Sort of Unschoolers...But Not Exactly

Update

2011-12-04T23:26:00.001-06:00

I decided it's time for an update. What's happening with us? This week we've been obsessively playing Wii Monopoly. It's so much fun. I love it. Why? I'm quite good at it. Jack is good at it too. He beat me the other day, and in a solo game he beat the AI opponent. I have to give myself some of the credit for that. I was a pushy parent and pressured him to use my strategies. He

Stop Bragging About Your Child's Memory Skills

2011-12-02T11:31:00.005-06:00

I believe all children are gifted in their various wonderful ways. Jack has some certain advanced intellectual skills. He's very much a gifted child when it comes to memory. Before he could even talk, he could find things and point to them when asked. We played games. It would start with him pointing to things with a questioning grunt. I'd name them for him. Then I'd ask him to find

Math Frustration

2011-10-18T13:26:00.001-05:00

We don't unschool math. We're heretics. Jack has to do a math assignment on most days. We use this website. On most days lately, Jack does the work on his own and zooms through it. Every so often, he needs some help. Usually I am quite capable of helping. Yesterday he had to do metric conversions. He didn't know how to do it. I looked at the problems and I had no idea how to do

Update

2011-09-18T10:10:00.001-05:00

Hello! I remembered to do our monthly update this time. What's going on with us? Well, the weather is finally getting nicer. We've taken some walks. Twice we got ice-cream and the other time we walked to the library. As for books, Jack is reading The Hunger Games trilogy. He's on the second book now. Originally we were all reading it together. But then we decided it was best to go

Water Slides

2011-08-24T16:53:00.001-05:00

We went to Great Wolf Lodge this weekend. It's a resort with an indoor water park. Jack and I discovered the fun of tube slides. We'd climb the stairs and ride together. Jack wanted to go on again and again. I loved sliding down. The problem was the climb up. It was exhausting...about 4-5 flights of stairs. If that wasn't bad enough, I had to carry up a two-person tube. I figured

Update

2011-08-09T12:54:00.000-05:00

Jack asked me yesterday if I still write in this blog. That prompted me to remember my plans of updating once a month. I see though that I've let two months slip by. Oops. So what is happening with us? Jack's interest in video games has diminished. Most parents would be happy about that, but we bought Jack a XBox Kinect for an early birthday present. He was so overly excited about it.

Open Letter to Parents of More Than One Child

2011-07-05T13:55:00.004-05:00

I need to get this off of my chest. I am really sick of SOME of you and your attitude that I'm inferior to you because I chose to have only one child. I will give you this. Yes. In most case, raising one child is easier. It's also much less expensive; and it's easier for us to leave a smaller carbon footprint. I love the one child-life and wouldn't want to trade it in for anything.

Update

2011-06-08T09:55:00.000-05:00

I know I have been very bad about updating this blog. A part of me thinks Jack is old enough that he can record his own life now. I mean he doesn't need to have a journal that records everything that happens to him. But he does enough writing, drawing, video-making etc; so that when he looks back at his 9th year, there'll be plenty of recorded data. He can look back and remember himself

Things That Can Change Our Feelings

2011-05-07T17:00:00.000-05:00

The last post I wrote was about the Harry Potter Magic is Might Experience. That was about a month ago. My post back then was very positive. Now my feelings have changed. I'm much less impressed now. Well, actually to be honest....when I wrote the post, there were things about the project that bothered me. I noticed some rudeness and hostility from some of the staff members.

What if Voldemort Had Facebook?

2011-04-03T21:04:00.001-05:00

What would the wizarding wars have been liked if Facebook had been around in the 20th century? Well, you can ponder that on your own, or you can go the Magic is Might Experience website, and imagine it with a bunch of other Harry Potter fans. The Magic is Might Experience includes both official and unofficial role-players, acting out book seven. The experience began in March and will end

Update on the Harry Potter Thing

2011-03-24T22:56:00.002-05:00

I just read my last post. I had forgotten that I wrote it. So, here's an update on the situation. Jack sadly never wrote the next chapter of his Harry Potter story. But the other day, he did write a first chapter of another novel; a sequel to one of his own creations. As for Harry Potter....I didn't have to do much mourning. We had about two nights without it; and then we both decided

Harry Potter

2011-02-22T20:14:00.002-06:00

For the last six months, our bedtime ritual has been reading Harry Potter together. We don't read it aloud. I'm too lazy to do all that speaking. Instead we hold the book together, and read it silently. Last night we finished the last chapter of the last book. I've been a little bit sad about that. I shouldn't be. I've been through it before. It's not the first time I've read the

You Can Homeschool Your Sims

2011-02-03T10:29:00.000-06:00

I love playing Sims 3. One of the things that bothered me about the game is they don't give you the option of homeschooling your Sims....or so I thought. It turns out all you have to do is delete the school in town. So, I did that. Then Jack helped me to build a large community center in its place. It has an exercise room, computers, a musical instrument room, a TV room, a game room,

