In School lately...

In schooling lately there has been a lot of creativity...a lot of sewing, pattern making, crafting, listening to music, playing music- the piano mainly, listening to audio books, watching movies, letter writing, online research and of course some main subjects too like Chemistry for Science, a little Revolutionary America in History, a bit of Algebra and Multiplication going on in Math. We had gotten ourselves into a mundane schedule of things where there was too much focus on what needed to be done vs what we wanted to do...the goal is always for those two to mesh well and lately it hasn't...time for operation fun. A little research, some motivation, some inspiration and we were on our way. When we find ourselves sinking into a public-school-like-schedule and its getting stale and no ones having 'fun' then we change it up, do something different and re energize to get inspired again and that's just what we've done.

It is such a blessing to be home every day learning with our two children.

So lately....

We've been listening to our daughters favorite book when she was younger on audio every afternoon...The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane..our son is enjoying listening to it for the first time. Its peaceful to have an hour or more every afternoon where the kids lay down on the couches to listen or sit at the table to draw pictures while the story plays.

We've also been 'family reading' 20,000 Leagues under the Sea together.

Our daughter is now working on planning an Anime Club, with crafting activities each month along with Japanese-Anime style food snacks and a website to go along with it. She's also considering starting a book club with this or sewing get togethers as well. She's been checking out 'Anime and Manga Club Activities' on pinterest and online to get idea's:

Pinterest - Anime and Manga Club Ideas

A week ago we watched the series How the States got Their Shapes - which the kids loved and hubbie and I learned some interesting info too! Definitely a great video-

 We found some awesome fun sites for the American Revolution that we just started learning about (we just finished up Colonial America):

A great paper-doll of sorts site with military from ancient to modern times...so the kids printed out some for our 'war' reenactment guys here and they are all FREE; Junior General

 Also, an interactive game here, also free: Mission - US

We also used some resources from this site: American Revolution for Kids

And of course as always, we have tons of books from the library and supplemental video's. Why learn only one way, in one venue like a textbook...we truly like to explore all material available.

We also decided after printing and cutting out the 'Junior General' guys from the American Revolution we'd make a battle field for them...but what to make it out of...Moon Sand was decided on. How about home made I suggested since our tub of 'real' moon sand was still in storage from our move. Yes. Off to Home depot and Walmart to pick up supplies...

Make your own Moon Sand directions here:  Directions & Ingredients

In crafting this week, our son researched 'How to make a Paper Kunai Knife' and then made one and our daughter has been continuing with her sewing- finishing up sewing a pair of shorts and checking books out at the library to learn different sewing techniques.

And there's just a small snippet of some of our schooling lately......

Life is Learning.