Jewelry Making and Library Time

The girls had library story time yesterday.  For the last couple of weeks, the kids have been coming up with various ways of reporting on inventions.  Some have made things and some have done power point presentations.  Some have had hands-on demonstrations.  Each homeschool kids did their own thing. 

Megan talked about the history of Lego bricks.  Who knew that Lego's were originally called "automatic binding bricks"?  When she was preparing her report, she wanted to sit at the computer and type it herself.  She's always been a natural speller, but it still surprised me when she sat down and just started typing away without needing spell check.  She was scared to talk in front of the kids, but she did it and was proud of herself.

Sami struggled for three weeks on what to do.  She is such a perfectionist that she convinced herself that she needed to make an original invention that worked for her report.  I finally got her focused after two weeks of struggling, so she ended up making a solar panel windmill from a kit.  Sami was very scared to talk in front of the other kids also, but she showed her windmill in a show-and-tell fashion.  We were both pleased that she was able to do this after all that she's been through in the last few weeks.

That afternoon, the library had a bead class where we got to make our own bracelets.  The hardest part was choosing what beads to use.  After the beads were chosen, the rest kinda fell into place.  Sami, in her perfectionist way, took over an hour to choose her beads and then another hour putting it together and taking it apart to try and make it perfect.  She was so frustrated, but she stuck with it and finished it.  I'm using my 40%off coupons at Hobby Lobby today and get the girls some more beads so that they can make some more jewelry at home.

 

Mine is on top, Sami's is in the middle, and Megan's is on the bottom.  Megan got done early and had time to make a pair of matching earrings.  

Christmas is Complete

We had a good Christmas.  Dave got to call Christmas morning and talk to everyone.  His parents spent the night, so they were able to talk to him also.  The presents were a hit, even if the girls didn't get everything they wanted this year (especially since most of what they wanted was expensive), but they got a lot since I found some great bargains on a couple of items.

Legos were the big hit this year.  They loved all their Lego toys and spent hours putting them together.  Sami ignored her new Nintendo DSi for hours so she could put together her Harry Potter Hogwarts Castle set.  Educational and fun is how I like it!

Now I am going to plan out this Winter's educational pursuits.  We are still unschooling, but adding a little bit of curriculum here and there.  The unschooling is working, and I can see Sami's reading level increase all the time, but I still want to plug things in there that they may not get from unschooling, such as history and math.  They do get exposed to history and math already, but I am anxious to add more and make it fun.