Et tu, Brute?

Tuna and I love Story of the World. Many homeschoolers don't, citing its "great men" emphasis, or its author's religious tendencies. However, Story of the World is a wonderful tale of history, and treats all religions equally, so far as I can tell so far, setting all religious stories aside as just that: tales of the times. We can appreciate the myths told as such. And being as it is not the only exposure Tuna gets to either history or any of the social studies, I fear not the "great men" emphasis. 

We have enjoyed every chapter of volume one, and look so forward to volume two, which we will begin in the fall. 

Today, we read about Julius Caesar. The story was so captivating that we breezed through two entire chapters in one siting, then found this BBC series on Julius Caesar's death on YouTube. It's told in old English, but Tuna found most of it easy to understand after having listened to me reading from Story of the World. Once in context, the old English is not hard to understand. I only had to translate a few phrases for her. 

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

What Have We Been Up To?

Oh, a little of this and a little of that. 

We've been spending quality time together. 

We've been finishing patio furniture. 

We've been playing in the rain. 

We've been finding worms and roly-polies and slugs, and creating temporary habitats for them so we can learn more about them. We've been learning about how carnivorous plants digest their meals. 

We've been skinning our knees. And our hands. And our shoulders. And our feet. And wrecking our pants. And we've been getting fillings on our front teeth, because some little crapturd neighbor kid cherry bombed us on the seesaw and chipped our tooth (a cherry bomb, for the rest of us, is when you jump off the seesaw while your friend is up in the air). 

We've been feeding ducks and swans and checking out the local wildlife. Today, we visited a lovely (and free!) "zoo" near Burglegenfeld, Germany which featured native animals in decent enclosures. We were able to buy food to feed them, which was pretty fun. We wish we could have spent longer there, but we had to hurry off to the dentist (see above description of incident). 

And we've been finishing up our school year. Our official last day is next Friday. Bay just tested out of her algebra program, and we got her enrolled in high school for the fall. Tuna and I are reading By the Shores of Silver Creek, and she is still loving the Little House series, so we plan to continue the rest of the series throughout the summer. She's still loving Life of Fred, but we will be wrapping that up soon. And she has absolutely loved Story of the World. 

I am so glad we made the decision to homeschool this year. I look forward to our fifth grade year and I hope Bay's year at high school goes well. Of course, if it doesn't, she can always come home and we'll have loads of fun. 

On the agenda for the rest of this week: a cook rice experiment, a can crushing experiment, a tree exploration, some cooking, and lots of snuggly reading. 

Hope you're all well. :)

Where we learn...and what we're up to

Well, the Hubs comes home tonight after a week away with work. Here's what we've been up to this week:

Monday

Finished reading On the Banks of Plum Creek

Bay tested out of one level in her math course

Worked on painting the wrought iron furniture

Lots of Minecraft and YouTube

Lots of playing outside

Tuesday

Volunteered at the thrift shop

Bay tutored in math

Bay tested out of another math level

Didn't really track what Tuna did with her time. Minecraft for sure. 

Watched some documentaries on Netflix with Tuna

Bay went to the teen center for the entire afternoon and evening. 

I found a new use for all the scarves Hubs brought home from Afghanistan:

Wednesday

What on Earth did we do on Wednesday?

We watched Jodi Arias get convicted of first degree murder, after watching the entire trial live. That was educational!

Bay tested out of more math. 

We watched more documentaries.

We went shopping. 

Minecraft and YouTube

Thursday

Our other volunteer day at the thrift shop. Tuna bought this and has seldom set it down since:

our sofa nest is our favorite place to curl up with a good book

Bay went to the teen center for the afternoon and evening. 

Tuna and I went grocery shopping. 

Lots of outside time was had by all. 

Minecraft ruled the evening. 

And Friday

We cleaned the house together. 

I baked strawberry rhubarb pie with Bay looking on. 

Tuna studied up on a minecraft server she has asked to join. 

More outside time was had by all. 

