Check out :57

I am a guest speaker at The Free online Women's Emotional Wellness Conference. I made a video and my 11 y/o old made me an awesome graphic at 0:57.

Circulatory System Study via Youtube

The Plan: To study the body this school year.

The Question that led to circulatory study:  11 y/o to me: What do they mean when they say internal bleeding? Aren't we bleeding inside anyway?

 The Answer:  Several days of Circulatory System study.

Day One: I started with a verbal talk explaining arteries, veins, and capillaries.
Day Two:  Reinforce the learning with anything we see pertaining to the circulatory over the next day or so (surprisingly, a lot comes up).
Day Three:  Go to the Science book and read the circulatory chapter.
Day Four:  Youtube videos & a Writing assignment.

Here are the videos we watched:

A few days at the beach...

Can't say that it was an educational trip, it was just a trip to end the Summer officially. Summer is NOT over here in Texas. It was 102 today. The heat is raging on. 

Texas beaches are not as pretty as Florida beaches, but we were appreciative to be there.

Laid Back Homeschooling, not quite Unschooling

If you've been following our homeschool story for the past 5 years, you may have picked up on the fact that I get overwhelmed sometimes. This year I've decided to be especially laid back, especially with the 7th-grader. The 11th-grader is going to be on a very structured program with Connections Academy,  so I need to keep up with what's she doing. However, I'll be doing that in a very laid back manner.

Here are the resources and activities I'm using to keep me sane and calm:

1) Meditation - We've been starting our day with it. Yes, the two year-old heckles us, but he knows that it's meditation time. He isn't exactly honoring it right now, but he is acknowledging it. I start my day in the bed with my own personal meditation, but we have group meditation for school to teach them the practice.

2) Exploration - When a question comes up, we explore it. It doesn't matter if we are in the middle of a structured lesson. We pause and explore. Exploring keeps them interested and keeps learning exciting. Today we studied more on nutrition, but we ended up exploring complete proteins for vegetarians (see related, but we took it where it led us).

3) Deconstruction within structure (linear vs non-linear) - Reading through a chapter in a the way that moves you. It's not necessary to start at the front and end at the end. Explore charts first, look at tables, read the questions. Explore it the way you want. Study it in the way that matters to you. (This keeps me as an educator calm because I don't have a child staring off into the sunset when boredom strikes)

4) Youtube, teachertube, google tumblr, blogger, TECHNOLOGY!!!! We live in 2012. I love to use what we have around to support me when I don't know something or if I'm too busy to focus on a question.

5) Lunch dates with Hubby! I have older children, so I leave them in the house alone and run off when I need too. They are great babysitters, and I take advantage of that. I do this to keep my mental health. Note: I make sure that their cell phones at close at hand and I CALL TO CHECK UP!

6) Community activities - We need classical music, we are using a Presbyterian church, we need acting classes, we are using an ensemble that pays our teenager, we need daycare, we are using the YMCA's classes for toddlers and the 1.5 hours in the playroom for childcare. We need books, we are using the library. We need to exercise and Phys Ed, we are using the YMCA again for swimming, volleyball, yoga, etc.

We Studied MJ Today!

I love homeschooling because of days like today! Today was Michael Jackson's Birthday, so we paused to celebrate and study him. We watched his videos. I discussed what I knew about them. We danced, we danced, we danced, and we watched an interview he did in 1980.

We Have a Banner!

11 y/o made us a banner for art class. I gave her few tips. Here's her natural talent:

Here's the one after momma gave her some tips (notice that Momma is a little more jazzy). Not only that, we talked about art being figurative versus literal. In real life 11 y/o is taller than me (see above), but in art she needs to show mom & dad bigger, to illustrate and communicate the family dynamic. Art needs to tell us something (I think), so Dad & I am teaching her how to do that.

Tween Chomping is out of Control

My 11 year-old is a growing, growing girl. She is taller than me and wears larger sizes than the 15 year-old. She is going to be a tall girl (maybe close to 6 feet). Since she's growing, she's always chomping, chomping, chomping. I thought that the first day of school was the perfect day to talk to her about nutrition. We did a mini-lesson from the Science book and then, she did this project on her own. The reason you see Calcium & Iron highlighted is because those are essential nutrients for children her age. This was done in Keynote on Macintosh. She's a great graphic designer, I didn't help a bit, accept with having her to correct some of the foods.