Taking Things Apart

One thing that both Zoe and Austyn love to do is take things apart. Sometimes it's like a puzzle just getting something apart without snapping a piece of plastic or something. We have identified some of the important parts inside radios and other items. One of our librarians has told me about a book for this and she is trying to find it for us. When I get it I will share.

Book of the Week - The Boo Book

 In case you haven't noticed, my kids are never too old to enjoy picture books. We love to read any book that gets our attention. This was one of those books. The cover caught Zoe's eyes instantly. 

 The Boo Book by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer is a book about how to tell if your book is haunted. There are many signs!

You just have to know what those signs are and keep an eye out for them when reading!

Expaning Our Homeschooling Area

Instead of celebrating the first day not back to school with our local group, we went to the next county and spent it with the group there. There are more homeschooling families who homeschool similar to us. We thought it would be nice to meet some of them again. We have met them before, when we expanded out of our area the last time we lived in Ontario. So, some of the faces were familiar. It was a nice day out for the kids to play at the park and the moms could chat.

Track and Field

Again, this is old. We did this in the summer. This is the Track and Field day we attended with one of the homeschool groups we are members of. Zoe came in second this year and Austyn came in third (which was amazing in his level because there were so many kids in that level).

There were running races of varying distances, a variety of long jumps, and two types of throwing (speed and distance). I did a post on this last year.

The Village

 We visited a museum with a Canadian Aboriginal village. We were even given a tour inside the buildings.

 We could travel around the village and look at what there was.

They learned about tools, weapons, clothing, and how they built their villages. They learned about the jobs of each person and who traveled where, why they traveled, and how long it took to travel. They learned about how they would defend their village if it were attacked. Over all this was a good field trip.

SKAN A DO VILLAGE LINK

Field Trips back in time!

This happened months ago. I was going to forget posting about it, but saw that I had a draft sitting here to share. So, why not!! We went on two trips to this museum through our homeschool group. This was the first trip and it was to see what school would have been like when children attended the one-room-schoolhouse. 

Austyn couldn't attend this day. I think he was sick. So, Zoe went to this without him. The kids learned games that the children would play.

They did some lessons the way they would have been done in the old days. Zoe is doing math here.

They read an old reader and learned how to write with a feather pen.

 The second trip was on how the settlers of the area were natural recyclers. They made most of their own things and reused everything that could be reused.

 The kids weaved.

They also made rag rugs.

MOORE MUSEUM

Great Book - The Willed Curriculum, Unschooling, and Self-Direction

This is one of the books I've read recently. The author is a child advocate and father of two girls. One of his daughters has decided to go to school and the other has decided to homeschool. They follow, what he calls "the willed curriculum", which I thought was the most clever name I've ever heard for unschooling. Most of us hate the name unschooling for some reason or another and so many names have popped up to replace it. 

It's not just about the new title for unschooling that I love. It's the fresh perspective of what it really means and what it would look like; living life with love, trust, respect, care and compassion to help facilitate a life full of learning with your children! I thoroughly loved reading this book and found it to be a great addition to our unschooling library. I am so happy that finally someone with some education background in Ontario has written a book on unschooling!