The last 7 days has been days of busyness! Friday Keilee went to a lock in with Maddie Grace where she slept NONE. Sunday night her best friend from K-5th grade spent the night with her. Keilee and Lyvvy are reconnecting after a couple of years of not talking. It was so awesome to hear them talking and laughing all night. Monday night Sophie spent the night with her and we went to Pt. Mallard on Tuesday.
Instagram fun with Lyv and Sophie.
Keilee auditioned for Aristocats and got the role she wanted; the Duchess! She is so excited to be back with her College Street Players doing a play. Some of her best friends in the entire world are in the cast and she is geeked!
The is the first play she has ever been in that she was an ‘older kid’. There are already several little girls who are enamored with her. It is so sweet.
Keilee continues to do A LOT of Art Journaling. She loves quotes just like her Mama does. 🙂 I LOVE her fox!
It has been beautiful and I took Kei outside for pictures. She is at the age where she thinks every picture of her is ‘horrible’. Why do girls do this? Why do girls have such a negative image of themselves? I wonder if it is things I have done or said. I have always told her she was beautiful and wonderful so I am not sure if it is just an ‘age’ thing or what. I always thought we would avoid that because we homeschooled but no such luck.
I read a survey once that says teenage girls think they look worse than they do and teenage boys think they look better. It is definitely a strange age and just because we homeschool doesn’t mean we don’t face some of the same issues.
1. Pt. Mallard Fun in the waves
2. Art Journaling on the floor!
3. Voice lessons with her lovely teacher
4. Kitty Kat love
This weeks theme on “7 Cool Homeschoolers” was What is on your iDevice. Check out some of her favorite apps below.
This next week is going to be insane for us. Keilee is looking so forward to it and I am dreading it. It is strange how the same events can cause different responses. Keilee is teaching at an Art/Drama/Music/Dance Camp and I am helping from 9-2 each day. Then Keilee is taking an After Hours Theater Camp from 3-6. Then we have practice from 6:30-8:30. Whew!
Stay cool everyone. Summer is in full force here in Alabama, I don’t care what the calendar says!
Homeschooling Rocks!
Karen
“You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.” ~Maya Angelou “A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.” ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince
Linking with Mary at “Collage Friday”
I love the Friday posts.† I am just in awe of those of you who posts several times a week. I just can’t do it.† Well I guess I could but it takes a lot of time.† Does everyone do Friday Collage like I do?† First of all I dump my phone pictures into Dropbox and go through them.† I take MAINLY iPhone pictures.† I then get the pictures off of my camera if there is any.† Then I edit the pictures and do the collages in Picasa.
What I love about these ‘Friday Wrap Up/Collage’ posts is in weeks that I think, “Good grief we didn’t do anything productive” I realize we did.
Monday at Co-op they made Cherry Pie Cupcakes in honor of President’s Day.† They colored the icing to look like pie crust.
Then in cooking they made a 4 course meal in 1 hour.† Then set up everything after Co-op for the families to all eat.† It was so good.† Caesar salad with homemade croutons, Breadsticks with dipping oil, Green Beans with mushrooms and onions and Stuffed Shells. For dessert it was homemade brownies with ice cream and fudge sauce.
We also got to go to the Shanghai Circus this week with a homeschool group.† It was AMAZING!† Gymnastics is another of Keilee’s loves.† Even though she doesn’t take Gymnastics she watches YouTube videos all the time.† She has taught herself to do so many things.† She leaned over to me at one point and said, “Davan could do all of these things!”† Just wanted to share Nicholina. :)† She took all these pictures from the balcony. Way up in the balcony.††
These were some of Keilee’s favorites.
This girl and guy were really good too.† The blurry picture is so you can see she was on pointe, ON HIS SHOULDERS!
When we got home she kept talking about how much she would love to do something like that, so we looked up Shanghai Circus.† They don’t live with their families, they travel all the time and practice hours a day.† We talked about the fact that if you love something so much and want to do that always, it takes so much time and practice.† We tried to figure up how many hours she has spent on acting….thousands between practices, at home practice and performing.
She spent a lot of time on an Animal Study she is doing on her own.† I tried to get her to come watch something with me one night but she said she would rather work on it. 🙂
She is now at her first day at the Animal Clinic.† I am going to wait to post this because she said she would take pictures for my blog.† [I have so raised her right huh?]
I just picked her up and it was so funny to hear her rattle on about everything she did.† She got to walk dogs, fold towels, play with dogs and cats, help hold down a dog for clipping, put together tons of syringes [without the needle Mom!], learn about the blood machine, put dogs in their kennels† and watch a SPAY!† Not a bad first day. Here are a few pictures she was able to take.
Things she has done this week include:
Working on a project within Webkinz.† She is doing a comparison on her vegetable garden and determining which crop is the most profitable to raise.† She is making charts and reports. She is keibell if any of your kids play.† She and Mary’s daughter have been sending each other all kinds of goodies. 🙂
Doing a few lessons on Khan Academy
Reading Book 1 of “The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe”
She spends a lot of time on this site.† Brain Genie You must all check it out.† It is free and you can play against other people if you want, completely anonymous and also do a ‘lesson’ sort of thing.† It is my favorite resource this week.
Her Animal project
We finally caught up on “Once Upon a Time“† LOVE this show!† We had watched a couple of them, then stopped.† The complete 1st season is on Netflix streaming and all of this season is on HuluPlus.
Watched the final episode of Downton Abbey.† Still speechless.
She wanted me to print out some Grammar worksheets which I did.
