I know, I know! Yes I am still here and nothing is wrong, except the girls are getting older and time man, it’s just escaping me! Someday we are going to try one of those schedule things and I’m going to put blogging back on it. Until then, it will be sporadic.





Learning in January. Oh how I love looking back on the month. I feel like we do so little “school” since we’ve slipped into full on un-schooling mode. I would like some kind of schedule, for my sanity more than anything. But I love that learning happens all the time.
We did a lot of sensory play, baking soda was big over here (did you know you can buy huge bags at costco?). The girls love it when I put a pan of it out and then give them colored vinegar and droppers, the fizz! I also figured out from Asia’s book (150 Screen Free Activities – affiliate link, so good, I highly recommend it!) that baking soda and water makes a simple dough. One that Bennet just loved. And of course water play for a two year old can’t be beat. We also got tons of that silicone sand from Jo-Ann’s on black Friday and gave it to Bennet for Christmas. They both loved having this out for a few months.
An extension of sensory play was our shaving cream marbling. It turned out wonderful! I really loved the results of this project; plus the girls kept playing with the colored shaving cream so it was a double win.
Spelling and writing was huge over here. We had a major break through one Sunday. We were all downstairs, I was sewing and had my felt design board out and Tuesday was saying, “B-O-O bad Bj!” for fun. Only it wasn’t so nice and finally we’re like, hey, you’re spelling boo! I had the felt letters handy and showed her. She started sounding out and spelling a ton! I showed her how rhyming words work, just change one letter. She thought it was amazing. We got back out the movable alphabet (a wooden alphabet that is using in Montessori education) and she has been crazy for spelling ever sense. When she first started she could spell a lot but not read it. It’s so interesting how the mind works. She would write out a bunch of words and then ask, “what did I write?” That phase was pretty short though.
Tuesday was also interested in time so I got out some various things I’ve collected and set them out for her.
Speaking of things I’ve collected. Oh man, I can’t stop with the books and the coloring books and the manipulatives and the school stuff… I love it all! So much so that our basement was looking crazy! Pair that with the fact that my mom moved out of her house of 21 years (where I still had much more than I realized stored!) and I needed to get it under control. I did for the most part, but we’re still figuring out what is going to work best for us space wise. I love the basement for it’s size but the girls like to be in the light and around the main living area. We’re thinking of taking over Bj’s office and walling in the lightest corner of the basement for him (lucky it’s tall and has sunny windows). I did decide for now to move one shelf up, and make the dining room wall more eclectic with projects, maps and posters. Can’t hid that we’re homeschoolers now! Ha!
Tuesday also turned six! I added a covered wagon figure to our little Waldorf type ritual (which I described here). She remembered and loved the tradition of walking around the table as if it were the sun. She took us on a spy walk that had me choking from trying not to laugh at my little girl with a fake mustache diving on the ground as cars were coming. She made cakes for her Tootsie, oh how she loves that doll. Magnatiles all the time. Listening to stories on the CD player in the living room. Inventing games. Dance lessons, gymnastics lessons, and now violin lessons. Forest school. My dreamer and creator. I just love her.
Bennet. I just love when I can find activities that hit her right where she is at. This month I found a puzzle that was just challenging enough. I love her face when she completes it, such pride in her “work”. She hears Tuesday asking how to spell things and asks me as well. Then scribbles marks on a paper as if writing. She’s got a great pencil grip, all the early work in that area paid off again. She got to start dance, finally. She is so happy to have her own dance class, but so wee I had to make the required red leotard. She had no interest in modeling it, as you can see. She really loves when we do things all together, like the painting night we had. I just love to talk to my little snuggle bug, she’s always surprising me by what she notices and I just love that!
More to come!

It’s been a while since I’ve recapped our learning, so I thought I’d do a post to finish off our learning in 2014. There was lots going on with the holidays, but my favorite things during this time were all the game nights! After counting and organizing our games I decided we needed to play them more, and we did!

(for some reason these photos are in reverse order, but I’m going with it!)
Lots of indoor activities, but they still wanted to play outside if at all possible (even if 32 degrees!). They’ve made friends with the neighbors, older kids who they love to run around with. So fun, I love our neighborhood. No problem with “socialization” at our homeschool 🙂
Tuesday (5.5 here) has talked us into having her rest time downstairs (as opposed to playing or reading in her room). This gives her lots of time to set up things safely out of the reach of her 2.5 year old sister! She also LOVES to listen to audiobooks on our CD player (a high school graduate present I never imagined would last this long!). We get them from the library. She loves Clementine books, as well as any of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, Farmer Boy is a particular favorite. She can listen to them over and over. Usually doing a little something else at the same time (patterns, knitting, drawing, etc.).
In the Farmer Boy book Almanzo talks about putting popcorn in milk, equal sized glasses, and how the popcorn will fit in the glass of milk without overflowing. Can we try this mama? Yes!
I love saying yes. Can we paint our faces? Yes! Can we paint your face? Yes!
Lots of sensory play. We love Asia’s book 150 Screen Free Activities (affiliate link). And now buy baking soda in 13.5 lb bags at Costco! Also a garlic press + play dough, try it! By the way Tuesday made the “corset” in the picture of her playing with baking soda and colored vinegar. She is so so so proud of that thing!
A giant cardboard house thanks to a new light fixture at grandma’s. We had this set up in the living room but had to move it for the tree. When we brought it downstairs I let them go nuts painting it.
We hit up lots of independant game shops on Black Friday and randomly grabbed My First Carcassonne (affiliate link). If you want a game that is awesome to play as adults but even young kids can pick up on, this is it. We love it.
Tuesday made “Christmas” cleaner. Here is a link to our cleaner. So easy, and she loved giving it an extra minty smell for the holidays.
Writing, writing, writing! I made a little book for Tuesday. Small slips of paper hole punched and bound by a binder clip. I write words she’d like to spell out on them, so she can go back. It currently has all of our friend’s and family’s names, “happy” “birthday” and many others.  I can’t remember where I saw this, but I didn’t come up with the idea. It works great and she references it a lot. Speaking of writing… found an old Mad Libs. Oh the hilarity!
Perhaps the most exciting thing for an unschooling mom like me to see is the moment an idea solidifies for my child! This happened in December with math equations (or word sentences or whatever people call them now). She had been adding things up for a while, but never wrote out the equations. I found this little old slate, which had been mine. Since Tuesday is so into “prairie girl” things she, of course, loved it. She wrote ” 5 + 5 10″ so I showed her what an equal sign was. Boom! She’s all about equations now, so fun.
Extra curriculars: Tuesday and Bennet are in gymnastics now, homeschool bounce at the trampoline place for both of them, and our local children’s museum has a “homeschool hangout” class once a month that Tuesday loves. She’s all, “Ok, see you later mom!” and I pick her up three hours later with her bubbling with what they’ve learned. Wild that she’s so self confident and outgoing. I just love her!
I really want to show you how I’ve changed things around for the new year, but for now I’ll leave it at learning from mid-November through December 2014!