I thought I just might not survive this past week but luckily I did.  Long days and nights notwithstanding it was actually a great week.

Saturday Keilee had an acting workshop from 10-5.  She got an hour break for lunch so I packed a lunch and took her to the park when I picked her up.  She really enjoyed the class and had a blast!

This past week was Camp Artselle.  It is a camp for 1-5 graders from 9:00-2:00.  Keilee is a counselor and I am the ‘adult’ helper in another class. I could never be a teacher in a classroom.  I spend 50% of my time telling kids to be quiet and pay attention and listening to drama!  And not the kind we were in class for!

Keilee takes her job VERY seriously.  Her kids absolutely love her.  They brought her cards and letters every day that they had made her at home.  She had the group going into the 5th grade.  She was quite surprised how silly they acted about boys and such.  She is so NOT like that.  She loved her kids though and they had a blast.  They go to 4 classes then they pick a “Master” class for the 5th class.  There is also a snack and lunch during the day.  The theme was Mardi Gras and Keilee actually worked on the theme last year in camp for this year.

She and another boy were also directing a video they made during camp to show to the parents.  They did a great job with it.

Then from 3:00-6:00 she was in After Hours class.  I didn’t help with this one so I left and came home only to turn around and come back at 6:00 for Aristocats practice.  Long days… from 8:15 AM to around 9:00 PM.  During the After Hours class they brought in a guest speaker who has an acting company in Huntsville.  He put all the kids on stage and they performed an Improv Skit.  Keilee won a T shirt for the Best Acting.  I wish I could have seen it.  She acted like a psycho prisoner in a prison who ended up screaming at a guard at the top of her lungs.  🙂  Yeah, that’s my girl.

They practice all week to perform on Thursday for family.  Keilee was ‘The Whistler“.  She ‘whistled’ a long solo during the song “When You Go to New Orleans”  It was really cool.

Aristocat practice is going great.  There is a little girl who is barely 5 who LOVES Keilee.  She will sit in the front row when she isn’t on stage and just watch every move she makes.  She is TOO cute.

I LOVE this picture.  This is Keilee and 3 of her best friends.  She has known these boys for years.  They are inseparable during plays and they text continuously.  She does NOT like them as ‘boyfriends’ but she loves them as brothers.  There were a couple of 13-15 year old girls who thought this picture was inappropriate.  These are the same girls who never stopped talking about boys and acting silly and giggly all the time.  It kinda upset Keilee until I explained to her that some people are going to find fault with anything.  This picture shows friendship and caring and happy to me.

This week on 7 Cool Homeschoolers the theme was “Parents”. Keilee worked really hard on her video and she did it at 11:00 PM every night because we were gone all day.  She wouldn’t let me see it until she posted it.  Watch if you have a chance.  She is my heart.

We have a slower paced weekend then Keilee is helping with another camp next week.  The hours are NOT as crazy and it is actually in our town.  After that we have a few plans for day trips and of course practice 3 times a week until August.

Happy Summer!
Homeschooling Rocks!
Karen

The summer night is like a perfection of thought.  ~Wallace Stevens
“Celebrate summer–sun-drenched days and starlit nights.” ~Gooseberry Patch

I didn’t get a chance to do my weekly update last week.  I had computer issues AGAIN!  After being told it was a hard drive failure and worrying for 3 days that everything I had was lost, I found out Monday it was the backup hard drive that was failing.  The computer guys said it worked fine the 3 days they had it.  When I turned it on it froze up EVERY SINGLE TIME!  Worked fine for them.  I brought it home yesterday and it has been running fine.  Maybe it just needed time away from us…

I  know I post a HUGE amount of pictures of Keilee but since she is basically my only subject I just can’t help myself.  And she is always doing something cool or silly or awesome so there you go….

I am trying to remember what we have been up to the last 12 or so days.  We did go to the Alabama Jubilee Balloon Festival which is always beautiful.  There is something about 60+ balloons flying right over your head that is breathtaking!

