We have had a busy yet fun weekend for our Halloween weekend.

Friday I played a game of chess with Master S and me and my eldest daughter played a game of rummy with Little Miss C. Each of them played a little while on computer games and we went on an afternoon walk. Then we were all invited over to the neighbors for a bonfire. At the bonfire the kids got to play on the trampoline and roast marshmallows, it was tons of fun. We came back home and watched Lost in Space, a movie we had borrowed from the library.

Saturday the kids took turns going over to the neighbors to play and then bringing the neighbor friends over to our house to play. Little Miss C had also worked on some reading and spelling, she has recently begun to be able to spell quite a few words out as she does her searches on the computer, it has been helping tons in her spelling areas.  Master S spent quite a bit of time playing Math games with Little Miss C where I joined in the game to giving him problems to solve. Then it was time to take them out for Halloween so we took them to a nearby town. We were blowen away at Halloween is celebrated and just had a fantastic time! They block off a large area of town where the store owners all have all sorts of things for the kids to do, games to play to earn candy and even a small haunted house, free hot dogs and a hayride. It really draws a large crowd and was just so much fun and WARM. We are not use to celebrating Halloween like this and being warm enough to enjoy it so it was a wonderful new experience for us all. Then we came back home and we all made our beds up on the living room and stayed up watching scary halloween movies until we all got tired and went to sleep.

Sunday was mostly spent with their friends where Little Miss C and her friend spent a long time making Best Friends Forever Scrapbooks for each other, Master S played video games with his friend which is fun to see because their friends do not have video games. Master S spends a lot of time explaining how to play it and teaching his friend how to use the controlers.

Of course these are just the things I remember over the last couple days that stick out in my poor memory banks! Hope everyone had a fun and safe weekend as well~!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not too much went on for Wednesday as hubby and I had to run over to a town half hour away to go to an appointment at an employment agency for hubby’s search for work. This took up half the day but when we got back, Master S helped me with dinner, he really is getting into helping with dinner, it is becoming a nightly thing for him to want to do. I wrote 2 more articles for associated content and actually pretty embarrassed as I was in such a hurry, I forgot to proof read and edit an article so it ended up published with many typos and spelling errors! Lesson learned, edit and check prior to hitting the submitt button!

Both kids had taken turns playing on the computer and little Miss C had gone up to play with her neighbor friend awhile after dinner. I really have to get better and jotting activities down for the day because to tell you the truth, I really do not remember Wednesday all that well even though it was only 2 days ago! My memory just does not seem to serve me as well as it use to now adays!

Yesterday found me taking our adult daughter Miss N with Little Miss C out to find Daddy and exploring the woods and creek on our property. We had not taken them out their yet as 2 months ago when we moved here the deer ticks were horrid out there and I feared the danger of copper heads and cotten mouths, I just did not feel comfortable taking the kids out there then. Little Miss C loved exploring the acre of woods and creek and was just thrilled when she found out there was a deer stand in a tree she could climb on our property. She claimed it as her fort with enthusiasm LOL. After we explored the woods we took her for a walk down the road and got to see a beautiful snake sitting in the road, not sure what it was, have to look it up still but think it was a corn or milk snake of some sort.  Little Miss C also played and worked with these word tiles we have while she read the tiles and made up silly sentences. I also read her a poky puppy story.

Master S made dinner by himself last night, I did supervise to make sure he would not get burned by grease splatter but he did a great job. He made cheeseburgers and had seasoned the hamburger, they tasted really good! I am enjoying seeing him enjoying learning to cook. He had no desire to go explore the woods and creek though, I wish he would, it just is not his thing. 

Hubby of course was in the woods treasure hunting in the creek LOL. He really does not think he would ever find anything it is just something he enjoys doing, although he does find some neat quartz crystals and such. He helped his sister while she spent some time on the computer and then he played some strategy game online. He also spent time learning how to download programs on the computer. I usually do this, but he wanted to learn so he did it all by himself, following the directions.

