Good Homeschool Day

The last few days have been what I call "good homeschool days." We did a certain amount of assigned work (math, grammar, etc.). But even more important than that, we played some learning games and we talked about important things. For example, my 5 year old daughter gave me a summary of her philosophy of life. She told me that, "I don't care about getting the best stuff and if I die, I die. I'm just going to follow Jesus." She also explained that when she becomes a teenager she would make sure to be "mature and not snotty." I was happy to hear that.

An important part of our day is prayer and scripture study. Today, the girls read out loud to me while I made breakfast. I ask them questions every few verses and we talk about it. We talked about why previously righteous people start making bad choices and how quickly bad can lead to worse. We do homeschool for academic reasons, but our main concern is the moral development of our children. I'm a bit reluctant to mention such details of our life, but it is who we are. Not talking about it seems unnatural, but talking about sounds a bit ostentatious. I guess blogging is pretty ostentatious anyway. :-)

While taking down the Christmas tree, my 11 year old daughter asked if her dad had ever been my "boyfriend" or had he always been a "fiancé." That took some thought. We decided to get married, before we dated. However, there was that 3 to 6 month period when we were planning on getting married but were not officially engaged. [I must add in that my grandmother didn't buy that for a minute. During this "not officially engaged" period, she asked me if we were engaged. I said no. She asked if we were seeing other people, I said no. She replied, "So you're engaged?"] Anyway, we talked about the dangers and pointlessness of boyfriends.

The discussion then turned to food. Recently, my 5 year old is always hungry. I commented that I thought she must be in a growth spurt. This lead to a discussion about healthy eating habits. Having struggled with an eating disorder in my teens, I'm so happy my kids’ thinking about food is emotionally healthy. Staying out of school and not watching commercial television has helped them develop a healthier lifestyle. Also, the homeschool park day we attend has a lot of "granola head" types. I am in awe of how healthy some of these people eat.

I did a lot of healthly cooking from scratch the last few days. Yesterday, we juiced some oranges from our tree and froze them in ice cube trays. Today I made yogurt. Then, I put a tray of the frozen juice cubes, 1/2 a frozen banana, a couple of slices of frozen peach, 2 cups of fresh yogurt, a little stevia (natural sweetener) and 2 tablespoons of sugar into a blender. It tasted wonderful. No fat. Organic fruit from my backyard. Yogurt made at home without preservatives. [Yea, yea, I know it had a lot of carbs in it, but it was much healthier than some of the alternatives.]

Anyway, I like to play Scrabble on my palm pilot. I recently download a Scrabble game for our PC. The 11 year old and 9 year old have started to play. I might add these kids are "challenged spellers." I'm always happy when I can get them to spend time doing something they need to work on and also have fun. This evening we played a Professor Noggin's game called Pets. It is a fun way to learn facts about animals. My nine year surprised me when she knew the answer about what breed of dog was first bred by Tibetan Monks as a guard dog. [By the way, it was the Lhasa Apso.] She said that she remembered it from a history lesson we had last May.

We've also added a math game to our daily routine. I put a large circle on the board with the numbers like a clock around the edges. I then put a post-it with something like 7 x __. The child then says the math facts for each number around the circle. For example, 7 x 1 =7, 7 x 2= 14, 7x3=21 etc. For the 5 year old, we do simple addition (1+___). We also did subtraction and negative numbers. The kids like it and it doesn't take much time. Also, they hear each other recite the math facts.

Maybe I really am an unschooler and just don't know it.

Well, it is midnight and my husband thinks we should go to bed.