Fall Learning week 4 - The Holy Spirit

This week our scripture was:
"And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do." -1 Nephi 4:6
This is very much how our education is going.  And that is awesome.  I'm so grateful that it is SO dependent on the Spirit of God.  I do pray A LOT and plan what I can and "treasure up in <my> mind continually the words of life", but then I have to leave lots of room for listening to the Spirit, adjusting and learning in "the Flow".  This week was even less 'planned' than usual, so I guess our theme, so to speak, ended up being:THE SPIRIT
 One fabulous change in routine was COUSINS!! I am grateful that my kids didn't have to miss a second with them because they had to "go" to school. So grateful to meet this new little Angel - Jade loved holding her! Brothers! All the grand-kids on the Beesley side:) Playing games with cousins Adorable! We spent a morning at the Treehouse museum with some very engaged learning Individualizing and self-educating - with some mentoring from meBuildingBuildingBuildingBuildingGreat week.  One of my favorite parts was reading  books out on the lawn while dad was at Bishopric meeting, albeit resulted in losing some library pieces to a game...

Another reason I homeschool

Lists - I love lists.  Lists are not always good.  Life is often too complicated to contain on a list.  But lists can be very efficient.  Here are two contrasting lists.  

The first is what is often taught on "the conveyor belt" of public education:

• Do the bare minimum
• Learning means pleasing the authority figure.
• Learning, schooling and studying are no fun.
• Playing is when you don't have to learn
• To be a good student I have to study somebody else's interests.
• My own interestes must be pursued on my own time, and they aren't as valuable as the "accepted' topics of study.
• If nobody is making me study, I'd rather be entertained than learn.

Here is the second list.  This is how I feel about learning and how I am attempting to inspire my children to feel about it, too.

• There is SO MUCH to learn and it is SO EXCITING!!!
• Learning is more fun than almost anything
• I can learn on my own, in a group, or with help from a teacher or parent
• All I need is a book and I can learn
• In fact, I can learn even without a book
• I love learning!
• I am passionately interested in (fill in the blank - ie: homebirth, child development, volleyball, nature, the scriptures)
• If I do more than is assigned, I'll learn more and have more fun.  The assignments are just minimums
• My thoughts and ideas are as valuable as anybody else's.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE learning - this is the greatest lifestyle ever :)

Week 3 - Music

This week the Lord inspired me to focus on

MUSIC

 Troy learned to play "War Wagon" on the guitar

 Jade drew guitars

 We went to the Freedom's Light Festival

 It was awesome!

 We learned particularly about the Constitution with some awesome games to teach about it's six goals in the preamble.

 We went on an awesome bike ride to the skate park

 We studied some physics with slides and Hot Wheels cars

 For our Field-trip-Friday we went on an awesome hike

 This boy has some serious attention to detail

 Put a pen in her hand and she is happy

 Singing "Cheer up my Broder!"

 We harvested grapes and made grape juice with Dad

 Yay for a baby GIRL cousin :)
(While the boys are off at a Tractor Pull!)

 Fort building class

Fall Learning week 2 - Word of Wisdom

For our second week of Fall Learning, after praying and pondering I felt I should have our Mommy-Monday-kidschool be about

THE WORD OF WISDOM

 I didn't know beforehand how I would do that, but was given it in the very hour I needed it, when they were very interested in stuffed animals that morning, so we turned it into a tea party in the gazebo and discussed nutrition.

We talked about eating grains as the staff of life, eating fruits and herbs(vegetables) in their season, and eating meat sparingly.  We also talked about how children and especially babies need milk. (See Doctrine and Covenants section 89)

We washed the dishes when done, which ultimately led to a refreshing water fight! :)

We went to three parks, usually with a picnic.

We enjoyed beautiful weather.

 We enjoyed being together.

 We enjoyed the great health God has blessed us with.

 Four amazing blessings right there!

 We had an ad-lib baseball game (the best kind!) with some kids at a park using an old lighter as a ball and some plastic pods as bases

And if your three-year-old wets his pants you can always put the babies pants on him so that you can stay and play longer at the park (Troy's genius idea:)

 We studied bike tires, slime, valves, air inflation, etc.

 And continued enjoying good health from God.

 We continued studying repentance - the two oldest and a neighbor girl decided to throw dirt and apples all over our neighbors porch... While we were doing A.B.C.D. (Admit it, Be Sorry, Correct it, Don't Do it again), Baby was rescued by Dad and given his first lesson on the riding lawn mower.

 Troy built our family out of k'nex, including the dog

 Jade built a robot named "Kinexy"

 He taught her how to play checkers

 He built an beck-spader (ie: excavator) out of the pieces they lost

 Our song of the month is "The Family is of God" and we are memorizing a verse each week.  This week's verse is about Fathers.  And our scripture verse of the week. Also some drawing of food after our discussing God's law of health.

We continued recording some things each day - the father/son campout was this week, but of course I don't have any pictures of that :)