice and fun.

Alternatives to think about

2 things that I have read this week that may be of some interest to other unschooling families are

http://www.sudval.com/01_abou_06.html   This is the link for Sudbury Schools which are a Democratically structured school with unschooling philosophies where children come together every day taking part in the decisions of who stays on the Board of Directors, how the schools budget is spent, field trips and such. They are allowed to explore what interests them within the school and take active leadership on how to spend their time where staff is available when they ask for help.  Use the link to explore more of this fantastic alternative school!

The other one is my favorite unschooling advocate, Dayna Martin who is starting a new chapter in her journey as an Unschooling Doula or another words the “Un-Nanny” where she comes to your home for 3 or 4 days much as the show the “Super Nanny” where she observes the first day then makes suggestions for a more peaceful, respectful parenting role and Sharing her radical unschool philosophy. Check it out at http://thesparklingmartins.blogspot.com/   

There are some fantastic things coming into the unschooling world so check them out!

Carnival Time!

Yesterday me and hubby went scrap metaling during the day, as we were going to a friends, Wizard asked if he could come to play with his friend while we worked. So the girls  stayed home and the rest of us headed out to our friends, initially we were just going to borrow their flat bed trailor however it turned out our work would be at their house cutting up large metal beams they needed removed so it worked out great! We went and turned in our load then came and picked up the girls then back out to our friends to drop off their trailor and pick up Wizard. From there we took them to a Carnival we knew was going on in Asheboro and had a blast! It is kind of funny because I use to be a thrill seeker and loved any ride at a carnival or amusement park. Over the years however I have been having hearing problems and think my equalibrium is way more off than I thought as all the rides made me really ill.  The only ride I was okay with was the Spider but I went on 2 other spinning rides that made me really sick, however my stomach would settle down. The ride that really did me in was the last ride where it was basically a little roller coaster with lots of flashing lights of different colors and man I could not take those lights! I have never gotten that sick in my life!   However I must say I am so proud of Wizard who is NOT at all into carnival rides and the first ride we went on was the Pharoahs Fury which is that big ship that swings back and forth and he HATED it, said he would  not go on another ride but he went on 3 other rides after that! I am very proud of him! He enjoyed the other rides too!   Well after the last ride we went on that did me in, we went out to the Golden Coral to eat……….UGH I almost went back out to the car while everyone else ate but I decided to man up and deal with it. I could not even stomach the coffee which is BAD, I always am up for coffee! So I got a water  and 10 bucks worth of apple sauce and mashed potatos! I had to make sure  not to look at anyone elses plates, especially hubby’s! It took me over an hour to start feeling better, I thought I was even going to pass out at a few points but I got through it. Jelly bean was more than happy to go get my plate of apple sauce and she brought back a piece of chicken for me that I nibbled on the whole time, very slowly!  I felt bad though because all my kids felt horrible at how sick I had gotten but I kept reassuring them that I would be okay and I am glad they all had fun.

This was the  first time Jelly bean has ever been able to go to a carnival, so it was tons of fun. She  went to an amusement park once when we visited her grandparents in Indiana but when we lived in the UP of michigan hubby always had to work on the carnivals so we never got to go and there was no amusement parks near us. It is always fun being able to do something with the kids they have never gotten to do before as it never fails to make their eyes light up and I love that part! I also learned the lesson that I am not young anymore and thrill rides are over for me as much as I love them, I will be the one on the ground taking pictures in the future!

Snakes,cooking and chicks

  Playing Rock Band

  Neighbor Bringing over a snake for identification, thought he was a poisonous snake but no it was an Eastern Hog Nose Snake.

Eastern Hog Nose Snake

  Finding out how hard it was to catch her favorite sultan chicks!

  the Sultans are her favorite chickens she ordered

Son making homemade syrup

Life = Learning

Jelly bean recieved a sun print kit from her sister for christmas, which was not a very sunny time so it was put up until the weather improved. She remembered it the other day when she was going through her cupboard of art supplies and pulled it  out all excited, I was in the middle of some chores yet I set my chores aside for the moment to show her how they were done. She delighted in going around to find items she wanted to use, one was simply grass blades and ironically that one turned out to be my favorite one she did!  It was great fun and she only did three so she still has plenty we can do, we have to keep a look out on our walks hoping to find special items for her sun  prints.

Later that same day ( the day before yesterday) she found 2 little green catepillars so she set up a can for them to observe them and asked if we could go online to find out what type they might be. I was a little busy at the moment but I told her sure, we can do that a little later in the day. She really wanted to know what they ate and what type of butterfly or  moth they might turn into. She spent some time observing them and then we all decided it was hot so we would jump in the pool for a little bit.  I love this time where the whole family jumps in the pool and enjoys relaxing together, talking and playing!

As we got out of the pool, hubby found a little snake next to it so we took a couple pictures to help identify it and let it go.

Later as promised Jelly bean, our eldest daughter and myself all got online and tried to figure out what her catepillars were, we are not positive but we think we found out it may be a white spotted prominent moth. Finding out the ate maple and oak leaves, she ran outside to make sure she added some of those to the can.

Then we looked for the snake, which we really did not find out what it was, we think it may be  a milk or corn snake of some type but not sure.

Now 2 days later she still has one of the catepillars but she is a little upset it seems that one may of escaped! LOL

Mystery of the Crystal Skulls

This is what my son, Wizard  watched on Sci-Fi the other day, he loves stuff like this and has always had a love for history dealing with ancient civilizations. The Crystal Skulls are a facinating story, if you would like to know more on these check out this link at http://www.world-mysteries.com/sar_6_1.htm  

It is kind of nice, many time we watch things like this together but on occasions where we don’t, he gives great detail of what the show was about and does not forget all the key points of interesting facts. He really enjoyed this show.

