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.

Christmas Readiness

We're more ready for Christmas this year than normal, even with Dave in Iraq.  I think that is because I was forced to complete everything early to have it ready when he was home.  That included getting most of the shopping done weeks in advance. 

We are trying to have a relaxed Christmas season this year, without stress and chaos.  So far, so good.  We've had some hiccups, but mostly it's been a good season.  The hardest part is keeping the house tidy with us all stuck in the house.  At least the mess is because the kids are busy playing with toys and reading books. 

The kids have had a great attitude about Christmas this year.  I was worried that they would be grouchy since their father is in Iraq, but they've been cheerful little troopers.  They were a little miffed that I put the dog and cats' stocking stuffers in their father's stocking this year, but I just couldn't let his stocking sit unused.  It looked too lonely. 

Legos

It's been just over a month since I've blogged.  We've been busy!

Dave was home from Iraq for two wonderful weeks.  We got to spend a lot of quality time together as a family, and Dave and I got to go deer hunting a few times.  Two deer and two weeks later, he had to go back to Iraq but we have some great memories.

Now, what about Legos?  The girls have become obsessed with them!  They lurk online looking at new sets, they look at them in the toy isles, and they want new sets for Christmas.  We never had any Legos till this year when they got their first set last Christmas, and they were hooked. 

I like Legos for several reasons. 

1.  The girls have to follow detailed directions to put together Lego sets. 

2.  After initially building a set, they use their imagination and rearrange the sets in hundreds of different combinations.

3.  They use their imagination in playing with them and making story lines.  They even have political discussions between the characters (apparently our Legos are conservative). 

4.  They use a camera and take stop-motion photography pictures to make "movies."  They even write on the white board to make captions, like in old-fashioned black and white movies. 

5.  They are (mostly) durable and last for years. 

What I don't like about Legos are the price (I consider them very expensive) and how they get spread all over the room (they really hurt when I step on them).  Are they worth it?  At this point, I'm saying yes.  It falls in line with our unschooling philosophy and creativity. 

This had been the year of the Lego, and for that I am glad.  Webkinz were really starting to get on my nerves. 

Reading Classics

When I was in public school, I didn't have time to read any classics, or much of anything.  I was so busy doing school work and home work, that there was precious little time to read anything. 

When I was in high school, I was able to make some time to read quite a bit.  My bus route changed from 10 minutes to 1 1/2 hours when I entered high school, so I was able to read quite a bit on my home every day.  I mostly read science fiction because those were the types of books that my older university-attending brother left laying around, so I picked them up and read them.      

So why didn't I read any classics?  Remembering back, there were several reasons:

1. If the teacher assigned them they were WORK, not pleasure.
2. Even if we did pick out a book on our own, the teachers expected a book report or a test, not an open discussion of the book.  Reading a book to test is a joy killer.  An oral report just brought anxiety and fear of failure. 
3. The teachers would have written tests where we regurgitated names, dates, and useless facts of the book.  It's a lot easier for the teacher to grade names and dates than to read about what we thought of the book.  
4. What the teachers did make me read was BORING.  I can't even remember any titles of books that we read.  Just because it was labeled a classic didn't make it enjoyable to a child with a huge imagination. 
5. I remember a particularly hateful high school teacher making us read Shakespeare.  I say "making us read" because she didn't make it fun or enjoyable, and did a terrible job of explaining it to us.  She pampered her theater students and the rest of us were treated as fodder for her jabs and hurtful comments of how we weren't going to amount to anything.  I still don't enjoy Shakespeare because of her. 
6. My parents didn't take me to the library.  We lived seven miles from town, we had one car for years and six children, and extra-curricular activities were non-existent.  The elementary school library was one tiny room (maybe 10x15 feet?) that 25 other children were jumbling around in at the same time for 10 minutes a week.  The high school library was only visited if we were doing a paper and given special permission to visit. 

I did have a couple of teachers in elementary school who would read classics to us in class, like The Little House series, or the Chronicles of Narnia.  That was great!  I think it is because of them that I was able to finally realize that books could be wonderful and entertaining in the right environment.  I didn't even know that these were classics that they were reading to us; they were just fun to listen to. 