There is always cartwheels at our house.  And handsprings and splits and handstands and attempted aerials and more.  Keilee has bruises constantly all over her legs from them banging together.

Space Warriors came out on DVD.  Keilee is in it about 6 or 7 times.  We had to watch it twice and even pause to find her everywhere. 🙂  It was very cool.  There are so many scenes they told her she couldn’t be in because she looked too much like Lacey the main girl.
These pictures are from my TV so they aren’t the best.  The picture that she has the hat on is when Sean McNamara told Thomas Horn to ‘look at the girl in the hat and speak to her most of the time”.

We also went to the actual Space and Rocket Center.  It is $25 a person to get in or you can get a Summer Pass with 1 adult and 2 children for $40!!  So we took my niece and had a great time.  We always see something new every time we go.

As I have said before we spend HUGE amounts of time outside.  If I could afford it I would have a in ground pool, a trampoline and a tree house.  Keilee has been Hula hooping all over the yard.  She has gotten really good at it.  She also is forever throwing it up and twisting around and catching it.

Yesterday’s post was about Keilee’s latest video for “7 Cool Homeschoolers” I have a link to the video.  She has gotten so much positive things from that day.  She is emailing with the curator of the Old State Bank AND the County Archives about interning and volunteering.

Last week’s video was Free Style and Keilee decided to do a video about Nomad.  Nomad is such an important part of our family.  We weren’t able to get a dog since we lived in a townhouse until 3 years ago.  I think she appreciates him so much because she waited so long for him.  Isn’t that the way it is with most things?  Keilee has never done without anything but she also doesn’t get things handed to her left and right.  She is so appreciative of everything she gets.  Check out the video if you haven’t.  It is very sweet.

Keilee auditioned for “Aristocats” last night.  She was so excited about seeing her friends.  She loves all of these kids and except for Maddie Grace, she never sees them except during plays.  They stay in contact via text constantly.

There has been all sorts of learning going on.  Keilee has decided to read all 7 “Harry Potter” books. She has listened to them all on audio as they came out.  After I read them [because I was NOT going to wait to listen on audio] I would get the audio for us both to listen to.  She also read the first 3 when she was about 9.  She would read the book and listen to audio at the same time. [This was PRE Keilee reading :)]  But now she wants to read them all this summer.  She finished the 1st book in a few days and has started on the 2nd one.

She watches YouTube all.the.time.  Crash Course, Horrible Histories, Documentaries and more.

She has created several art pages.  She gets a quote or song lyric she likes and does a page. She has taste in music that I question at times. Nothing ‘bad’, she will not listen to a song with ‘bad words’ but bands that definitely are NOT Top 40.  I was talking to her about it the other day and later I came in and she was listening to “One Direction” radio station on Pandora [Not that there is anything wrong with them but she doesn’t listen to them]  I asked her what she was doing and she said “I am listening to bands you think I should”  Then she stated her point, “So many of these songs are about drinking and going to parties and liking boys and finding a girl, the songs I like are about perseverance and making it through anything and believing in yourself”  I looked at her and said, “Point made, listen to what you want to” 🙂  *She was NOT listening to just One Direction, you make a station on Pandora and they play similar artists.

The page about this “Brutal World” is from “Revolution”.  As I have said before she LOVES this book.  She is always talking about it or quoting it.

So that is a quick recap of our last couple of weeks.  Summer is in full force here.  We have been to the pool and had a blast.  Many, many more trips there are planned.  Play practice will start next week and Keilee has several things she is doing this summer.

Tonight she is off to a lock-in at one of her friend’s church.  There will be black light Volleyball and Laser Tag. So tomorrow I expect her to sleep all day long.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Keilee.  And it was an accident!  She was taking her phone out of her bag while she was outside on a blanket and she hit the camera button!  She and I couldn’t believe how it turned out!