Tonight Wizard was really excited a new Mythbusters was airing we have not seen before. Mythbusters has always been a favorite show of his and he just loves the experiments they come up with. Tonights episode dealth with whether it was worse to get hit in the skull with an empty bottle or a full bottle and leather cannons, the leather cannons was really cool!  This was all watched after a fun filled evening of a hot dog roast at our fire pit with the neighbors, a game of bocci ball and a wild game of duck duck goose haha!

The War of 1812

Last night Wizard went to spend 2 nights with his unschooled friend, so this gave Jelly bean the chance to have the livingroom as her bedroom for a night. She was sooooooooooo excited to be able to do this as usually the living room is Wizards, where she shares a room with her older sister. We do this because if we let them both do what they wanted in the livingroom together, well nobody would get any sleep! At any rate her eyes sparkled with delight when she realized she would be able to do whatever she wanted until how ever late she wanted with the TV and video games in the living room. So now that she can choose anything she wants as we all give up the living room , I walk out and notice she is watching the History Channel on “The first Invasion-The War of 1812 and was like MOM you have to watch this with me it is soooooooooo interesting!”  So here it was me thinking I would be able to jump on the computer! DUH not a chance, I sigh and sit down to watch the History channel with her and notice she is trying to take notes, saying this is what I want learn it is fascinating! then hands me the pen and paper and told me to take good notes on the important key facts! I am obliged to help and was like you know sweety, we could always look up a fact page online about the War of 1812, it may be easier than writing notes and she was like yeah go do that mom and print it off so you can read it to me!  Sigh, run off to computer look it up, print it off and reads it to her!   

Well now she is talking about how we need to get several books on the war of 1812 but they have to be ones that have photos in them, well I can not let all this enthusiasm go to waste, we have a few dollars to spare so again I run off back to the computer and head to Amazon and ordered this book   http://www.amazon.com/World-History-1812-Don-Nardo/dp/1560065818/ref=sr_1_13?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270904932&sr=1-13

I also noticed an American Girl historical fiction book I will have to order as soon as I get a little money as Jelly bean is a huge American Girl fan and they have a whole history mysteries line. This is the one I will be ordering soon that deals with the war of 1812 http://www.amazon.com/Smugglers-Treasure-American-History-Mysteries/dp/1562477579/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1270904932&sr=1-14

When I told her what I ordered she was like awww thanks mom! when will it come? Well I dont know exactly but soon!  I told her about the american girl one and she really wants me to get it so that will be the next one.

When all was done and said she looked at me and simply said “Wow history is awesome!” LOL

I love unschooling moments such as this!

A moment of Math, one persons observation, anothers oblivion

The other morning I came across an interesting audio about unschooling Math, you can listen to it here : http://www.archive.org/details/UnschoolingAndMathByPamSorooshian      Later in the day me and my eldest were having a Math discussion about this. It was a rather detailed and interesting discussion about how school taught in schools is a lot of irrelevant problems compared to math in everyday life, real life math. We went into some of the examples on the audio file like 3 kids trying to divide 4 cookies and how in real life they wouldn’t try to divide that 4rth cookie into thirds and such.   Anyway as we went into our discussion, my quiet learner Wizard came out while his unschooled friend was here spending 2 nights with us. The conversation caught his attention as interesting, or at least I am assuming it did for he quietly sat down in a corner of the room and listened intently on our whole conversation. He never said a word but out of the corner of my eye I could see he was really listening and hanging on to each and every word. I never said a word to him as I did not want to break the moment of interest, and believe me it would of! It was a magical moment that was only meant to be observed, not commented on and it is this mindful way of living that tunes you into learning to quietly observe for if you don’t you would miss a whole lot going on.  Yesterday when he was not around as he left to now go spend 2 nights at his unschooled friends house, I brought it up to my eldest to see if she had noticed it. Of course she did not, she never for a minute had been aware her brother had quietly joined into our Math Discussion, she had missed the moment.

A list of requests

Jelly bean came to me and asked me to write a list of things she would really like to learn about right now.

Her list is:

To learn Chinese ( Speaking and writing)

Animals ( nothing new here!)

Sewing

Pirates

Rivers

England

Karate

Learn to make video games ( doesn’t any kid?)

So that was her list of requests, for how long these will hold her interest, I am not sure but for now it is now my job to help her find where , how and what materials we may be able to get or activities we may be able to do in order to learn these. She is so curious about the world it really makes our journey fun and exciting. When I asked her about dance she said but mom the teacher at the Dance School will teach me that! Gottchya darling, this list was for me but she did state she had no clue how I would teach her these things as I knew nothing about some of the itmes on the list………like speaking or writing Chinese! Well thanks for the vote of confidence there kiddo! But that is part of the beauty of this journey, what I do not know, I get the pleasure of learning right along side her. Our funds at the moment is on a very limited basis however I am sure I will come up with a few ideas!

On another note it has been darn HOT here, they say we are getting July Temps here in April and are breaking records for heat. Today hit 92 which makes doing much of anything but wanting to go into the pool ( which we did!) impossible. Just doing my evening chores with animals and garden watering almost made me pass out from heat exhaustion!  We had a lot of fun today though going running errands to the Grain mill, and Walmarts, then came back and chilled in the pool for awhile. Wizard is sure on an emotional roller coaster of emotions with puberty to deal with, but we all will get through it together! He also has been really helping out, the other day he helped with hanging laundry, watering the gardens and dinner. When I asked him why all of the sudden he was asking so much to help, he simply told me it was because I was working hard all day and he wanted my day to be easier. It seems lately no matter where I turn one of my kids is there asking if there is anything they can help with…… I am so proud of them and it definatly is making my days easier and feelings of being so blessed!  

Off to get ideas for jellybeans list now!