Our Month of June

Life got crazy this month because we got a new foster baby. We knew for a few weeks that we were picking her up near the end of the month, so we got all of our traveling out of the way beforehand. 

The boys got interested in Harry Potter towards the beginning of summer, so Mark has been reading that to them every night. They've read through the first two books and just recently started the third book. They are loving it!

We spent a weekend at Point Reyes:

We visited this Adventure Playground in Berkeley:

Lucy is chillin' in the bay while her brothers were at the playground

Mark and I spent four days in Monterey for our 10th anniversary. Our actual anniversary isn't until August, but that's okay. :)

Our new baby!

Piano practicing

Swim lessons

Tommy built this cool structure during quiet time one day:

The month of June was a complete blur, and July was pretty much the same way.

Week of June 2

Monday

Watched Mythbusters with Tommy in the morning. 

Lots of outside play.

Taekwondo.

Tuesday

Tommy and Ben got interested in domino toppling, so we watched several YouTube videos about it. We also learned about stick bombs, so we watched a few videos and tried to figure out how to make them ourselves. 

Math review worksheet.

Bide ride in the afternoon.

Wednesday

Watched Mythbusters with Tommy. 

More domino rallies. 

Started our Benjamin Franklin biography.

Piano lessons. 

Sidewalk chalk drawing with Ben. 

Taekwondo.

Thursday

Lots of outside play.

Friday
Point Reyes!

Week of May 26 + Weekend

Weekend
 Went to Point Lobos and explored tide pools. Did a lot of hiking and saw parts of Point Lobos we've never been to before.
Tommy was brave and let a tiny crab crawl on his hand. Mark caught a large crab and Tommy handled that as well.

Monday

Memorial Day. Went to our church BBQ and the boys played with their friends.
In the evening we had a picnic with family and the boys played with their cousins.

Tuesday

Playdate with a little friend for Lucy at my house 

Tommy made fortune cookies (he mixed the ingredients and I formed them). 

We listened to Story of the World during lunchtime, about mummies and King Tut. After lunch we watched a documentary about mummies on Netflix.
Went for a walk around town.
Tommy asked to make bread, so we mixed the dough. Will bake tomorrow.

Wednesday

Tommy baked 4 loaves of bread, mostly on his own.
Piano lessons.
 First day of Taekwondo, which the boys absolutely loved. (Tommy has been asking to take martial arts for over a year now). They are counting down the day until they can go back.
I went to the library with Lucy to pick out books for the boys. I found several comic book-style books, called Toon Books, that Ben likes, and lots of science books for Tommy. They must have liked what I got, because for the rest of the week I would find them huddled over one of their new books.

Thursday

Went to an end-of-schooyear party at a friend's house.
Finished our Thomas Edison biography. The boys are very interested in learning more about his inventions, so we are going to look up some YouTube videos to find out more.

Friday
Watched Mythbusters with Tommy, an episode involving car subwoofers (and shotguns, but that's not relevant...) He became very interested in how subwoofers work, so we watched a few YouTube videos about that.
Impromptu summer party at our house with some homeschool friends. Lots of water balloon fights, slip 'n slide, bubbles, and popsicles.
Found the boys reading books on their own a lot today!

Week of May 19th

This is our first official week of summer vacation. Not much has changed, though. The boys still have most of the day free to play and work on their projects. The only difference is they won't be working on math or handwriting until school starts up again in August. They are still taking piano lessons and practicing daily. 

 Monday

Mostly hanging out and not doing much. We went for a walk in the morning.
I played Super Mario Bros on the Wii with Ben.
After Monster Jam on Sunday, Tommy decided he wants an RC monster truck.
We read aloud from our Edison biography, a part where young Tom wants to buy chemicals for his laboratory, so he does jobs around the neighborhood to earn money. Tommy decided he wanted to do the same thing, so he washed my van to earn money towards his truck.

Tuesday

Outside play
Video games (new geometry and spelling games on my iPad)
Went out to lunch as a family with Daddy
Tommy made a mini monster truck race track out of dirt
Read aloud from Edison biography. Learned about slavery and the Underground Railroad.

Wednesday

Video games (too many, in my opinion!)
Outside play
Edison biography read aloud

Daddy finished reading Harry Potter aloud to the boys

Thursday

Exploratorium.
Watched some YouTube videos about learning basic Spanish.

Friday

Park day with homeschool friends
Watched Harry Potter for family movie night. We have a rule that we have to read the book before watching the movie. The boys seemed to appreciate seeing the story come to life on the screen. 

Monster Trucks

Last Sunday we went to a monster truck rally. That's within the realm of things I never considered part of my future. Tommy has always been interested in monster trucks and I've either tried to ignore it or passively try to talk him out of reading more monster truck books, with the thoughts 1) You've already read every book about monster trucks, can you finally pick something else to be fixated upon!? 2) There's nothing educationally valuable about monster trucks. They are just grown-up toys. 

