Our Month of September

September was a fun month. In the first week Mark and the boys headed down to southern California to attend a wedding. The girls and I had to stay behind because of some rules regarding our foster baby leaving the county. Mark decided to make a daddy getaway out of the trip and they headed to Legoland for a surprise trip. 

Handsome boys ready for a wedding

Riding bikes in Newport Beach

Legoland with Dad!

Mark needed to change his brakes so he let Tommy help. Then he taught him how to change the oil. He did everything himself, with just a little help from Dad. He was so happy to have done so much himself!

Friday morning coffee date with Tommy. He's an early riser, so while the rest of the kids sleep, we head to Peet's, then walk around the block with our drinks and chat about everything under the sun. Mark works at home on Fridays, which makes this possible. :)

Monterey Bay Aquarium field trip with cousins (only 5 of 9 cousins are in this picture ;-)

First day of fall tradition: we bake something fall-ish and yummy. This year we baked an apple tart from scratch. 

Our 3rd annual First Day of Rain celebration: we put a fire in the fireplace, make hot chocolate and popcorn, and watch a movie on the first day of rain in the fall season. On this day we watched The Muppets Most Wanted. 

Ben got into the Halloween spirit a bit early and has been drawing Halloween pictures for a few weeks now. He gets his inspiration from this Ed Emberly drawing book. My boys don't usually draw very often, so it's been great seeing him get into drawing lately.

Other fun stuff not pictured:

- lots of Lego play, inspired by visiting Legoland. The boys wanted to buy themselves a few Lego Technic kits, so they earned the money by doing extra chores around the house to buy them. 

- Lots of playdates with friends and cousins

- Made Halloween decorations, which involved plastic trash bags,, balloons, dryer sheets, pipe cleaners, and lots of other odds-n-ends. I wasn't involved with this!

- Classic car show

- Listened to audio books: Grimm's Fairy Tales, a book about Christopher Columbus, Story of the World, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

- Read alouds: The Bible, A Child's Story Bible, Pinocchio, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Pilgrim Stories. 

First Day of (Un)School

School started for us this past week, on September 1st.

Yes, I know we're unschoolers, and we should be learning year round, not be beholden to any schedule, and all that goodness. But I crave structure, so for my mental well-being, we are still going by a loose interpretation of the school calendar. I plan to use the same school schedule we've been using thus far, which is to school from Sept through November, take off the month of December, and then school January through May. 

This past summer we had a lot of fun. But for me, the fun is more fun when I know there is some structure just round the corner. Actually, not much is changing- I'm just adding in a bit of math and handwriting and the boys are continuing with piano and taekwondo. The difference between this year and the past years is that now I'm prepared to throw out even that little bit of schoolwork if I see it's interfering with the boys' free time or with our relationship. I don't see that happening though.

In their back-to-school gift boxes they each received a Mad Libs Junior book. It has been the best thing ever! They spent the rest of the day filling in all the spaces and reading their stories out loud to each other. In just a few days they filled up the books, so we got some more in time for a long road-trip they'll be taking soon.

We only "do school" three days a week, and this is their checklist. They practice piano and taekwondo every day, but three days a week they have a single sheet of math, handwriting, and cursive to do. They are free to do their work whenever they want, as long as it's done before dinnertime (around 5:30). Tommy is the first to wake up and he generally chooses to do it during breakfast. He's done with his work by 8am! Ben wakes up much later, usually after Tommy has already finished his schoolwork, his breakfast, and his chores. But when he finally does sit down to do his work, he likes to work several days ahead so he can get more days off later. 

For history we listen to Story of the World audio CD when we're in the car and sometimes during meals at home. These books below is what I'll be reading aloud for US history. The books are from the Beautiful Feet Early American History Read-Aloud list, with some extra biographies added in based on what I know the boys will be interested in.

Check out their previous first days:

2013 

(2nd grade + K)

2012 

(1st grade + Pre-K)

2011 

(Preschool)

Our Month of August

If last month was all about dominoes and swim lessons, this month was all about baking and playing Monopoly. Tommy baked something nearly every day (and sometimes two or three times a day!) His 9 and 7 year old cousins are also baking a lot, and have started to give each other baking lessons. So far there have been two lessons. One day the boys went over to their cousins' house to learn how to make fudge, and another day the girls came to our house to learn how to make pretzels. 

We went to the San Francisco Zoo for our foster baby's 1st birthday. 

One of the many games of Monopoly played this month. 

We all venture to downtown San Jose once a week for our foster baby's visits with her bio-mom. We usually have lunch at Panera and then find a nearby park to play at. This time we found a giant Monopoly board at the park right next to The Children's Discovery Museum. The kids had a lot of fun pretending to be the pieces and moving around the board. 

Tommy got interested in RC cars this month and decided he wanted to get one. Our family rule is that if kids want toys, they have to earn the money to pay for them. He washed both our cars, vacuumed a few rooms, folded his baby sisters' laundry, did ironing, cleaned bathrooms, and lots of other chores around the house to earn the $30 to buy this car. 

Ben also earned a bit of money to buy this RC car. By some slick business dealing, he bought this car from Tommy for only $5. 

Reading time with little sister

Evening family walk. 

Other things we did that aren't pictured:

- Listened to Story of the World and some other audio books during our car trips

- Played lots of board and card games together

- Legos

- The boys found a renewed interest in drawing, and stayed up late many nights drawing pictures of King Kong and other creatures

- Playdates with friends

- Piano lessons

- Taekwondo lessons

- Read-alouds: Pinocchio, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, The Child's Story Bible

Our Month of July

July was a blur. Having a foster baby means lots of visitations, doctor appointments, medical professional house calls ... which all adds up to a very busy week. On top of that, the boys had swim lessons twice a week, there was a week of VBS, Mark worked late every night for a whole week, I went out of town for a weekend for a homeschool conference, then Mark went out of town for half a week. July really flew by!

Lucy turned 2:

More swim lessons

Trips to the library 

Quiet time fun with dominoes

Cookie making 

This is fun: Someone gave Tommy this car a while back. He's had a lot of fun with it. But then little sister got hold of it and broke the wheels. So Tommy decided to make it into a lowrider. Then he wanted to take pictures of it to make it look like a real car. 

The boys heard about Minecraft from somewhere and wanted to play it. They worked for a day to earn the money to buy the app. They have been loving it!

Our first full-day outing with all four kids. We visited Garrapata State Park and Monterey. It was a long day, but a really good day. :)

Mark stayed home with the girls one day while I took the boys to San Francisco. We went to The Exploratorium, drove down Lombard Street, ate some Haight Street pizza, and hung out at Golden Gate Park. It's hard to do all that with two babies! 

When we were at The Exploratorium, the boys participated in a Tinkering workshop. They loved it so much that we made our own tinkering space the next day. They have been gluing and constructing every since.

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!