Spring Break

Things have been pretty slow and quite, but busy and hectic at the same time.

This past week has been especially nice. Jared had spring break, so we spent a few days in Cresco, well, to be more precise, we slept a few nights in Cresco.

We headed to Cresco on Saturday morning, then just hung out on Saturday and Sunday. Monday Jared, Emma, Gramma and I went to Rochester, MN to stop at the teacher store (which is actually called ABC Toy Zone)

and to see the Triceratops Skeleton that was on display.

We got to Rochester just in time for lunch, and decided to eat at Olive Garden.

It was kinda a cruel place for us to eat lunch considering Emma and I have been on a gluten and dairy free diet for just under 2 weeks at that point. Long story, which some of it can be read about here (it's a long post, and I need to update it).

After lunch (Emma and I had salad, the minestrone soup minus the shell noodles, and sauted shrimp and scallops), we went over to the teacher store. We call it the teacher store because Gramma has shopped there for years, and well, she's a teacher. The store has a great selection of toys, games, Lego, and other fun stuff as well as a huge selection of teaching tools.

Before leaving for Rochester, I told Emma she could use $10 from her savings account to get something (it had been a while since she had the opportunity to buy something for herself). She also managed to earn an extra $5 from Gramma. I wish someone would give me a quarter for every little bit of helping out I do.

So, with $15 dollars burning a hole in her purse and a HUGE selection of model horses, Emma was set. Da, being the wonderful father that he is, spent a large chunk of our time at the teacher store helping Emma with her math.

If you happen to have walked by the Schleich or Papo isle, this is along the lines of what you would have heard.
E- "If I get this horse and this horse, that would cost... $8. How much would I have left?"
D- "8, 9, 10..."
E- "$7!"

Needless to day there was much debating over which horse to purchase. She had it all figure out, then discovered the clearance horses at the back of the store and so they had to head back to the horse section.

We spent an hour and twenty minutes at the teacher store. Quite a bit of learning happened. Emma ended up with 2 clearance horses, and one full price unicorn foal. She was a happy girl.

Which is good, because we never made it to check out the triceratops. By the time we finished at the teacher store, we needed to head for Cresco so that we could make it to Auntie Sara's for dinner.

On Tuesday, Jared and I headed to Milwaukee, WI (a 5 hour trip, one way) so that he could ride at Rays Indoor Mountain Bike Park. We got sushi for dinner so I was a happy girl :) All in all, we were gone about 16 1/2 hours. We thought about staying overnight, but Emma has been super clingy lately still, so we figured she would be happier if we were there when she woke up.

She called at one point to ask if we could be gone all the next day too. She liked having Gramma all to herself.

So, on Wednesday Jared and I headed to Dechora (about 30 minutes away) to check out their Coop grocery store, and their sushi. I love sushi, and Jared does too now. Makes me happy.

Not quite 16+ hours, but Emma was still happy get Gramma all to herself.

Then we came home on Thursday. I would love to post some pictures of our spring break, but I don't think we took any.

Wait, I found some pictures!

Emma and Da working on the Brio Train Set (and eating a banana)

Emma and Gramma cloud watching. So much fun to listen to them.

Hope everyone is enjoying March!

How We Learn- Games

Stephanie, over at Ordinary Life Magic is organizing a series of posts listing tools that they use for unschooling. Knowing that every family does things differently, Stephanie has asked that others share their unschooling tools as well. Stephanie also gives awesome reasons for playing games as a learning tool, so I don't need to go into that (thanks Stephanie!).

The first topic is Games.

Emma and Da playing Mancala

I am going to be honest, we are not very good at playing games on any sort of a regular basis. At the moment, our games are stacked on a self in a room that no one goes in, so the old saying, "Out of sight, out of mind" applies there.

I am working on it though.

In our house, games are played mostly between Emma and Da. It seems to be their thing. Da has a lot more patience in regards to making up rules (I tend to be a stickler, another thing I am working on). Da also has a lot more patience with the games we don't really like (but are Emma's favorites).