Update Time

2011-01-25T09:27:00.000-06:00

I'm feeling it's about time for an update. What's going on with us? Well, we've had two fantastic playdates with our homeschooling friends. Often when Jack plays with other children, he's relieved when it's over. Even if he's had fun, he's really ready for some alone time. But after one of these playdates, I asked him if he was a) glad that they left b)wishing they could have stayed

Jack Art

2011-01-07T15:19:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite things about having a child is the artwork. I love kid art. And I REALLY love Jack's art. He draws a lot of pictures, and we tape many of them onto our wall. Yeah. I think Jack is my favorite artist. And here's my latest favorite of his work. It's Luna Lovegood from Happy Potter. He's into Harry Potter lately, so that shows up in his art a lot lately.

An Update

2010-12-14T09:51:00.001-06:00

I haven't done any updates about our regular current lives in a long time. What have we been up to? We're kind of just hanging out at this point....relaxing. Being lazy. I hate the crowds during Christmas time, so I'm avoiding that as much as possible. A few weeks ago, we did Disney World. Jack is weary of thrill rides, so we end up going on the educational rides repeatedly. We did

Another Old Post

2010-12-04T08:25:00.000-06:00

I found this post from when Jack was close to 3.5 scratched one toe with another toenail. I yelled out "Ouch!" Jack said very cheerfully "That's okay, Mommy!" I laughed and told him it would be better if he said "Are you okay?" Or "What happened" But it makes sense that he said that. I always see kids get hurt and we don't even bother to see how they feel about it. We just look at them

Wheelchairs and Artificial Human Milk

2010-11-21T08:01:00.000-06:00

I wrote this analogy-thing in my old journal. I like it, so I'm reposting it. When I see someone in a wheelchair, I think to myself... that person is more than likely happy. He probably has a fulfilling life. He probably has a nice family. He probably has good friends. He can probably do almost everything I can do. But in one area of life, he is unfortunate. He cannot walk like I can

Disney Vacation Club

2010-11-06T21:45:00.000-05:00

Dear Disney Vacation Club, Thank you SO much for providing early online check in. I love the idea of not waiting in a tedious long line when we arrive after our flight. Brilliant idea. What a perk! Unfortunately when I tried to fill out the online check in form, the DVD website told me I had not filled out all the information correctly. I checked my information over, and didn't see

Home Cooking

2010-11-06T17:31:00.002-05:00

There's this place. About a hundred and fifty years ago, they realized that not all parents had the talent and money to provide healthy and delicious meals for their children. So they started offering free meals to families. Within a few decades, it became compulsory for children to get their meals from these institutions. Or they could get them at restaurants for a price....if the family

Parenting

2010-11-06T09:16:00.001-05:00

This is something else I wrote in Livejournal, although I think I wrote it on another old website first (before I even knew about blogging). I like it. I wish I remembered to follow its principles more. Like most parents, I tend to do too much judging of other parents. It's NOT... Whether you obtain your child from sex, in-vitro fertilization, or adoption Whether you have a C-section

Creative Jack at Age 3

2010-11-06T09:12:00.000-05:00

I found this post in my old Livejournal today. I thought it was cute. You know who I mostly post these for? Jack! He comes to this blog sometimes, and likes reading the stories about his young self. I was doing laundry. Jack came in and announced he was going to write a book. He rambled on and on about how it was going to be about all of us (mommy, daddy, Darcy, Ellie, etc.). When I

Harry Potter Party

2010-10-27T19:46:00.000-05:00

We had a Harry Potter party this afternoon with our homeschooling friends. I thought it ended up being fantastic. That's kind of a miracle because I'm not one of these brilliant party-designer people. The kids all wore Harry Potter robes. That was cute. We started with dissecting owl pellets (poop), an activity my friend organized. I worried Jack would shy away from a structured

Another Geography Story From the Past

2010-10-18T08:27:00.000-05:00

I found another fun old post on Livejournal. This one was from when Jack was close to 3.5. This morning I gathered up Jack's books to take back to the library. He picked up one book. I didn't see the cover, but it looked like one of his geography books.I said "Oh! Is that one of your country books?" (We debated yesterday about whether he had gotten any "country" books. He thought yes

Cute Story From the Past 4

2010-09-28T06:41:00.000-05:00

This happened when Jack was 3. Jack watched an episode of Little Bill about wedding. As we were getting ready to eat lunch, he had this ah-ha!! look on his face. "Mommy is married to Daddy!" "Yes!" I said."Aunt Dawn is married to Uncle Judd!""Yes!""Aunt Melissa married to Uncle Fred!""Well, not yet. But soon they'll have a wedding and then they will be married.""Jack...Jack is married to