I think that it's somewhat of a miracle that I love books after all of that, let alone classics.  I am passing on my love of books to my children.  Here is how I am passing on this love:

1. I read out loud to them. 
2. We listen to books on CD.
3. We read fiction, science fiction, historical fiction and classics.  Non-fiction get looked at and used, like our bird book and caterpillar book. 
4. I keep tons of books available on the book shelves.  We get bargain books at library sales, hand-me-downs from growing cousins, and an occasional new book for special occasions.  
5. Whatever they pick up at the library is fine with me.  Graphic novels are perfectly acceptable.  We visit the library weekly at a minimum.
6. We talk about the books that we read, both the good and bad.  We discuss what we agree with and what we don't like. We discuss moral issues that come up, and views in books that challenge our own views.  We discuss about how written words don't make something correct or moral or even fact, but rather a point of view.  We also quit reading books after the first few chapters if they just don't sit well and aren't fun to read. 
7. I encourage them to read on their own and I let them choose what they want to read to themselves.  I don't assign books to them.  Often times they choose the same book again and again, and I just let them.  It will be a loved book to them as they grow older, and not a book that their mother criticized them for reading. 
8. I read in front of them often.  They always ask me about what I'm reading and what's happening now.  It's hard to tell a quick synopsis of what I'm reading, but I try.  I'm hoping that they'll want to read my more complicated books when they are ready.  It's funny to be reading a book while soaking in the tub, and the girls are sitting around me asking me about what I'm reading. 
9. I'm reading classics now and reading classics to the children.  I listen to classics on my MP3.  There are some really good classics out there, but I sure wouldn't have told you that as a child.  It's all in how they are presented.  

I'm glad my children love reading and love books.  I wish I were that way at their age. They are getting classics and they don't even know that they are classics.  They just enjoy the stories. 

Megan turns 9

Megan turned 9 years old.  My baby.  When did she grow up?

I think the hardest part of homeschooling is loving them so much and then letting them grow up and become independent.  I'm glad that I can be such an integral part of the growing up process and not let strangers push their agenda on her.  What a blessing she is.

Halloween

We have fun during Halloween in the Newlin house.  Some homeschool families get offended at the notion of celebrating Halloween and won't even discuss fairies, the Easter Bunny, or Santa Claus.  Their loss!

We walked through Franklin, Indiana and started at Martin Place, a street that the police block off so that the hundreds (thousands?) of children can walk without cars driving through.  We started at 6 PM, and the kids were done at 8 PM with a bucket full of goodies.  It was a blast!  And we got to sleep in as late as we wanted on a "school day." 

St. Louis, Missouri

This post is long overdue, but I still wanted to write about our wonderful experiences in St. Louis this last week.

The trip there was interesting and offered some great bonding time with me, my children, and my parents.  My parents aren't going to be around forever and I think that it's very important to spend as much quality time with them as possible.  My children will cherish those memories forever.

We somewhat surprised my brother and his wife when we arrived.  I had left a couple of messages, but apparently I left the messages on the wrong phone line.  Oops.  They knew we were coming within week, but just didn't know which day.  They were still ready for us and were great hosts.

We went to the St. Louis Science Center, which is a really fun free place to go.  They got to run a giant hamster wheel, build an arch just like the Gateway Arch, play with electronics, see dinosaurs, see real rocket ship capsules...there's too much to list. We finished up that day with a great dinner at a Japanese steak house, complete with the entertaining chef right at our table who cooked up wonderful food.  I forgot the camera there, so no pictures of Megan catching a shrimp in her mouth that the chef tossed at her, or the volcano onion that exploded with fire then "lava" (sauce) as it heated up on the grill.

 We went to The Butterfly House, a division of the St. Louis Botanical Gardens.  They have a wonderful green house that was full of thousands of butterflies and even a roach dome that the girls could climb inside.

No visit to St. Louis would be complete without a visit to the Gateway Arch.  It was the middle of the week and we had NO CROWDS!  That was a far cry better than the last time we went on a weekend and had to wait for hours to get in the Arch.  I love homeschooling and seeing sites during the week! 

 

The girls got in the Mississippi River, but just barely.  It wasn't very clean and I was afraid they would step on glass (which was all around).  We had a picnic on the Arch Mall and gazed at the Arch and the river.


On the way home we visited the Cahokia Indian Mounds in Illinois.  These are about one thousand years old and are the largest structures of their kind north of Mexico. 

It was an exhausting but rewarding week.