Later at night we all watched Lost in Space we had borrowed from the library and ate crackers and cheese for a snack while we watched  the movie.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tickle spot gets Daddy everytime

Today was rainy most of the day and being Tuesday which is a pay day for me was also errand day which me and my adult daughter went and did. Miss C and Master S both came out to help unload the car of groceries and put them up.

Miss C with my help found a website she liked very much playing on at http://www.kidscom.com/ about making a differnce on earth…very cool. She also worked on dog training again which is hilarious as she is trying to train non-dog sled breeds of dogs as a dog sled team pulling a cooler for a sled. She went for a walk in the rain with me and hubby just to get wet and then a little chilled by the time we got back she made herself a cup of hot tea.  After Tea time is was time to wrestle with Daddy and her brother Master S.As a family we all watched scare tactics as we just love that show and later she watched part of So you think you can Dance with us and we played a game of candy land. Right before bed she enjoyed listening to one of her hip hop music CDs.

Master S researched memberships for RPG games today and found this site http://mmohub.org/ which he plans on exploring more tomorrow. He was really excited to find this site. He helped his sister Miss C when she was on the computer at her site with spelling and helping her navigate where she wanted to go. He also joined in wrestling with hubby today and watched Scare Tactics with us.

I wrote and submitted a couple of freelance articles today for

Between writing the articles and errands I did not have as much time with the kids as I would of liked today but we could really use a little extra money right now. In any case I was still able to spend sometime with them. Problem is I never feel like I have enough time with them even though we are home together everyday!

I know there are things I am forgetting, I always do, especially some of the questions and discussions that come up during the day. This week for some reason is also seemingly progressing very slowly and not much going on at all and I know these daily logs must seem a little dry yet I want to give a good glimpse into our daily lives and that some weeks are not as active as others.

Daddy makes a good umbrella

 

Making some hot tea

 

 

Master S got up around 9am ate peanut butter and toast for breakfast and then played resident evil for awhile. He really is amazing at playing video games where he can memorize codes and different things with a remarkable memory and can solve the puzzles with ease.

He played a game of chess with me in the afternoon which I always enjoy playing chess with him as again he is fairly skilled in strategy games and is quite a challenge to play against.

He thought about going to the library with the rest of us but then decided against it as it is not his favorite library.

He asked to help with dinner again but unfortuantly it was just baked chicken with rice and a I had just popped it into the oven when he came and asked.

He observed these tiny birds that his sister Little Miss C had noticed out our window, they were covering our willow oaks and flitting all over collecting insects I believe.

He played on the computer for awhile after dinner and then watched a little TV.
He really prefers doing things in small chunks so on outward appearance he does not seem to do too much with his days but then will go through a period of doing many things when given the choice. He also seems to be an introverted learner and likes time in solitude so much goes on beneath the surface where you have not witnessed his learning at all and then out of nowhere he will say something where you will be like “Where the heck did you learn that?” He is quiet in nature so with him, you can not always tell what he is internally processes or what he is up to with his alone time.

Little Miss C had gotten up around 8am and worked on Dog training with our dogs. She has always liked Dog Training where she has learned from me training dogs at home and at the Humane Society when I worked there and she would go with me to work.

She observed tiny birds out our window and was so excited about the busy flurry of them in our willow oaks she made sure the whole family came to see them.

We went to the Library, all of us except Master S and I got a book on North American Birds to see if we could identify the birds which Little Miss C looked through on the way home. She personally checked out a audio book on the pokey puppy that came with book and cassette. On the way to the library her eldest sis Miss N, read a story to her. Hubby had come with us which he normally does not do but he came and got a book out on Beekeeping. I got out a book I thought our son Master S may like but when he looked at it, he said NOPE not his thing. I tried, he is very particular on the type of books he likes.

She played Pet Vet on the Computer with me sitting with her to help her.