But mostly, game time between Da and Emma is bonding time. For Da, he sometimes has a hard time knowing what to do with Emma, how to connect with her. Games make it so much easier for him.

I do play games with Emma, and we will play games as a family, on occasion, but I don't like to infringe on Da's time with Emma. After all, if I play games all day with Emma, she isn't really in the mood to play more games when Da gets home.

Besides, we are usually too busy crafting to play games :)

So, here is our list (way less organized then Stephanie's, but that seems to be how we roll).

Simpsons Clue- Emma usually works with Da (cause he is way smarter than me and can explain things better than I can)
Blockus- Emma plays this with minimal help from us.

Pony-opolly- Jared and I find this game very slow and boring, but Emma loves it. 

Guess What I Am- A different take on guess who. 

My Little Pony- She liked this game mostly for the game pieces. 

(Go Diego Go is a puzzle)

Color Cubes- Patterns

Pick-up Words- A different version of pick up sticks, but the person has to read the word as they pick it up.

Scrabble Slam- We don't play the game fast paced, but with help and hints.

Pick-Up Words

Shufflers- We got this game from Gramma, and it is pretty old. Person cards are blue, verb cards are green, place cards are orange. Shuffle 'em up and make sentences. We added our own punctuation marks after playing a few times.

Mancala- Both Jared and I play this game with Emma (not at the same time-it's a 2 player game) Emma requires very little help. I suggested she try playing this game on her own, which she loves to do.


Mastermind Jr. Emma is really good at this game. So good that we are thinking of switching to the regular version very soon.

Rush Hour Jr.- We first started playing this at the gelato place. We quickly realized it was much less expensive to just by the game, rather than go to the gelato place to play it :) We have almost gone through the entire deck of puzzles. We love this game.

Guess Who- Gramma just gave us this game this week. Emma and I enjoyed playing it, but I am not sure if it will be one of our favorites.

Looking at our list, we really don't play a ton of games. Just goes to show, everyone has a different method for their madness!

Thanks for stopping by. If you are looking for more game ideas, head over to Ordinary Life Magic!

Virtual Make-Over

Gramma is wanting a new hair style, so I pulled up ivillage's virtual make over program. After laughing as some of the crazy hairstyles we tried on Gramma, Emma wanted a turn. It's free, and lots of fun, so why not :)

Peacock

(She really wanted me to give her crazy lips.) 

It's a really good thing I am opposed to child beauty pageants, because seriously, my kid is cute! 

How Our Learning "Started"

When I first thought that I might want to homeschool Emma, she was maybe 3. I say, "I" because at first, Jared was not really thrilled by the idea. He had all the stereotypical objections- socialization, qualifications, organization, etc..

Emma was in day care, I was in cosmetology school, and Jared was working on his bachelors at ISU. Emma did enjoy school for the most part, but she cried every day as we dropped her off, and often times she would cry at some point during the day. She would settle pretty quick (with lots of love and hugs from one of the teachers), and she was always well behaved, but still wasn't as happy as I felt a 3 year old should be.

No one was really happy. Emma was super shy and would fluctuate between clinging to me when we would get home, to not wanting anything to do with us. I hated being away from Emma all day. I hated cosmetology school (who wants to live in a soap opera all day every day!). Jared was distressed by our distress. 

The turning point came when I picked Emma up early one day from school. When I got there they were doing letter worksheets. Emma was sitting at the table with a little boy from India, who spoke very little in his native language and even less English. I felt bad for the little boy because, despite the fact that all he was doing was tracing the letter 'A', he was still doing it wrong according to "Handwriting Without Tears," a program designed to help kids learn to write. A little amazed that someone could trace a letter 'A' wrong, I watched for a bit. Apparently there is a "proper" place to start and stop each of the lines for each of the letters. 

Many people might be thinking, "Really, this bothered you?" Well yes. My 3 1/2 year old, who doesn't really need to learn her letters yet because, well, she isn't even 4 yet, is being corrected when she doesn't do them "correctly." What else is she being corrected on already? 

I believe this was my awakening moment because all I could think was, "I don't care how Emma does it, if it looks like an 'A' I am happy."