Happy weekend!
Karen

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”  ~Anne Frank
“Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.” ~Henry James

Linking with Mary at “Collage Friday”

I love days that everything just works out.  Days that start out one way and end in lovely possibilities.

That is what happened yesterday as Keilee was filming her video for “7 Cool Homeschoolers”.  She had all the places mapped out that she wanted to go for a Tour of her town.  When we got up it was cloudy and a possibility of rain so we left much earlier than we intended trying to beat the rain.  And that’s where things just started falling into place.

We first went to Rhodes Ferry Park.  She did her little snippet about that and then she wanted to go the the Old State Bank.  That place is chocked full of history and Keilee has always loved it.  The first thing we noticed was that it was really LOUD!  It is located on a busy highway and she was afraid no one could ever hear her.  As she was walking up the steps to film the columns a pick up truck pulled up and a man got out and came up and asked us if we were there for the tour.  Keilee told him no and told him what she was doing.  Turns out that he is David Breland, former Judge and now the curator of the Bank.  He proceeded to spend 2 1/2 hours with us and he was a fount of information!  He even let Keilee video him talking.

He asked her so much about what she liked and seemed to be really interested in the fact that she homeschools.  He told her she could intern at the Bank and then he started telling her about plans for an amphitheater to be built within the year.  In October of 2014 they are having a HUGE celebration of the Sequential of the “Battle of Decatur” during the Civil War and he asked Keilee if she would like to write and direct a play to perform during the celebration!!!  She was beyond excited and told him she would love it.

He was such a lovely man.  He took us on a walking tour of Old Decatur and explained in great detail all the houses and the architectural style of each one.  Then he took us to the County Archives which I had never been to.  He introduced Keilee to the director and she told him how much she loved old records.  He took us on a tour and even showed her the vault with all sorts of records and uniforms.  He asked her to come back when she had more time and peruse to her hearts content.  She talked to him about volunteering also!

She got in the car to come home and was just babbling about her day.  She told me that the next few years all she wants to do is intern different places.  She talked about who all she could get to help her with the play and already has ideas.  She has emailed both of them since we have gotten home and heard back from them both.

So this day just unfolded so wonderfully.  As homeschoolers we have such amazing opportunities.  We have found that most people with a passion for something LOVES to discuss it with others.  They are so opened to sharing their knowledge and time.  You just have to put yourself out there.  Like I tell Keilee all the time, the worse thing that can happen is they can tell you no.

Her few minute video turned into something much longer but she wanted to show the entire thing.  If you get a chance watch it.  A little history lesson. 🙂

Homeschooling rocks!
Karen

Every where we go now there are kids.  Public school got out this week so the kids are out full force.  The places that were once deserted and ‘ours’ are now is full of children.

Saturday we went to a mini concert at a park on the Tennessee River.  It is one of our favorite parks.  A friend of ours was canoeing 250 miles to raise money for the Tennessee Riverkeeper.  She posted beautiful pictures on Instagram.  It looked like such a lovely, peaceful time.  I would have lasted 30 minutes probably!

We have had such gorgeous weather.  Keilee and I love to be outside, seriously we go out in the morning and are in and out until 10 or 11 at night.  It won’t be long before it is too hot to be outside for very long.

I had to get my license renewed this past week and the Rose Garden at the Courthouse was glorious!  Keilee took all these pictures except the one of her with her iPhone.

We also went to one of our favorite Antique Malls.  Keilee LOVES going to antique shops.  It is so funny because my Mother and Daddy were so into Antiques.  They even owned an Antique Store when I was in high school and college.  I was interested in them not one little bit.  I wanted everything new and modern.  Mother told me one day I would appreciate them.  She, as always, was right.

