Ben beat Through the Fire and Flames on Expert!

See the video here: 8 year old beats Through the Fire and Flames Expert 86% GH3

December…

The Cub Scout float
...

Who really put the angel on the tree?

Kevan?

Ben?

Random weirdness...

Heather and Angie came to visit on Christmas Eve.

and gave us The Simpson's Movie dvd.  Praise Jebus!!

William was declared a "Scholar Athlete"! Woot!

Christmas!

Time to go downstairs...

Presents!

Video Games

Books

More video games

iphone

ipod

heelies

miscroscope

slides

games

more games

even the pets got presents

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November…

We celebrated Guy Fawkes day with some friends.  Something about burning a scarecrow because of some guy in England.  Shows how much attention I pay.  Ben and friend (and Xena) ...

Kevan got to help make the scarecrow

Ben's new Cub Scout pack prepared for the Christmas parade.

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Blame it on Bob

cross-posted at Rational Homeschooling

**opinion alert**

On another homeschooling blog, It Coulda' Been Worse, Deedee is giving away Bob, a 'screentime controller'  that 'puts parents in control of TV's, computers and video games' (from Bob's website which I'm not linking to).

Ok... first of all, aren't parents traditionally in control of whatever is in their house?  I mean, parents who enjoy using control would not need Bob to help.  On the other hand, it would be so easy to just let Bob handle the work of controlling the kids and just go take a bubble bath!  Or read emails, write blogs, comment on other peoples' blogs... oh wait, that's screen time!  Not ok!! jk

Some of the comments are very... interesting.  I can't tell if people are being facetious or serious!

This has to work way better than the ole kitchen timer method which we
currently employ. It’s amazing how long they can make 30 minutes last
when I’m not looking! Count me in!

Oh please enter me and pick me! We keep looking at this and looking - I’m so tired of being the bad guy around here!

Hi! Please enter me. I have no backbone so it would really help!

Bob would be such a big help around here. I just love the way that sounds. someone else to blame. Bob did it.

So basically, Bob is great for spineless, forgetful, irresponsible and deceitful parents to do what the parent is not willing to do? 

There is so much that can be said (and I probably will eventually say most of it) about the wonders of 'screen time' and the strange societal impulse to ban whatever is being enjoyed by the current population of children.  Instead of going into all of that right now, I will leave off with a few quotes.

From Women's Leisure in England, 1920-1960:

From an interview with children's book author Dianna Hutts Aston:

Later, when I was in junior high and my parents were divorced,
my obsession with books annoyed him a bit. With books, I could leave the
mess of divorce behind and lose myself in another world. When he’d
pick us up for weekend visits and want to take us horseback riding or ice-skating,
I’d only want to read. “Get your nose out of that book, Dianna
Lyn,” he’d say, and though it seems absurd now, we battled often
over the time I spent reading instead of doing all that “fun”
stuff he’d planned.

From Karen Young, bestselling romance author:

My mother worried that I read too much as a child. After I published my
first book, she told me she "so much regretted saying to me, 'Karen, if
you don't get your nose out of that book, you'll never amount to
anything!'"

From published author Debrah Williamson:

I was told a million times as a child, “Get your nose out of that book
and go outside and do something.” My parents didn’t understand I was doing something. Expanding my mind.

From children's author Lois Szymanski:

My dad wasn't keen on book learnin'. He often said, "Get your nose out
of that book and get some chores done," and "You'll never learn
anything from a book!" Today, I laugh when I think of how I make my
living!

That'll do for quotes for now, but there are many more where those come from (ahem, google).  We tend to think we are so unique and have such new challenges in this modern world.  Every generation has had things they thought were challenges; new and different leisure activities that seem worthless at the time.  This generation of children has a whole new form of communication, creation, learning and entertainment that many adults' brains are just not wired to understand because they did not grow up with it.  Cutting a kid off from that learning can only hinder them later in life when more and more of society is communicating in that way.  'Screen time' is not one entity that must be stopped.  There are infinite things a kid (or adult) might be doing within that screen time:

playing a simple game to ease stress, playing a complex game to stimulate the mind, playing a fun game to entertain, playing a game to interact with the others playing the game (either in the same room or across the world), watching a show for easy laughs, watching a show for complex relationship and social dynamics, watching a show to learn about something interesting, watching a show for entertainment, watching a show to interact with the others watching the show, using the 'net to communicate with friends and relatives, using the 'net to create and publish something for the world at large, using the 'net to research something, using the 'net to interact with others using the 'net (in the same house or across the world), using the 'net to read the news, educate oneself, find likeminded folks

No matter which of these (or others I haven't listed) are the reasons for the 'screen time', they are legitimate human pursuits, they use the brain, they help the user learn, they provide entertainment and they should not be arbitrarily shut off by an electronic Bob!