We're learning to forage. We are picking up some library books tomorrow!

We all remarked on how much our plants have grown. The garden has been quite educational, too!

 

these lettuce babies need to be tranplanted this weekend!

Trust the Process

It can be difficult to unschool our thinking and trust the process that's happening when we let go and try unschooling. Won't they just watch TV all day? 

Tuna's Minecraft nest

(no)

Sometimes, I catch myself wondering, "Are we doing enough?" and that's where keeping a blog and taking pictures helps me. 

Tuna and I have begun watching Kitchen Nightmares and Gold Rush on Netflix. Believe it or not, we learn a lot from those "reality" shows! It opens up a lot of discussion. Plus, Gold Rush ties in nicely with her Minecraft obsession. 

She's been wiggling two loose teeth for three months now. Stubborn, these teeth. The last three months, she's tried various experiments to help get those teeth out. There was the basket she tied to some yarn, which she tied around her tooth, and she stood up on the sofa arm and dropped the basket, hoping to yank out her tooth. There was the door slam experiment. She asked Daddy to try his pliers (it was not loose enough). Then, she left it alone for a few months. Last night, it started bothering her again, so she wiggled and wiggled and decided to try an apple. She ate the whole apple and still had a loose tooth (hanging by a thread). So she twisted it around and around and every time she felt a pop, she told me about it, until out it came, and she put it in a cup of warm water to keep it "safe."  Success. :)

Today, Tuna and I finished On the Banks of Plum Creek. I've come to peace with the Little House series. Tuna loves the books so much. Her enthusiasm is contagious. So I read on. She really gets into the story and brings up scenes from the books at various points in everyday life. We have even had a few experiments and activities based on things we've read in the books. Tomorrow, we're going to start By the Shores of Silver Lake, the next in the series. 



We set aside math and Story of the World. Tuna likes them. We just needed a break. We get plenty of living math each day. We are going to pick it back up tomorrow, though, because Tuna is asking me to. 

Bay's plugging along working on testing out of her math program so she can enroll in Geometry next year. She spend a lot of time writing and drawing and reading. 

As a family, we're working on the renovation of my grandmother's wrought-iron patio furniture set. It's proving to be an educational, long, and expensive endeavor, and an endeavor of love and sentiment. I can't wait to finish the project. 

Cheech helps by supervising us from the comfort of the doormat. 

Tuna did mention something today that I hadn't even thought of: Bees are attracted to the color red. And guess what color we're painting the furniture. 

You guessed it. Red. 

Good thing we're putting mosquito netting around the sitting area. 

Keep the faith. Unschooling works. Every member of the unschooling unit learns together, learns richly, and learns to think independently. There is no room for hive mind here. 

Unless you're on my new patio, I suppose. I do wish that would have occurred to us sooner. Oh well. I do so love the color red. 

The Decision

Bay has decided to return full-time to public school in the fall. We're supporting her decision. She's a smart, level-headed young adult, and it is her life to live. We will support her from home. 

She craves the structure and social element of school, which doesn't make any sense to me, but again, it's not my life. The problem that I have with her decision is that she has, in the past, turned hostile toward her family members during the school year. Mean, foul words to be said, eyes rolling, doors slamming, no patience, no kindness, hostility. 

I told her that this was my concern, that she would shut down again, shut us out, disclude us. She assures me she will not. Still, I cringe. I worry. I already mourn her leaving me and the safety of the nest. 

She is crash-coursing to get Algebra I done so she can enroll in Geometry. 

Tuna has no desire to return to school, thankfully. She is most harmonious at home, and thriving extremely well. I hope she never, ever changes her mind. 

I am sad over this. I am sad at what she will miss out on: travel, learning at her own pace, learning what she wants to learn. Then again, that's just me projecting. What's important to her now is not any of that. And it's time for me to respect that choice. That doesn't make it easy, though. Nothing would, I suspect. 

Our Hike in Pictures

We spent the afternoon hiking today and we all had a great time. We learned a little, too!