1.  I have wanted this game forever. I don’t know why I haven’t bought it before.  It is called Zeus on the Loose and it has everything!  Strategy, Math skills, Mythology.  We loved it.  You get to ‘steal’ Zeus and Keilee was laughing so hard at my expressions every time she got him.
2.  Amaryllis These are just the most beautiful flowers!
3.  It rained for about 10 minutes Wednesday evening.  Keilee grabbed her pink umbrella and played in the rain!

7 Cool Homeschoolers Theme this week was FASHION.  So you know Keilee was loving it!  She had a hard time picking only 8 outfits.  I always love the extra effort she puts into her videos. This has been such a great experience for her.

The papers in the picture was her notes for the shoot.  She printed out the lyrics to the song she wanted to use, blocked off which outfit for which lyrics and used tags on the outfits to correspond with the colors of each outfit on the paper.  She can be so organized with some things and so helter skelter with others!

Here is her video.  She would love for you to take a look if you have a chance.

We went to a petting zoo Thursday.  It was seriously in someone’s back yard.  It was a big yard but still….they had over 100 animals and the people were so nice.

All these pictures are by Keilee. She takes such better pictures than me!  It makes me really bummed but I am glad she has such a good eye.

We LOVED the Llama!

Keilee kept sending Snap Chat videos to Jenn at Little Homeschool on The Prairie’s daughter.  She had a blast.

She did tons of learning things this week too.  She always has her head in a book or is writing things down or baking or watching YouTube videos and telling me things.

I started reading Starcrossed aloud to her.  We always pick a book and read it on the hammock everyday.  I have already read this and I think she will like it.  It is a trilogy and the 3rd book comes out May 28th.

We have big plans this weekend.  And our Summer is already chocked full.  More on that later.  I hope everyone has a wonderful Memorial Day.  Are you planning on grilling? I think it is a USA law that you must! 🙂

Happy weekend,
Homeschooling Rocks!
Karen

“Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.” ~Richard P. Feyman
“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.” ~John Lubbock

Linking with
Mary at “Collage Friday”
Savannah at “Hammock Tracks”

It seems like we are always so busy.  I crave days of doing absolutely.nothing.  HOMEschooling…that’s at home right?

Saturday we went to the Dragon Boat Races at the Tennessee River.  Our church had a team and it was a great day.  We came in 4th out of almost 100 teams and while that was good our preacher has big plans to win it next year.  He is a wee bit competitive!  That is our preacher and his wife in the first picture.  Actually they co-Pastor.

Monday was the last day of Co-op.  Keilee is going to miss these girls every week.  They all live around here but in a 45 mile radius.  It is hard to coordinate get togethers with everything else going on in all of our lives.  Keilee has planned a sleepover this summer to celebrate the end of Co-op.  If we can just find a time to get everyone here, between camps and church camps and vacations!

Keilee wanted to paint her bed purple so we enlisted the help of Seth.  We could have done it but he is 17 and always looking for ways to make money.  They did a GREAT job!

Wednesday was our church’s Convergence.  We have a small building and lots of people who attend Epic.  We have 5 services every Sunday!  So once every 3 months we ‘converge’ to a large place to worship.  It is always amazing and moving and wonderful.  We are in prayer for a larger place and that just may happen soon!  I don’t see how our pastors and worship team do it week after week.

We have been outside almost every second that we are home.  The weather has been beautiful and next week looks awesome! High 80’s every day!  After painting our glider bright yellow we decided to paint our table purple!  We already had the turquoise chairs.  Our patio is old and needs some work but we spend so much time here in the spring and summer and fall!

1. Keilee is learning to do an aerial and all I do is pray every time she tries.  Being the Mother,  I envision broken necks every.single.time.
2.  I took Keilee to Wheeler Wildlife Refuge for her “Thursday with Keilee” on 7 Cool Homeschoolers.  She wasn’t feeling well and she didn’t get to film everything she wanted to but it turned out good.
3.  Keilee can stomp me on the Wii but I rule on old school Nintento games.  We have spent hours and hours playing Super Mario 3.  Seriously I used to RULE Nintendo.  The local TV station did a story on me years ago because I was a 22 year old married chick who played video games all the time!  🙂  I told you I have always been a geek gamer girl!

