Kendi's Love

Today was Kendi's Day to pick what we did for Homeschool. I love doing this because it lets me know what she is really interested in and wants to learn more about. She wanted to do cooking. We made pizza. I know that sounds like an overwhelming thing to make, but this recipe is so simple and fast. We even did this with a whole bunch of neighborhood kids one day. It's an easy bake oven recipe that I found online when Kendi started showing interest in baking a few years ago.

Each person gets a bowl and mixes together 2 Tbsp flour, 1/8 tsp baking powder, 1 dash of salt and 1 tsp margarine, until crumbly.

Then slowly stir in 2 1/4 tsp milk. Roll dough into a ball and then smash into a greased pan.

Top with pizza sauce and cheese. I baked ours in a regular oven at 350 for 10 minutes. Next time I will bake them another 5 minutes, but these turned out fine.

I would show Kendi what to do as I measured out my ingredients and then she would measure out her own. I showed her the difference between Tablespoons and teaspoons and how to recognize them on the recipe. It was fun to have her make her own pizza 100% by herself.

Aydri's pizza was much smaller than Kendi's because most of her flour ended up on the floor.

Bean Counter Game

TJed suggests using a bean counting game. The girls earn beans to put in a jar and when the jar is full they get to do an activity of their choice. They earn beans in a myriad of ways, for having a positive attitude, finishing all their chores, reading a lot pages, etc. It's different everyday. They can never ask for beans, but they are earned by everyone so they encourage each other.

Kendi chose this indoor inflatable playground to go to when their bean jar was full. They have been earning beans since the beginning of the summer so it was nice to see their efforts finally pay off.

My camara phone wasn't very good at taking action shots. I wish I could have captured the looks on their faces as they went down the big slide. It was sheer terror every time, but they kept going back for more. Kendi is a lot more cautious than Aydri when it comes to these kinds of things. I wonder if Aydri's eyes struggle with depth perception. They had a blast.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

I did not know that Emily and Charlotte Bronte were sisters. The only similarities I can see in there writings are their tendencies to be superstitious.

There is a wholesomeness in the character of Jane that you don't find in other books. This is my most favorite classic that I have read so far. There are a few parts that get overly dramatic, but not enough to bother me.

This book is extensive. You feel like you've been on a journey after having finished it and I can't wait to read it with my girls. It will have to wait till they are old enough to read it on their own to fully enjoy the experience this book will take you on.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

This book is dark and full of misery. I can't relate any of the characters to real people that I know and I hope that there is no one out there that is as selfish and evil as these people come off.

I can't call it a love story. Everyone in this story wants to make everyone else miserable. This book is interesting only because it is shocking and bizarre.

I don't think I would recommend this book, but I wouldn't forbid it either. It is a book that could be read analytically to learn that happiness does not come from selfishness. And decisions do effect more than just yourself.

Sewing and Projects

TJed suggests teaching your kids about your own passions. One of the projects we've been working on lately is sewing Halloween Costumes. Kendi wanted to be a musketeer. She had never seen the Barbie Musketeer movie, but we thought we hit the jackpot when we found THIS link to an online tutorial on how to make this costume. I love October and the sewing projects we get to do. So fun!

We started out our days by doing about 45 minutes of sewing. That was enough time to make good progress, but short enough to stop while it was still fun. You know how sewing can get if it's too big of a project. In fact, by the end of this one, Kendi's excitement to work on it wasn't as enthusiastic as it was in the beginning. It became a good diligence learning project as well.

We've been trying to fine tune our daily and weekly schedules. I feel like we've figured out most of our curriculum and now we're figuring out how we spend our time. It's almost comical to think back on the curriculum I posted about and how much we've learned and changed things since then.

I've made Friday our project day. On Fridays we use our time exploring what Kendi loves and working on ongoing projects. We spend a lot of time on art and painting. We set up this outdoor oven that I found on ucreatewithkids.com. We baked s'mores while Kendi and Aydri worked on a few paintings in the garage. Our ongoing project we've been working on lately is organizing and accumulating food storage. Kendi has some great ideas and has been fun to include in this project that I would have felt overwhelmed to do all alone.

