A World without walls
everyday life while homeschooling overseas
Me and my empty fridge in the background! :) Who wouldn't love to have a class making chocolates?? Well, that's just what our homeschool co-op kids got to do this week! Oh my, SO yummy! The big kids made peanut butter cups and chocolate lollipops. The younger kids dipped pretzel rods in chocolate, sprinkled them with rainbow sprinkles, and then made chocolate lollipops. The kids LOVED it. Kyle was a great teacher! We had such a great time! My favorite part was when Josh and I emptied out the fridge before co-op! I knew that they'd need the space in order to cool the chocolates, so Josh and I pulled out a few suitcases, put ALL of our food from the fridge into the suitcases, popped them outside, and made ready to enjoy the day! Ha! It was so much fun! We love having co-op!
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One of the classes in co-op this semester: Jordanian History. For one class, this awesome teacher had the kids all come dressed up as Bedouins. They learned about their traditions, music, living quarters, and foods. The kids LOVED it! They built a tent using the living room table, danced to music, had a traditional tea party, and ate some traditional foods! This is what kids never forget! Their disclosure:
"I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning." My disclosure: I've been eyeing Time4Learning for some time now, wondering if that might be the way to go for my kids to have some supplemental age appropriate LA/Math. The price is a bit steep, though, especially if I just wanted to try it out. Happily, I found a way to try it out! I got an email inviting me (well, people in general) to try it out for a month to see if it's something that you could use. I usually hesitate to use online resources. The problem for us is the sketchy internet. If the internet's down or too slow, we can't do the lessons, which puts us behind and for us, it's virtually impossible to play catchup. We do too much. I also really don't like the kids spending hours (or even half hours, if I'm honest) in front of the computer. I know, I know. It's a world based on technology now and the kids need to know how to use it. All technology can also be used for good as well as evil (evil meaning addictive video games that turn my kids into raging monsters). So, I'm going to give it a whirl. We'll try it out for a month and if the kids really love it and it helps them, then I don't mind dishing out the cash. It'll help me, too, if they like it. Homeschooling, to me, is all about flexibility, learning to live in the moment, and reassessing each day to make sure we're on the right path to succeed in our goals. Who knows? Maybe this can help us on that path. So, stay tuned to see what I think! :) We have now begun our new unit: The Weather! Andrew is over the moon. He loves (understatement) the weather. He dreams in weather. He draws pictures of weather. He wants to be a storm chaser when he grows up. He's saving his money so he can buy a motorhome and make a storm chaser car and drive around Tornado Alley and chase tornadoes. Good times. So, now we are on our way to learn many of the ins and outs of the weather! We've made a weather center with a weather vane, anemometer, thermometer and rain gauge. We have a barometer/hydrometer/thermometer right outside the window of the classroom so we can do some predicting by checking out the atmospheric pressure. We've made a chart about what makes the weather...we're making some big plans for science projects, outings, and fun books to read! New units are always exciting! :) For our end-of-unit project for our Animals unit, I had the kids pick an animal and be an expert on that animal. They made great informational posters, and then did a diorama on their animal. I had them report it to Devika (our house-helper), Rula (our Arabic teacher), Devin (their dad...he he he...), and the co-op group....and pretty much anyone else who came to visit us. It was really fun to watch them be all excited about their projects. We had fun working on them and working with 'real' clay (which they didn't particularly like) and figuring out how to present their animals within the context of a box! :) They did a great job!
Here we have another co-op trial. I found a super simple recipe to make individual bags of homemade ice cream! Of course, I had to try it out with the kids before I turned 25 kids loose with it, so here's our home trial! Claire made strawberry, Josh and Peter and Andrew made chocolate (not surprising), Devin made apple cinnamon and I made chocolate/maple syrup (yes, I indulged). The kids (as anticipated) got tired of shaking after about 2 1/2 seconds. :) But we eventually made it to ice cream consistency and I learned that I'm going to need to come up with some serious incentives to get all the kids to shake their bags! Maybe some music to dance to? Anyway, it looks like it was a success! We take part in the most amazing co-op! This semester, I'm going to be teaching the kids a cooking class! So, I decided that since cooking is very much a hands-on/contact sport and if it doesn't work, I KNOW the tears that ensue--so we're doing some advance prep. We had a mini cooking class where the kids tried out all the recipes I had prepared just to be sure that the ingredients and combinations worked well. We made Lemon Poppyseed, Apple Cinnamon, and Chocolate Chocolate Chip! Mmmmm... The kids had a great time (especially eating the muffins afterwards!) and I feel much more prepared for my class...I hope!!