THURSDAYS WITH KEILEE – WILDLIFE ADVENTURE

Learning around here just flows. When I try to remember some of the things Kei has done I can’t remember that much.  She watches huge amounts of Crash Course.  She watches CNN Student News every day.  She reads ‘Jesus Calling’ every day.  She works on her video and ideas and editing.  She is working through an Ecology book.  She does Khan Academy Algebra.  She plays tons of Angry Birds.  We have a competition going and she is WAY ahead of me!  She does SAT app every day.   She spends hours outside flipping and twisting and turning.  She watches Gymnastics videos every day.  She plays with Snap Circuits.  The iPhone app “The Bible” has an audio option and we listen to it often.

Here are a  couple of resources I would love to share.  If you aren’t signed up for “Free Homeschool Deals” you should!  She has awesome resources.  Seriously go check it out right now!

Things we have used lately:
Middle School Science Resources
Free Chemistry and Physical Science Course
Master Math

We don’t do a lot of ‘schooly’ stuff anymore.  Is Keilee learning? You betcha she is.  The best kind of learning; learning she LOVES and remembers.  We have tons of conversations, we explore things together, she teaches me and I teach her.  She is forever showing me or telling me something she has learned.  The Mark Twain quote is one of my favorite quotes and one I try to live by most of the time.  “Explore, Dream, Discover”

So that is about it for our lovely week.  Today is raining and it is supposed to rain all weekend.  Lots of time to RULE Mario Brothers 3!  Muwhahahahahah!

Homeschooling Rocks!
Karen
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”   ~ Mark Twain

“Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people’s curiosity. It is enough to open minds, do not overload them. Put there just a spark. If there is some good inflammable stuff, it will catch fire.”  ~Anatole France

Linking with Mary at “Collage Friday”

Lots of Science learning taking place around here this week.  I think Keilee would be happy doing nothing but Science!

1.  Co-op making no bake cookies
2.  Skate Day with Keilee and Maddie Grace
3.  Co-op.  These girls have SO much fun.
4.  Seth decided to do a push up with Keilee on his back.  Too funny!

Keilee watched several documentaries about Quantum Physics this week.  She then sat down and drew on pages and pages of paper to explain it to me.  Honestly, I didn’t understand everything she was saying.  I LOVE that she loves things like this.

The weather was lovely this week.  We had tons of outside time.  Cartwheels of course were done over and over and over.

We also decided to paint everything on our patio that wasn’t tied down.  We have tons more to do but it is looking so colorful!  I need new cushions for my glider and chairs.

This weeks’ “7 Cool Homeschoolers” was “Blind Taste Test”.  Britney came over to help Keilee on Tuesday.  We laughed so much at her ‘tasting’.  She was convinced that she wouldn’t miss any!  She was wrong.  I love the way she added information about the tongue.  I wish you could have seen the outtakes.  She was so frustrated because she kept forgetting things she wanted to say.  I was in the back of the house just laughing at her.

She also wanted to learn about “Stockholm Syndrome” and the Catacombs of Paris.  She is TOTALLY fascinated with the French Revolution.  It happened after we listened to “Revolution” audio book.  This book is for older kids and only you know what is appropriate for your kids but she loved it.  It has led to so much learning about that time period.