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Internet ‘Security’

Parental Tech pointed out this article which references a book called How to Protect Your Children on th Internet: A Road Map for Parents and Teachers.  Chris (?) from Parental Tech had some good points; I wanted to elaborate just a bit.  I acknowledge that some parents have children that they don't have a close relationship with, don't trust, and/or don't want to have to pay attention to.  I would argue that those parents are *not* rational homeschoolers. 

The rest of the story is located at Rational Homeschooling.com

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And then there was June

Ok, I am not intentionally waiting a whole month and then posting about it.  It is just happening that way

First we had our end of the year party for our charter school.  This was too great of a picture.

The next morning we took off to celebrate Ben's birthday (which was at the end of May) at Seaworld and Legoland.  We had never been to Seaworld before; it was awesome!

Aw, so handsome!

Uh oh!

Think we sat a little too close to the front!  Well, we got there just as the show was starting so the seats outside of the wet zone were all taken.

Petting rays.


And of course Shamu!!

And then we got to Dine with Shamu... pay an inordinate amount of money to eat a pretty good buffet next to Shamu's tank.  It was fun though.

Then we went to Legoland.  We have about a million pics of Legoland but I only put up the best ones.  Will takes lots of scenery pictures.

Working on the Lego Mindstorms challenge.

My 3 Einsteins!

So that was the weekend of the 2nd-3rd.  On the next weekend we had our end of the year Cub Scout bbq.  Here's me (the den leader) and Kevan, (my den chief) giving Ben his awards (no uniform since it was a bbq at the park with a bounce house).

And then Ben got his green belt at tae kwon do!

To celebrate the solstice we went to a bonfire/campout at our friend's house.  We did not camp out because I wasn't feeling quite up to it, but we did have fun.  Most of my pictures have other peoples' kids in them besides my own so I'm not putting them up.  But we took Xena with us, and they did sack races, a big fire with smores, lots of animals, and baby ducks!

It was great.

I don't have any pictures from Father's Day, but we did celebrate it.  Will got breakfast in bed and a bunch of clothes for Hawaii (we're going in about 2 weeks).  His birthday was the next weekend, and he got breakfast in bed again, and a backup camera for his truck.  We went to Yanagis and the chef cooked for us at our table.

Oh yeah, we also picked up our giant behemoth of a hot tub/pool.  I got it on freecycle.  We have a lot of work to do with it, but we finally got it picked up, on a trailer and in our driveway.  We need to get it in the backyard before we go to Hawaii so that's the next step.  I'll post before and after pictures eventually.

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Lots of Stuff

Well... it's been a quiet month on the blog front. For Christmas I got an iMac, which came with a steep learning curve, being a PC person for so long. Here's my with "Mac" at my brother's house over the break.

Also I was feeling kinda bad about the whole book thing and not wanting to continue it, so I just kinda stayed away for awhile. Life has been busy and full!

We went to Tahoe to visit my brother and his family.

Ben earned his gold shirt in gymnastics.

This month we took a trip to Sacramento, since Will had to go for work.  We saw my baby sister, who was adopted by my aunt.  I haven't seen her since she was preschool age.  She is gorgeous!!  We saw my aunt and cousins who I haven't seen in ages.  We were very close growing up!  Here we are at Joe's Crab Shack.

(Gorgeous sister on the right)

(Me and my cousins Miriam and Rachel)

Of course we toured the capital!

And, we went to the Jelly Belly factory in Fairfield.

William had to stay home, because we were gone for a week!  Me, Kevan and Ben worked from the hotel room while Will was in meetings.  William and Xena stayed with Grandpa and got spoiled rotten I am sure!

That's all I've got for now!

Giving Thanks

I didn't intend to write a Thanksgiving thankfulness post, since it seemed almost cliche.  However I was inspired by several that I read, including this post at Mental Multivitamin and this blog I ran into through one Carnival or another, where Karen is in the middle of listing 1,000 things (gifts) that she is thankful for.  Her goal is to complete this by next year but she is already off to an impressive start.

It is good medicine for the soul to think about and meditate in gratefulness and just the beauty of life more often than I do.  I have been blessed (some would say lucky rather than blessed) far beyond what makes sense to me.  In the day to day grind I so often forget just how incredible life is!