When I was growing up, there was a commercial about legos that sang a song about Zach the Lego Maniac (those of you who remember this are singing this song in your heads right now...sorry). In our house, Andrew is the Lego Maniac! He only builds one thing, though: A storm chaser car (also known as the 'TIV'--but this vehicle he's holding is the 'TIV 2'). He builds a super heavy-duty vehicle complete with satellites and drivers and he plays with it for hours, chasing tornadoes. I think he's watched too many documentaries...he's on a first name basis with all the guys who do storm chasing! He's decided that for his 6th grade trip, he wants to go to Texas and see a tornado. He's planning to save his allowance for the rest of his life so that he (and Josh) can buy a motorhome and a storm chaser car and become storm chasers. Oh boy. At least he's dedicated. So, homeschooling isn't a piece of cake. It really isn't. It sure takes a lot of work. And even when you put in a whole lot of work, it still may not even seem to work. Such is the way of everything, really, I suppose... However, today, we had what seemed to me as the epitome of homeschooling days, so I just had to share, because who KNOWS when and if this will ever happen again! (I really am trying to think positively and hoping that it will happen again someday, but if it doesn't, at least I have one shining day to look back upon...) First, we started out our day with our usual fun: Calendar, Pledge, Life of Fred (the BEST math book series in the ENTIRE WORLD, by the way!!!) Then we went on to some other fun subjects... For History, we're doing The Ancients this year, and right now we're looking at the Indus Valley. I read a little snippet from Story of the World (a great history book, by the way!), then we put on 'sari's (wrapped sheets around ourselves in a decorative fashion, as seen in the picture), and I read them 'Once A Mouse' which is an Indian legend. (Peter put the Viking hat on his head and ran around the house yelling, "I'm Burger King!" I have no idea why he was doing that, but it was sure funny!) We learned that the people of the Indus Valley used elephants to help them farm, so that let right into our Unit study this month, which is animals. So, we did a focus on elephants. We read from a National Geographic book about elephants and talked about how funny it would be to farm with elephants. Then, off we went for snack time. We ate hummus and veggies, I threw a one hour loaf of bread into the bread maker (my best friend, by the way) then we had a half an hour (yes, a FULL half an hour) of quiet reading time! Andrew lays on my bed, Peter sits in the reading corner in the play room, Josh bundles up on the couch in the family room, and Claire curls up on the couch in the living room (I sit in the hallway on the floor so I can supervise...)! And they all read books (even Peter!!!!) for the entire half hour! WOW!!! At the end of our half hour, the bread was ready, so we popped in a Planet Earth documentary (BBC just rocks. You can't beat their documentaries narrated by David Attenburough Seriously. If you haven't watched any, you should.) about Deserts to see if we could see any elephants (we did--and it was pretty awesome), while we ate our hot bread (well, the KIDS ate the hot bread anyway...I ate some peanuts...) and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves! :) Cutest thing EVER! After our documentary time, we had our individual time: Andrew and I did some reading lessons together and read some books and did some fun math lessons; Claire and I did some fun math and read some stories together and drew some pictures; Josh and I read a funny math book, did some reviews on square roots and multiplication of large numbers and read "Island of the Blue Dolphins" together...and while I was in with the kids individually, all the others took care of Peter! They played with him outside, and showed him their typing games on the computer, and did puzzles with him, and Claire and Peter played with stuffed animals on my bed for well over an hour. Wow. After our individual time, Claire and Josh decided they wanted to make cookies. By themselves. So they did. I was not allowed to even enter the room (well, except to take pictures)! They also planned a side dish for dinner, and made mashed potato ghosts--which turned out REALLY well--and were very yummy! After dinner, to wind up our best day ever, we had an art class with grandma via Skype and did potato prints. We had such a fun day learning and playing together. But I have to admit, that even on the days when I feel like we don't get ANYTHING accomplished, I'm still SO thankful that I have my kids home with me. I sure love them! I wouldn't have it any other way. |
Who Am I?
As a Stay At Home Mom of 4 wonderful children, I have the amazing opportunity not only to home school them, but to do so in many different places! I am married to the most amazingly wonderful (and handsome) man in the whole world! Together, we seek out, every day, that Joy in the Journey that makes life exciting! Archives
November 2020
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Emily's books
by Dan Brown
I like that the plot twists and turns a lot...and it makes you think. However, I don't appreciate Dan Brown's endings in his books. I find the endings incongruent with the rest of his stories--why make it a romance for the last chapter...
by Shannon Hale
I loved this book. I'm a sucker for fairy tales/fantasy. This was so well written! I can't wait to read all the rest of her books!
by Shannon Hale
I'm reading this one again. I liked it the first time I read it. I'm still liking it for the second time around. I like all of Shannon Hales' books.
**Still lots of fun the second time around! I do like this book for a comfortable...
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