Here are some of the links she used for each topic:

STOCKHOLM SYNDROME

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1920301,00.html
http://health.howstuffworks.com/mental-health/mental-disorders/stockholm-syndrome.htm
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riwHaBHnTi0

CATACOMBS

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2184393/Paris-catacombs-The-skulls-bones-inside-Frances-Empire-Dead.html
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/02/paris-underground/shea-text
http://www.mysterycasebook.com/2011/catacombsofthedead.html
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/02/paris-underground/paris-underground-interactive
http://www.frontrowdocumentaries.com/history/catacombs-of-death-paris.html

WATCH
Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5MIzoHOyfQ
Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBrkrnrkbsE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=–ti8nSK5ZQ
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/30/133308592/parisunderground

The FUNNEST [ I know, not a word] thing that she did this week was a field trip to Hudson Alpha.  From their website:

In Our Life This Week:

After our hectic week last week this one was all about slowing down.  Yes we have too many things going on at times and yes some days are crazy, but I know that overall our lives are much more laid back and stress free than if Keilee was in PS with outside activities.  I have often wondered how those kids find time for anything?  For playing or day dreaming or reading on the hammock?  We are so lucky to be able to learn at home.

Most of our week was spent outside in nature.  Even though our weather hasn’t really been a normal April we were still able to play outside a good bit.  Everything is blooming here.  It is so gorgeous. Some of our flowers.  Pictures by Keilee.

Keilee found a Robin egg in the yard.  No sign of a nest.  We wondered if we could put it in another bird’s nest but the only bird nest we found had a Mourning Dove Momma who wasn’t budging.  Papa [we think] was near by.

Co-op has been such a blessing to us both this year.  We had never done it before and I am so glad we did this year.  Keilee loves these girls and they all have such a blast together!  Here are the cupcakes they made and a delicious Italian Cream Cake with  Cream Cheese frosting. It was honestly heavenly.  Once again I am made aware at how much Keilee cooks at home. Time after time she is the only one who has ever creamed butter or separated eggs or many more things.  She has been cooking since she was 7 or 8!

Various shots.  I found myself taking hardly any pictures lately!  And about zero with my digital camera.  The iPhone is just so much handier.  Like I always heard, “The best camera is the one that’s with you” And that is ALWAYS my iPhone.

1.  My birthday cake! My birthday was Tuesday and Keilee made this cake.  It was caramel with caramel icing.  She also made marshmallow fondant and cut out flowers.  The candle holders are dresses she made with clay.
2.  Epic Church.  Sunday was our Baptism day with 111 people baptized!  It was a moving, awesome day.
3.  This is a weird little app called Face Fusion.  This is Keilee and I ‘fused’ together.  It isn’t perfect because the pictures are supposed to be non smiling.  I see ‘mostly’ me with hints of Keilee. 🙂

Various things done this week:

• Khan Algebra
• Shmoop This is a really cool site.  I signed up for the newsletter and we never fail to look at it each week.  Lots of cool videos and information.
• CNN Student News.  After seeing this on various blogs it is now something Keilee does every single morning.  Great info!
• Snap Circuits
• Tons of baking for my birthday, at Co-op and goodies for neighbors and at the Animal Clinic.  Keilee has taken something she baked to work every single week.
• Crash Course / Science/History/Ecology  This is a YouTube channel that Keilee watches every single day too.
• Blimey Cow  This is a YouTube channel that Keilee loves probably most of all.  It is done by Homeschoolers and she has watched it for years.  She LOVES Jordan.  He is in college now but still makes videos every Monday.
• Reading, reading and more reading.
• The Medici’s on PBS.  I have this app called Twonky that beams YouTube to my TV [via my Roku]  We have been watching lots of documentaries on that.  It isn’t 100% all the time but very close.
• SAT Prep words App
• Another YouTube video she LOVES is “Tour the States”  She watches this over and over and goes around singing it all the time.  It is DEFINITELY worth a watch!

I know there is a lot more but without her here to ask I forget all the things she does!  Being Interest Led she is pretty much on her own unless she ask for help.