She played Candy Land with me, daddy and eldest sis where for the first time she did not win! That girl ALWAYS comes in winning Candy Land!

She went up after dinner to play with her neighbor friend for a little over an hour where Daddy went up to walk her home as it now is dark at 7pm so one of us always goes to walk her home.

She watched a little Tv then before going to bed, I think it was spongebob as the rest of us were watching So you think you can Dance on the other TV.

I suprised both the kids by making Craisin Oatmeal While Chocolate Chunk Cookies to go with their before Bed Tv Show which delighted them. Normally I will call them out to help but I wanted to suprise them last night.

Sunday was a very laid back day of relaxation for us, I try to keep at least one or two days a week I force myself to be laid back and relaxed to help recharge my batteries. However the things that we did yesterday…….

I woke up early, around 6am and wrote a blog post here on this site then read other blogs and checked my email. The kids woke up around 8am and had hot cereal for breakfast and watched some cartoons.

When hubby finally woke up around 11am, I helped my daughter play Pet Vets, a computer software game we own.  When she tired of it, I played my Pet Vets game for a while. My son played battle net on the computer when I was finished, he also played SIMS on his adult sisters computer while he waited for me to be done. Hubby played video games and watched some TV. Our adult daughter spent most the day playing her SIMS game on her computer in her room.

At dinner time my son asked to help so he made the baked chicken and the homemade cornbread while I made the potatoes and rice.

After dinner we all went for our family evening walk except for our son who really does not enjoy going on these walks all that much so he played video games until we got back home. Back at home our adult daughter played a game of rummy with our youngest daughter while I did the dishes.

During the day in between things I re-read “Parenting a Free Child:An Unschooled Life” by Rue Kream and started re-reading “Radical Unschooling A Revolution has Begun” by Dayna Martin.

My youngest daughter hereby out known as Little Miss C went to bed around 10pm and the rest of us including our son hereby on out known as Master S, watched Storm Chasers.

After Storm Chasers me and hubby retired to our room to watch Children of the Corn V and then went to sleep around 1am.

Our adult daughter had gone to bed and since Little Miss C was still awake they stayed up talking about Humans getting Spayed and where babies come from LOL. Little Miss C wanted to know if getting Spayed was as painful as having a baby and if you get spayed so you can not have babies then you can woo hoo all you want? She is very curious about the cycle of life and since we have always had many pets, she relates humans to what she knows in pets, thus getting spayed in her eyes.

Master S has the livingroom to himself at night after everyone else retires to their rooms to talk or watch tv so he stayed up playing Resident Evil until about midnight at which time he shut everything off and went to sleep.

Hubby left a really good job in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan when we suddenly decided to move to North Carolina. Perhaps we should have tried to find work before moving but when you have 5 dogs, you kind of have to move quickly when you find a place that will take your family of 5 plus 5 dogs! We have been in North Carolina now for 2 months and still have not come close to finding work. We are on the verge of losing our car as we can not make payments right now on it, however we do have enough income to pay for our rent , food and hopefully our utilities. Does this mean that no learning is taking place due to our financial hardship right now? Well most certainly not! Learning happens with or without money! Now granted, there are times when some money can help and make things easier as with money you have more access to field trips and materials of interest. However I am one who truly believed poverty is a state of mind and poverty is not in my state of mind at all! Besides it is just a phase as everything else in life……it all runs in cycles. We do not feel poverty ridden, for we see our lives right now as joyful, loving, exciting, rewarding and fulfilling and so blessed to have had hubby home with us these past 2 months. You see when we lived in Michigan he was a manager of 2 subways which meant he was NEVER home and when he was the phone rang from morning to-night making it impossible for us to even enjoy an hour picnic. At that pace he had burnt out so he never had the energy to want to do much with the family either. Yet  coming to North Carolina has led to many learning experiences even with the lack of funds for none of us had ever been out of Michigan before.  Since we have been here, the things we have gotten to do have been things as simple has having several cookouts in our yard, going to visit the Reed Gold Mine, visiting the Town Creek Indian Mounds, catching and observing green anoles and ground skinks then releasing them back to the wilds. We have gone to a wonderful library every single week, so much better then the libraries we had back home! We have a woods and creek on our property we have been exploring, gathering hickory nuts, saw our first rattle snake which was a Timber Rattle Snake that hubby almost stepped on one night on our afternoon walk. We have been to visit the Ocean and collected sea shells after swimming in it! We got to see the Mountains through West Virginia and Virginia when we moved here. We have had so much family time of playing, laughing, playing board games and enjoying movies borrowed free from the library. We have danced and sang around the evening bonfires. We have viewed more spiders and ran into more of their webs than we have cared to! We have seen black snakes and brown snakes. We experienced culture shock from a vastly different world from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan! We have tasted BOILED PEANUTS……………..and have tried Cheerwine……… we do not have these things in the NORTH. We have seen fields of cotton, a shocking expanse of white compared to the scenery around those fields. We have been making lots and lots of homemade bread. We are experiencing 70 degree weather at the end of October……….WHAT? They have had snow for over a week where we have come from! We are use to 30 feet of snow EVERY WINTER , 8 months of snow and temperatures that easily stay around 30 below for a good month or 2 of it.