HERE is the link to the outdoor oven project.

Columbus Day

Mickey Mouse as Columbus. Barbie and Ken as Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand. Kendi looks sad, but she was just being very serious and respectful to the King and Queen.

Aydri sailing a ship. The kids really enjoyed acting out the events of how Columbus discovered America. You can tell she was really into it too by the look on her face.

Field Trip

We have been talking to Kendi about the history of reading and writing. We've talked a lot about petroglyphs. We are lucky to live in an area that is abundant with petroglyphs. On our way home from the Pumpkin Patch a few weeks ago we stopped by Parowan Gap. It is known for it's 1500 petroglyphs. Kendi was the first to spot some and was so excited.

(Someone once asked me if I highlight Kendi's hair. No! It is naturally like that.)

They call this the zipperglyph. It outlines the formation of the Gap in a long ridge of red cliffs. The sun sets down the center during equinox. It was a special place to the Native Americans who lived here. We were pressed for time and Kendi wanted to keep exploring. We had a hard time convincing her to go back to the car. She loved this. I can't wait to learn more about the history of our area and the people who made these.

I used to let Aydri watch cartoons for an hour in the morning while Kendi needed some peace to concentrate during homeschool. I noticed that Aydri was acting more ADHD at church and couldn't focus or sit still for anything. So now I don't put her in front of the TV anymore and it's made a big difference. Sometimes she will entertain herself with blocks and dolls or make a giant mess in her room and sometimes she will join us for homeschool. The messes don't bother me because she is using her imagination and being creative. I'm surprised at how much she joins in with homeschoo though.

On friday, Kendi and I sat down at the white board to brainstorm about a project we were going to start. We usually sit there to do reading first thing. Aydri sat down with us and started rattling off all of Kendi's sight words like we were going to do a reading lesson. She absorbs more than we realize.

How to Tutor

I'm almost embarrassed at how much I learned from this book. Why did I never learn about the history of reading, writing or arithmetic before? I think I just assumed that I was being taught everything that I needed to know in school. I assumed that numbers must have been around from the beginning of time, like maybe they came from the bible or something. I had no idea that our decimal system is the youngest system being used. It didn't even occur to me that a system different from a ten value system could even exist. Can I blame this lack of knowledge on my conveyor belt education? Or at least the mentality that I was being taught everything worth learning about at school?

We are currently using the reading curriculum straight from this book. Kendi has learned more in the last week than the last year and half I've been teaching her to read. She doesn't have to sound out every single word anymore. We started completely over from the beginning and she's learning to sight read right off the bat. She can now sit down and read little reader books by herself in a minute or two when it used to take us several minutes to painstakingly get through one little book. I had even given up on the readers because it was not a happy experience. We tried Explode the Code next and I had to bribe her to do each page. Now she is so proud of herself when she zips through the little readers. Kendi loves the one on one time we spend at the white board talking about new words and sounds. I'm so glad we happened upon this great book and it was such a great deal on Amazon.

I'm not sure what to think about the writing and math. It suggest learning cursive and absolutely no printing. This book was published in the 70's and things have changed since then. Do schools even teach cursive anymore? I know that when I learned it, it was just for fun and we never used it afterward. I want Kendi to learn cursive, but I think I'd like her to learn to print as well. As for the math, it's not right for us. Kendi needs more hands on learning than this book gives. Kendi is good at memorizing, but I don't feel like memorizing is understanding when it comes to the concepts of math. We are currently exploring other math alternatives at this point. I do like how it explains the history of numbers and the emphasis that we should put on arithmetic and not just mathemathics. Before I read this book, I didn't even know there was a difference. It is also fun to see how things have changed in the last 40 years with education. I don't think it has gone the direction that the author was hoping it would.

We are really glad we found this book and it has been worth it for the reading lessons.