On “7 Cool Homeschoolers” the theme was “Room Tour”  She had a blast doing this one.  This is actually  a still shot from her video so it is a little blurry.  The video is below the pic.  We are painting her bed PURPLE but “No Keilee we don’t have time to do it before you shoot your video!” 🙂

In other EXCITING news I ‘attended’ a Twitter Party that IHomeschool Network had last night and won a LIFETIME MEMBERSHIP to Notebooking Pages!  I have wanted this for so long and just couldn’t find the money to get it.  I was seriously jumping up and down, both virtually and in real life.  I also won a FREE class to Curr Click Live Classes.  I can’t wait for Keilee to choose which one she wants!  Thanks to IHomeschool Network and all the great sponsors for a great party!  I don’t go to Twitter parties nearly often enough.  I am going to try to find time for them.

Keilee just now text me this and this picture.  She loves her internship so much.  For the record I really didn’t think it was a HORSE! 🙂

So that is our week here at Homeschool Girls.  As always I am in awe of people who post every couple of days!  I guess I could find the time but I have been really busy for work and all of our other activities.  Finding time for my Friday post is hard at times!

Happy weekend.  Ours is supposed to be FULL of RAIN and COLD [for May in Alabama] temperatures.  Hope yours is beautiful.

Homeschooling Rocks!
Karen

“Spring would not be spring without bird songs.” ~Francis M. Chapman

“I sing of brooks, of blossoms, birds, and bowers:
Of April, May, or June, and July flowers.
I sing of Maypoles, Hock-carts, wassails, wakes,
Of bridegrooms, brides, and of the bridal cakes.”  ~Robert Herrick, Hesperides, 1648

Happily linking with
Mary at “Collage Friday”
IHomeschoolNetwork “Homeschool Mother’s Journal”
Savannah at “Hammock Tracks”

There was much going on this past week.  The most exciting was the premiere of “Little Josephine”.  More on that later.

There was cooking and creating and clay and so much more.  I love the way our weeks flow at times.  Not always perfect but always learning and laughing and loving.

7 Cool Homeschoolers  The theme this week was “Your Favorite Character from a book, movie or TV show.  Keilee picked Cinderella, one of her favorite Disney Princesses.  She wrote this amazing little rap song. I LOVED how this turned out!

Various parts of our week:

1.  Cinderella – Yo!
2.  Cupcakes with homemade peanut butter icing.  Yummy!!
3.  I finally bought “Color Yourself Smart – Geography” that I have seen on so many blogs.
4.  Keilee played for hours with clay.
5.  A little volcano she had gotten months ago.  Add vinegar and voila!

Clay Creations:

She played around a bit with Marshmallow Fondant she had seen on Jessica’s site.  Very cool.

Saturday she went to 2 workshops at a local college.  One was for Directing and Film Making and the other on Acting.  She loved them both.  I was ‘more than welcome’ to stay but decided to let her go without me.  It is her thing not mine.  After the final class I waited and waiting while all these people came out…most of them college kids and adults.  Finally I peeked in and she was in deep conversation with both of the teachers! With everyone else already gone!  I love that she will just ask questions when she is out of her ‘normal comfort zone’.  This picture was on their Facebook page. I did not make it.

The big thing of the week was the premiere of “Little Josephine“.  This was such an unbelievable experience for Keilee and for me.  It involved learning the script, fittings for the costume, days of filming and then days of filming her part on the green screen, recording the song, promotion and more.

We met tons of our friends before the performance for dinner.  Keilee was there surrounded by her best friends and she said, “Mom they are as excited for me as I am!”  It was just a lovely wonderful night.  It was so strange for her to be in the audience watching herself.  She is usually on stage.  We were so thankful for all the friends and family who were there to support her.

Friends… These pictures are blurry and the lighting is horrible but I love the joy in them.

Space Warriors is out but is being shown in select theaters only.  It is being shown at the Space and Rocket Center.  We haven’t had a chance to go this week but will go next weekend.

What a week!  As exciting as it was I am glad every week doesn’t look like this.  I would go crazy!

