Hockey All The Time

 Something that Austyn never gets bored of is hockey! He will play hockey video games, mini-sticks, street hockey, watch hockey on TV, watch the local pros play, and of course, play with his team. Hockey is a big part of his life. 

We even have board/card games on hockey and a hockey lapbook. HERE is a link to the lapbook if you have a child interested in learning about hockey.

Pinterest Inspired...

Zoe found these cast crafts on Pinterest and decided to make them. She made one for a doll and one for herself. Then she made a neck brace, an eye patch and a thumb cast.

Interested in School Work?

 School work, or what we traditionally think of as school work, is something that isn't so natural, but it is also something that kids sometimes want to do. They may choose to do it. Here is Zoe doing Grade 2 math from a Canadian Curriculum book we purchased. 

Here she is working on English in the same Curriculum book. She is working at her new work station that I set up in her room. 

As you can see, in both pictures she is wearing what she wants. The first picture is with a bathing suit top and shorts (not to mention a tattoo) and the bottom picture she is in her pajamas. One benefit of homeschooling is that they can wear what they are comfortable in and since they are at home they can choose when and where to do educational activities. It doesn't always have to be in one place.

ROBLOX

One thing that Austyn has been interested in is ROBLOX. It's a game online where he can build buildings and create worlds. From what I understand it's similar to Minecraft. We were told about Minecraft by other homeschooling parents, but started with ROBLOX for now. He enjoys it. Some aspects of it seem educational.

Book Sharing Monday - Happy New Year

 Happy New Year!! Usually I post these earlier than the actual date, but I decided that I'd start Book Sharing Monday again in the New Year and this is the New Year. I don't even know if anyone even does Book Sharing Monday anymore, because I've been out of the loop so long. I'll just do it on my own this week. Enjoy!

This is a book that we purchased from our local library. I'm not sure why people wouldn't want to borrow this book, but I'm not complaining, because now we own it! 

This has turned out to be the best book I've seen in a long time to explain to children how many different people around the world celebrate New Years. In some places New Years isn't celebrated on the same day as in North America. 

There are customs in this book that we may like to adopt in our home. It is an easy read, so young readers can read it on their own if they choose to. 

More Interest Led Reading

Zoe loves to get craft books from the library and read them for ideas.

Lego Creations

Something that never goes away in our house, and I'm glad it doesn't, is Lego. Many of the creations that Austyn makes I don't get pictures of. He makes so many things! This is an apartment building he made. 

The cats don't seem to mind it at all. LOL!

Gymnastics

 Zoe has been showing such a big interest in gymnastics. 

 She is definitely talented. 

 She has been in the invitational advanced level for this past session.

 I've seen huge improvements and she practices all day and all night long!

She has told me that if she had to choose between all of the activities she is currently in, she'd choose gymnastics as the only one. 

She is talented. She is only 6 years old and can already do back-hand-springs. She did, what I thought were some back flips the other night. I told the teacher about it and she said that she doesn't usually get parents that tell her that so early. Zoe needs to practice in a higher level to work on those new skills. 

She went to an invite-only try-out and made it to the next level. We are deciding what to do. It will be much more expensive and will take three times more of our time each week. It seems to be her thing though, so this is a big decision.

Facebook Inspired...

This craft was inspired by a post on Facebook. This is a homemade docking station for an iPod. It really works, too! Not as well as a proper docking station, but better than nothing!

Interest-Led Learning

Many of the people we have met in this area don't know about other ways of learning other than going to school and doing the curriculum assigned to them. Many seem to think that education is enforced through a scheduled lesson plan and proven with weekly tests. They think that kids have to be at a certain level at each age for each subject and if they aren't they are labeled and given more attention to bring them back up to the "level" of the others. This sounds right to most, but this overlooks that kids have different learning speeds for different areas of learning and they all learn differently. This is forcing kids to all fit into a small box of how it has to be according to the adults. It's very stressful for them.

I don't see what is wrong with letting kids live and follow their interests to learn. Sure... reading and math are important. At a certain age kids realize that it is and focus on it more because they just know that they need it. That is where Austyn is. He knows that he needs certain things. It's just like taking medicine if we are sick. We may not like the taste all of the time but we know that we need it to get better. So, sometimes we do Math and Reading practice (if it hasn't been touched on naturally for a while), but the best learning still happens when these things show up naturally and there is a strong curiosity that is driving the child to learn.

What I want to share in this post, is how learning happens well through interests. ANY interest. It doesn't have to be rocket ships or architecture. It can be a TV show, a book, a sport or anything else. In this case, Austyn is interested in a Japanese Cartoon called D. Gray Man that was introduced to him by a babysitter who traveled to Japan. He watched the whole series on NetFlix. I know that it's rated Teen and has some violence, but I don't care. He loves it and because of this, it drives him to learn more.

Shortly after becoming interested he realized that the cartoon was inspired by comics. We borrowed the first volume from the Library. Guess what!!! He's been reading it and got a copy for Christmas! He loves it!! This is HUGE since he wasn't all that interested in reading in the past.

 He enlarged the pictures that he liked of different levels of Akuma on our photocopier. He cut them out and pasted them on coloured paper to keep track of what each one looks like.

 Here are the pages he made and labeled.

 The theme of his interest shows up in many of the things he does each day. Here are Lego characters and other things that were inspired by D. Gray Man. This is a fairly recent interest. I assume that he will start to draw pictures and write about it as well. Time will tell. That is what happened with his other interests.