But since I've been reading more about unschooling, I discovered the concept of feeding kids' passions. Not discouraging their passions because they aren't 'good' or 'educational enough'. I've been doing a lot of discouraging passions. I never say, "That's dumb, don't be interested in that", but I will just ignore it as much as I can, hoping it goes away. Lately I've been trying to be a lot better about being respectful of the boys' interests. So when Tommy asked to read more about monster trucks, because he'd already read all the books our library owned, we tracked down every book on the topic in the entire library district (thanks to inter-library loan). He looked up YouTube videos about monster trucks. He read articles about them on the internet. 

When I took a step back and looked at who my child is, I realized that Tommy has been interested in monster trucks ever since he was a baby. He's always gotten monster truck books from the library, even before he could read them. I've just dismissed it as "one of those boy things" that kids eventually grow out of. I never took it very seriously. But lately I've been trying to take their interests more seriously. I've been talking to them about the things they love and why they love them. I've been joining them in learning more about their passions. They love it when I take an interest in the things they love. :)

And so I had the idea to take Tommy to a monster truck show. Originally it was to be for his birthday, but there were only two shows happening, one in a few weeks (from when I started looking into it) and the next one wasn't until January 2015. We opted for the show in just a few weeks. 

Fast forward to the day of the show: Tommy was absolutely over-the-moon excited. He practically trembled with excitement and happiness at seeing the monster trucks drive around, do jumps, crash cars, and smash into things. I almost cried to see him so happy, his eyes alive at watching everything going on. 

I've truly learned that the things my kids are interested doesn't have to make sense to me. It doesn't have to be something I'm interested in. But it is worth it respect them as individuals and to join in with their interests and learn together. It is so worth it!

And then, the topic of educational value... Just in the past few days he learned about marketing, economics, math, advertising, geography, business ethics, not to mention suspension systems, aerodynamics, geometry, physics (force, mass, acceleration). I couldn't possibly have come up with a unit study of all these things if I tried. Tommy has learned so much just through his interest in monster trucks. 

Since the show, Tommy has watched more YouTube videos about monster trucks. We've learned about how the whole Monster Jam franchise works. He built a mini monster truck arena out of dirt for one of toy monster trucks. He decided he wants to buy himself a RC monster truck, so he's been doing chores around the house to earn money towards it. 

So much for monster trucks not being of any educational value. 

Last Day of School!

Thursday was our last day of school. Since we're unschooling, the last day of school isn't as amazingly exciting as if the kids were in a regular school. It wasn't even as exciting as when they were normally homeschooled, where we could finally shuck our schedule and indulge in days of wide open freedom. But I maintained the tradition of having a "last day of school" celebration so they would have some way of marking the end of one 'year' and the start of a new one, when we start up again in August. The only thing different about "school year" vs. "summer vacation" will be a few minutes of handwriting and math each day. That's pretty much it!

We celebrated by going to Jamba Juice. We sipped our smoothies and talked about what fun things we'd like to do during the summer. This is the list the boys came up with: 

- water park

- beach

- point Lobos

- Carmel

- get ice cream

- go see a movie

- Jamba Juice

- Take pictures

- family adventures

- buy a monster truck wheel (???)

- plant a tree

- playdates

Afterwards we went to Target to pick up some summer goodies, like a Slip 'n Slide, some water balloons, and bubbles for Lucy. It was a spicy hot day in the Bay Area, so the boys set up the Slip 'n Slide as soon as they got home.

Week of May 12th

Monday

Boys went to my moms group at church where they attended their class for 6/7 year olds.

We read aloud from our Thomas Edison book. In the part we read, young Tom was sent to school when he was 7, but the teacher couldn't deal with his quirkiness and constant questions, so his mom homeschooled him. This sparked a really good conversation about homeschooling.

Read aloud from a book about the Golden Gate Bridge (we spent Mother's Day in San Francisco and drove over the Golden Gate Bridge). Then we watched a documentary on YouTube about the building of the GGB. This led Tommy to want to know more about earthquakes.

Tuesday

Schoolwork.
Played outside most of the day.
Lots of read alouds.
Watched YouTube videos about earthquakes, roller coasters, and jet cars.

I know that some people have children who read all the time and it's no big deal. While my children are able to read, it's rare to find them actually sitting quietly and reading a book. But lately I've been seeing them reading a lot more often, and it makes me so happy!

Wednesday

Schoolwork. Piano lessons.
Legos while listening to history read-aloud (Story of the World, Vol II).

Lots of outside play.

Thursday

Last official day of school!
As part of our last-day-of-school tradition, we went to Jamba Juice to celebrate and then to Target for summer goodies.
Outside play with summer goodies.

Friday
Early morning Mythbusters. Tommy found a new show called West Coast Customs on Netflix. What could he not love about a show that is all about taking apart cars and putting them back together in amazing ways? We spend the morning looking up YouTube videos about custom cars and hot rods and talking about it.
Tommy built a monster truck rally out of popsicle sticks.
Outside play.