 

All of these things and more have been such wonderful learning experiences that have not costed any money with the exception for a couple dollars of gas for just a couple of those items. Our kids have also been learning all about recessions, depressions and the economy in general throughout our financially challenged times. Whether you have little money or a lot of money or just enough……… Unschooling works regardless.

Nothing tastes better than food cooked over a campfire!

While I homeschooled for 4 years, I am just now nearing a full year into switching over to Unschooling. For me Unschooling is much like the life cycle of the butterfly, you do not just dive into it fully understanding its concepts or knowing how to implement it. It is a series of steps, each step being a catalyst of transformation, adaption and breaking down limitations. It has been a slow process for us, one filled with self doubts and which lacked confidence of our success and oh yes, lacked trust, the trust that your children will learn with this lifestyle. Then for a while I was fine and let things take their natural course only to find at the start of a new school year in calender terms, self-doubt filled me again. It filled me enough to even try going back to curriculum, schedules and order………..for a total of a week. Then I read something recently on a thread on the Radical Unschoolers Network that changed me almost over night. Not only finally did the whole concept of Unschooling finally “click” and make sense, but I was filled with renewed determination and something else. I was filled with passion for Unschooling. A passion for Unschooling that seems so natural and right to me now that I had never known before. With this passion comes direction and focus and knowing what I need to do to make it work to the fullest. A way of life that will enrich our lives beyond the limitations of our minds. We are free, in an almost utopia way we are free to live and learn together as a family. We are free to self express ourselves and to follow the passions of our hearts and minds and to truly enjoy the company and activities of each other in a beautiful tapestry of cooperative teamwork. Now you may ask, what was it she read that changed her way of thinking so completely and so suddenly………… a Lady mentioned that so often unschoolers concentrate on their doubts and worries of  Unschooling and wanted to know what areas we felt confident in. How true this statement rang to me, okay yes we all have doubts, we have moments of worry…….use these as tools to discover ways your children will enjoy building and learning in the areas of weakness. But do not waste that energy constantly listening to that voice in your head about all the self doubts you may have. Concentrate on the strengths of each family member and as the family as a whole, the weak areas can easily be filled in. Rather Celebrate the strengths, when you think about the areas you are confident, wow the kids have been learning a lot………….Naturally and child led.   It may sound silly to you that such a simple question could change my perspective so drastically, but I suppose sometimes it is the  simplest of things so often overlooked.

Welcome to our little corner of the blog world! I have been a homeschooling mom for 4 years until a year ago when we switched over to unschooling. While I am still getting the hang of it and still striving to understand the philosophy behind unschooling it has been an amazing journey so far. I look forward to sharing our lifestyle with you!