We are doing the SAT question of the day.† It is a free app.† She is rocking all the questions except the Math.
Part of what I like Keilee to do every week may be kinda strange to some of you.† I encourage her to spend time on Social Media.† I think that this is going to be more and more important.† I want her to Instagram and Vine and search for things on YouTube and find things that are ‘trending’.† She isn’t much into Facebook but she enjoys the other things.
She is working on this lapbook.† It is US History from 1909 until 2009. It is so funny because I always loved the idea of lapbooks but she didn’t. All of a sudden she loves them. Which is good since I have bought or gotten free probably 75 over the years.
WATCH THIS VIDEO! NOW!† I saw a link to this on Helena’s husbands Facebook.† We watched it, twice.† I kinda think Keilee has a little crush on Logan.† Well as ‘crushing’ as Keilee gets. Her words, “He is cute and smart”.† 🙂 I love the things he does for his ‘hackschooling’ and am planning on spending some time seeing if I could implement some of these ideas.† LOVE IT!!
So there is our week.† We have a busy weekend and Keilee’s play is in a couple of weeks.† All good fun.
HomeSchooling Rocks,
Karen
“I cannot teach anybody anything, I can only make them think.î ~Socrates
ìJust as eating against oneís will is injurious to health, so studying without a liking for it spoils the memory, and it retains nothing it takes in.î† ~Leonardo Da Vinci
ìSelf-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.î† ~Isaac Asimov
As much as I totally love homeschooling, and I do love it so, I have a love/hate relationship with it at times.† I have a picture in my mind of how I think our lifestyle should look….and marking things off of a list of daily plans is NOT my picture.† I know what I want our days to look like..I can see it…it would be every subject flowing into each other, no lessons plans and check lists… always just lovely learning.
I canít seem to find this in our days.† As some of you know we tried unschooling but Keilee hated it.† She LIKES the plans and lessons but I still feel like her days consist of one thing; checking things off of a schedule. A big black check mark ? that means “I am done thank goodness”. † It seems she has only one goal every day and that is to get ëfinishedí.† She begins around 8:00 each morning and finishes around 1:00.† 8 weeks into this school year, after checking off 8 weekly lesson plans day by day, I am putting my foot down.† I want to try something new.† Isnít that what this journey is all about?† Finding your own groove, your own ëperfectí.† †She has agreed to let me do things my way for a few weeks.
So..we are going to have ëlesson plansí to make her happy but it will be one LESSON a day.† Math one day, history one day, science one day. †She still has Co-op on Monday that lasts for 4 hours. The rest of the time will be filled with ëcreativeí, free time.† Writing on her book, knitting, crocheting [she JUST learned how], reading, writing scripts, making clay creations, painting, making her movies, learning her lines for Little Women and Little Josephine, drawing, and tons more things that she doesnít have time to explore now.† There are so many art projects I want to do but every day is spent doing ëlesson thingsí.† That is going to change.
In Pre-Algebra I am asking her to do 2-3 lessons once a week.† JUST the new concepts.† Not every problem.† Then once every few weeks we will go over the last few chapters and see if she remembers the general concept of it.† I know that a lot of people do not agree with this.† And that is fine.† Some people get their kids to do every problem in Math.† I just donít feel that is necessary.† The ëconceptí is what is important.† One thing I have realized in Math is that I have forgotten how to do these problems.† But you know what? It takes me just a little while to figure it out.† So if she doesnít remember every single new concept she will figure it out if it becomes something she needs.
In History we are going to move ahead in US History.† Explore some† things that interest her.† Watch some movies, watch YouTube videos, do notebooking pages and move on.† Every week I scour the internet finding great videos to go along with what we are learning.† By the time we finish her ‘schoolwork’ there is rarely time for the videos.† Now if she wants to learn about JFK “RIGHT NOW MOM” , then we will learn about JFK.† It doesn’t matter what the ‘next thing’ in the chapter is!
In Science we are going to continue with General Science but skim the information and take what interests her.† Do the experiments because she loves them. †Go over the ìOn Your Ownî questions but not become freaked out if we donít answer EVERY SINGLE ONE.† If we are ‘studying’ force and motion but she wants to learn about fungus and mosses well the force and motion will keep.† By the time we actually ‘get to’ fungus and mosses’ she may be over her interest.
We are going to read aloud more.† We do read aloud now but there isnít enough time to read all the great things I want to read to her. So more reading and less lesson plans.† I want to rediscover the love of learning.† We are going to take more walks and enjoy this weather.† We are going to get in the car and just drive and see what we can find.
Keilee ëdiscoveredí reading this summer.† She spent hours sitting outside or on the couch reading.† So far in this ëschool yearí not so much reading.† Why? She doesnít have time.† Between lessons, Co-op, play practice 3 nights a week, Fantasy Players practice once a week, and filming the movie…she has NO TIME to read!† That is going to change.
I donít know how this will work.† Keileeís main concern is that she wonít learn what she needs to know.† Needs to know for what?† Life? College?† I tell her I STILL don’t know everything I need to know. It is a constant learning process.† She has 6 more years until college if that is what she decides on.† I believe with every fiber of my being that loving to learn is more important than checking off lists and memorizing math, history and science facts.† So here we go.
Maybe I will get this whole homeschooling thing down by the time she ëgraduatesí.†
Homeschooling Rocks,
Karen
“Trust Children.† Nothing could be more simple, or more difficult.† Difficult because to trust children we must first learn to trust ourselves, and most of us were taught as children that we could not be trusted.” ~ John Holt, in “How Children Learn”