So... I am thankful for

My Spirituality - which has been through the highest of highs and the absolute lowest of lows.  My path has gone from childhood fundamentalist Christianity to complete disillusionment to exploring everything from Native American spirituality to atheism to Catholicism, Judaism, paganism, wicca, various forms of Christianity, agnosticism, etc. ad infinitum, and has finally leveled out into just being my path.  I have absolute peace with my faith, and I am grateful for all of the pain and soul-searching and anger and desolation that it took to get there.

My Family - I have been blessed in so many ways.  My husband is smart, happy and successful in his career, an excellent cook, an involved and caring father, a good provider, and my best friend.  My kids are the most amazing, adorable, talented, and sweetest people in the universe (to me ;).  We have grandparents nearby for the kids, including an amazing grandpa (my husband's dad) who was widowed two years ago and is just SO involved with the kids - attending sports and other events, taking care of them when I have to go to meetings out of town, buying special food, movies, and video games for them to keep at his house, fixing dinner for them to visit every week, bringing us sushi when he goes shopping at the base, the list goes on and on!

Homeschooling - After working in a classroom for four years, and having my kids in my school, it was so exciting to be able to bring them home to learn.  I became more and more dissatisfied with the education that they were receiving; they were starting to hate learning and to just get through the school day.  They were not learning much at all, they were doing tons of busy work and they were not thriving as I wanted them to.  I had been so anti-homeschooling when I met my husband (that's another long story and has to do with my experience homeschooling as a kid) that it took a couple years to convince him that it was a good idea.  The timing was perfect.  William was finished with 8th grade, so he would be leaving the private school we were all at anyway; Kevan was going into 5th, which is when the other kids started to really form cliques and band together against other students; Ben got to try kindergarten and get a taste for what school was like.  It has been, and will continue to be, a huge learning process to constantly adapt to each child and find what works best to reach them and light their fire.  As much as it may never be done perfectly, at least someone is trying!

My home - I love the town I live in (not everybody does though, lol)!  There are always gorgeous sunsets over a riverbed and cliff right outside my house, a 2 mile trail along the riverbed, a park a couple blocks away, plenty of stores, a great library (for a small city), and we can get to the beach in 10 minutes, to waterfalls, snow, desert, mountains, lakes, whatever we want within an hour or two max.  I love our house, a beautiful (well, before WE moved in it was more beautiful lol) 2700 square foot 2 year new house with plenty of room for our stuff.

My job - I love my job.  I work from home in virtual education.  I get to do what I love - teach and create teaching materials - from the comfort of my home and teach my favorites students of all, my own kids.  Even though it can be a challenge to "do it all", I am so blessed to be able to continue to build my skills and experience in my chosen field while homeschooling.  The second income provides many things that we could live without but that make life more pleasant - the larger house, the lessons and activities, cable, high speed internet, Netflix, Audible, books, video games, gadgets, etc.  I don't feel that it is a sacrifice to work for my paycheck because I love the field and it is exciting to be a part of it.  Ten short years ago I was a "starving student" and single mom when I met a "starving student" and single dad and we fell in love.  We were a starving student couple for a few years, and then starving working people for a long time (it seemed at the time although in total it's only been 10 years since we got together) before we got to where we are now, which is comfortably tight but planning and investing for the future.

So, tomorrow when my dad, stepmom, brother and father-in-law come over to join us in gorging ourselves on an over-abundance of food in our warm home with our comfortable clothes, our adorable pets and our myriad of entertainment options, I will try to capture the feeling of abundance and blessedness like a snapshot that can be referred to time and time again throughout the year when things don't seem to be quite as perfect as they really are.

Shakespeare Electronic Notebook

Ok, I thought this one was really cool.  Kevan did it last year (5th grade) for a Shakespeare unit.  We even have an audio clip of us reading a piece of script at the end.

http://www.unbridledlearning.com/kevan/SHAKESPEAREcomplete.htm

If you are interested in Electronic Notebooking, you should check out http://www.virtualhomeschoolgroup.com where there are some very cool examples and instructions for various things.  I think you have to sign up (free) to see the Electronic Notebooking "course".  But really just starting simple and then improving as you go is the easiest way to do it!

Ancient Rome Electronic Notebook

Ben is learning about Rome right now in History.  Here are the electronic notebooks that he has made so far.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/74853883@N00/sets/72157594376597960/show/

And here is his notebook on the period from Caesar to Augustus.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/74853883@N00/sets/72157594376605534/show/