Homeschooling Rocks!
Karen

“We have to continually be jumping off cliffs and developing our wings on the way down.” ~Kurt Vonnegut
“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious…and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” ~Walt Disney Company

Better late than never: Happily linking with Mary at “Collage Friday”

I sometimes worry about Math.  At times a little, at others a lot.  Lately Keilee has been asking me to print Assessment Tests for her to take.  Keilee has never, not once, taken a test given by me.  I don’t do tests, ever.

I printed out 2 last week; a 42 page ‘Reading Comprehension’ and a 30 page ‘Grammar’.  She missed 1 on the Reading Comprehension and 2 on the Grammar.  Out of that many pages!  Now keep in mind, we do NOT do Grammar.  Not in years.  She said to me, “Now I want to try the 8^th grade test” [she would be in 7^th grade if she was in PS] and I told her, “That was the 8^th grade test!”  I was happy for her because she was proud of herself.

Sunday she wanted a Math one.  So I printed it out and knew even before she looked at it that she would have no clue on some of these questions.  I was right although she did know so much more than I thought she would, Thank you Khan Academy!

I thought long and hard about this Math dilemma.  I have changed my ‘thinking’ so many times on this Homeschool journey to actually wind up right back where I began.  Well since we have over 5 years left I guess ‘wind up’ is not the right word.

I started out loving unschooling.  Even before I removed Keilee from public school I was drawn to it. I had folder and folders [This was BP…‘Before Pinterest’ remember when you had to bookmark? :)] of Homeschool resources before I ever started homeschooling Keilee.  She went to K and 1^st grade and the first week of 2^nd grade I picked her up, said, “Would you like to be homeschooled?” She said “YES” and the rest is history…well ‘our’ history. 

I am really not quite sure unschooling is even the right word for what she does.  She tells me what she wants to do and I find resources or she finds them.  She does want a schedule and I provide her with one.  Even that changes format from week to week, at times it is a ‘Daily’ chart and some weeks it is just “Weekly”.

All that being said, since this is about Math, here is what “I” believe.  She knows the basics, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, etc.  As we have gone through various Math curriculums I have ran across many concepts already that I had totally forgotten.  Do you know how long it usually takes me to look it up and figure it out?  10 minutes…tops.   So then why can’t Keilee do that?  Say she gets in College [if that is what she decides to do] and takes a Math class.  She is smart enough that if she doesn’t understand she can figure it out with all the resources online.

What she does for Math now is Khan Academy.  I  Khan Academy.  She does around 3 or 4 lessons a week.  She has finished Pre-Algebra and just started Algebra.  She understands it.  If she doesn’t, she ask me to find her some worksheets so she can practice.

I have thought about this long and hard and what I think is important is that kids have the resources to “FIND” the answers they need.  Not that it is all memorized in their heads.  I know schools teach tests to students. So you have 7^th graders all over the country being drilled week after week on the exact concepts they will be tested on.  So I didn’t feel bad when she didn’t know some of the 8^th grade Math problems.  When she found one she didn’t know I asked her if she could ‘find out’ how to solve it.  She said yes and she did that.  To me that is more important than knowing how to do it because you have been drilled on it over and over ad nauseam.  Which they promptly forget as soon as they stop drilling.

So I am mostly letting go of my Math freak outs…Breath in…breath out….

I believe with all my heart that the internet and more importantly, the amazing resources on the internet has changed learning forever.  I am so excited that Keilee is living in this time frame, that the only place all these awesome resources have to do is get better and better.   Can you imagine how learning will look in 10 years or even 5?  Makes me wish I had a 2 year old…hmmmm…nah. 😉

Homeschooling Rocks,
Karen

*Disclaimer: I am not saying that Math isn’t important.  I am saying that ‘drilling’ Math facts or concepts into a child’s head day after day is unimportant.  There are many professions where I know higher Math is essential.

“Arithmetic is where the answer is right and everything is nice and you can look out of the window and see the blue sky – or the answer is wrong and you have to start over and try again and see how it comes out this time.”  ~Carl Sandburg