A few photos for fun

SB3 happy to be free in the backyard

Jman's been on a water/balloon kick (not water balloons, but water and balloons--making fountains and what not, and he got Sly to join him at one point)

Habeeb in his new office--why is it a 'higher' job led to a smaller office with nasty cubicle-esque furniture? ah well, whatever! It's a job, and he's doing great. :)

Robogator

It walks. It chases you down. It starts chomping when you get too close. It is WAY cool. Lego MindStorms rocks!

What happened?!?!?! "Z."

So, there other day I was folding laundry and I found one of Jman's shirts with a huge hole right in the middle.

I carried the shirt to the room Jman was in and asked him, "What happened?!?!?!?!?!?" Jman thought for a moment and replied, "Z." A-ha!! It only took one letter, but I completely understood now. Sly had been watching the Zorro movies the previous few days! Jman was playing Zorro! Ah well, at least it was just ONE shirt, and not a drawer-full!

But despite the loss of a shirt, there's some good news here: Jman totally understood what I was asking. Jman thought, remembered, and found a clear way to communicate the answer to my question. And last but not least, Jman knows how to play and have a good time! Remember when I was enjoying the fact that he was teaching himself how to use scissors? I'd say he's very much generalized that now! haha!

Left to his own devices . . .

On our road trip, we read aloud the book "God's Adventurer" by Phyllis Thompson. It's a 'novelized' biography of Hudson Taylor. The whole family really enjoyed it and highly recommends it, btw.

So, yesterday morning I discover Sly sewing together some folded sheets of paper to make a notebook. He said, "I got the idea from Hudson Taylor!" And yes, in the book, Hudson Taylor sews together some sheets of paper to make a notebook because he doesn't have the extra money to go to the stationery store to buy one premade.

Anyway, it once again brought me back to considering how we homeschool. Clearly Sly was listening to the family read aloud. The story has also spawned several conversations, both when we were still reading it and since we've finished. In some cases, we've had the natural opportunities to compare and contrast events and perspectives presented in the story to events and perspectives we've encountered in real life. I was thinking about it and realized that life itself has presented more than enough 'comprehension questions' for what we've read, and with his self-initiated project, Sly also demonstrated that life can present some great related 'hands-on' projects as well.

The thought crossed my mind when I found Sly sewing that there were other things I could have him doing at that time. But far be it from me to interrupt initiative and creativity and learning! Instead, I patiently listened as he explained (in more detail than I was interested in) what he was doing, how, and why. I bit my tongue about giving him some basic sewing advice (his thread was knotting up on him in part because he cut it WAY too long!). When, a very short while later, he asked if we had a thimble, I hid my pleasure and went digging around for the lone red plastic thimble I've had since I was a litty bitty kid. I told him, "I want this back when you're done!" and the boy who never puts ANYTHING away did indeed promptly return it to me when he was finished. Throughout the day he was proud of his good work on his project and was excited to show it to Habeeb when he got home from work, after already telling him all about it over lunch earlier in the day.

So, here's to some unschooling. He's listened, he's discussed, he's applied what he's learned to real life situations, he's thought of a related project, he's prepped and completed and cleaned up said project (awesome organization for his disorganized self!), and he's shared his enthusiam with others. I'm pretty sure that he will never forget the story of Hudson Taylor, despite the fact that there was no assigned reading, or required vocabulary lessons, or comprehension questions, or book reports, or other created tools of instruction. I could have stopped him and had him doing something more 'schooly,' but that would have seriously interfered with his learning and development!

Jman art

We went camping and adventuring this weekend. We all had a good time, and I could (and may) write a longer blog post with lots of pictures. But the night before we were going to come home, Jman drew this amazing picture. This is our house and yard, in great detail. He included the 'shed' in the backyard, including the outside stairs and balcony. He included the walkways around the house, the tree in the yard, the fence. You can see the recessed front door through the tree. Even the orientation of the buildings is accurate. Truly, his skill with a marker blows me away. I could never draw as well as he does. And his drawing has meaning, as he clearly stated with his 'title'--go home. (Btw, Jman did have a good time--he got to ride a train! It was just time to go home after a long, tiring weekend!)

Bamboo bamboo bamboo!

Yesterday we hiked through Wilderness Park. I bet you had no idea there was a bamboo forest in the heart of Dixie! Too bad I didn't have a better camera with me (and didn't keep my fingers out of the frame either!).

jackpot at the library

We don't have the best local library. It's small. It's old. The books are old, and there aren't too many of them. There are some computers, but there really isn't much else. You even have to ask for a key to be able to use the restrooms. I think they do have a story time for little kids, but that's about it.

However, some of the old books are pretty cool. And the library thinned out some of their old books the last couple days. And I just happened to stop by the library today, and noticed the huge stacks of newly 'available' old books for sale.

Yes, I stood there for a long time shuffling through all those old books. I weeded my selections down to 45 books. A lot of them are biographies written for kids--perfect for homeschooling, and much more interesting than textbooks. Several of them were old Landmark books, which I just love being able to find. And probably a fifth of what we got were hands-on 'gadget' books for Sly, including a book he's checked out more than once in the past, and as recently as last month, entitled literally "The Gadget Book" by Jim Weiss. Right now Sly is working with a long piece of yarn and a really thick book called "Fun with String." I swear when he was a little kid (3-4-5yo and older even) his absolute favorite toy was a long red shoestring. He still loves playing with strings (and sticks and rocks). He also got a book on how to make your own moccasins, one on paper airplanes, another on mechanical drawing (like drafting), and one that tells you how to build a fort (or a battleship or a jet or a catapult or other cool things) in your backyard. He's planning on hitting Habeeb up for some shop nite projects out of that one!

So, how much did my stack of 45 books cost me? A whopping $11.25. Seriously, I may go back in the morning and get some more! And I think we may need to get some more bookcases. Here's some of them. Jman already took off with one about trains, and Sly has half a dozen separated out for his own already.

You can never have too many legos!

But you can reach a point where you need to get organized! So, after the trip to the lego store, we came home and began obsessing over legos all week. First Habeeb and Jman worked on building Jman's new lego train set together.
That led to us wanting to find all the bricks for the other lego trains we have. However, that was an impossible job with the state of the lego collection. To give you an idea, we had a large four drawer dresser full of legos, plus others that overflowed and were in bins or in various creations somewhere around the house. It was time to organize the legos.
It took days, and we're still not 100% finished, but we're 90-something% finished, enough to be able to begin rebuilding some of the train sets. Habeeb wanted to rebuild the Santa Fe Super Chief. I was working on the Holiday Train. Sly was building whatever custom creations entered his head (and generally getting in the way!). Jman played with his trains, and crashed them, and then they had to be rebuilt, again, and again. And SB3 just fussed for attention and tried to eat any legos he got his hands on. But here are a couple of shots to give you an idea of the work area. There are bins with larger sets of bricks, small drawers with sets of smaller bricks, and then there's the tackle boxes for the tiny specialized pieces. (Remember those 'workboxes' from homeschooling? Well, they're lego bins now!)

And finally, here's a happy Jman with a few more train cars going around. I'd love to have some 'finished' pictures for you, but that may take another week of playing with legos!

Darn! That's the end.

Last night was the last home game for our beloved minor league baseball team. That's the bad news. The good news is the seasons's almost over! Maybe they'll be better next year! :) But whether they're winning or losing, we're gonna be sad until baseball season starts back up next spring.

Playing on the stairs and watching the game



Safe on first!

Gotta get that self portrait! :)