(Now, I have talked to my mother-in-law who taught K-3 for 30+ years and she said that "Handwriting Without Tears" is a good program and it helps later on when learning cursive, but my reply to that was, "Who needs cursive?")

Anyway, as I had mentioned, no one was really happy. I missed being home with Emma, watching her grow and learn. I hated school, and I hated having to drop a crying Emma off everyday for someone else to raise and comfort her.

Jared and I did some number crunching and we decided that we could probably manage for me to stay home until Emma was old enough for school.

I dropped out of cosmetology school, (every time I say that, all I can think about is the part in Grease about the beauty school drop out), pulled Emma out of day care, and we started living frugally (well, more frugally than we had been before). 

I started to research about homeschooling. I learned about unschooling. I learned about life schooling, radical unschooling, earth schooling, Waldorf, and other versions of learning outside of the public (or private) school system. 

Everything I learned, I shared with Jared. We decided to give unschooling a try, knowing that public school wasn't going anywhere. Our days didn't really change much, because when we sat down and evaluated our lifestyle, we realized we had been unschooling all along :)

Within the first year, we were amazed at the change in Emma. Yes, it could have just been an age thing, but while she was in day care (getting socialization), she refused to talk to anyone outside of her comfort bubble (basically me and Jared). If we had gone too long between visits to Gramma, she would even hide her face from Gramma. We never forced her to talk to anyone (especially strangers- why force her to talk to them then turn around and tell her not to talk to strangers), and just let her be herself. 

I was slowly becoming aware of her comfort bubble opening up. When someone would comment on her outfit, hair, or toy when out and about, she would look at me, then respond with one or two words. For Jared, the realization was a lot more drastic. 

One day while shopping at Target, Emma (about 4 1/2ish) noticed that the cashier had a band-aide on her finger. Emma looked right at the cashier and said, "How did you get that owie?" Jared was startled. He had never seen her voluntarily ask a stranger a question.

As far as her learning, she developed a passion for horses. When she turned 4, she got all horse and dinosaur stuff (books, toys, clothes) because those were her interests.

Horses, over 2 years later, are still a passion of hers. What does that have to do with learning? Over the past 2 years, we have used horses to "teach" so many different subjects.

Homemade horse biscuits = math, reading, direction following, nutrition, etc. Horse (riding) lessons = focus, patience, compassion, anatomy, etc. Horse breeds = research, history, geography, culture, classification, etc. Model horses = budgeting, currency, priorities, organization, etc.

I could go on, but I think I have made my point. We also sprinkle worksheets, and other more structured educational materials around the house for Emma to discover. A few times we have even attempted to sit down and do, "school" but Emma really does not enjoy this and we usually end up frustrated and annoyed with each other.

So, we have come to realize that our lives work best when we just go with the flow. Emma (as well as Jared and I) are learning all the time, and we love it that way.

Over the next few weeks we will be following along with Stephanie over at Ordinary Life Magic, providing posts with insights into how we go about our lives as far as learning is concerned (although here, that really includes everything we do).

Feel free to follow along, learn a little, and if you would like, maybe even teach a little!

LEGOs and Vets

Gramma loves to buy things for Emma. Gramma will shop all year long for Birthday and Christmas. 

Sometimes, Gramma is not very good at hiding the gifts she has purchased. 

Our last trip up to Gramma and Boppa's, Emma had spied a LEGO box with a horse on it. The kit was for making a vet clinic with horse, dog, and hedgehog included. Gramma explained to Emma the the LEGO set had been intended as a going away gift, something new for her to play with when we moved to Montana. Obviously Emma didn't want to have to wait till then. Gramma was ok with Emma opening it then, but I already had enough things to pack at the moment, and really didn't want to have to pack that as well. Not the best logic because they don't take up a ton of room, but I also wanted her to have something new and exciting to play with when we got to Montana. 

We are once again visiting Gramma (it is, after all, our second favorite place to be). When we got here yesterday, I was unloading the car when I noticed that the LEGO kit was still in the same spot. I saw it before Emma did and I thought, "seeing as we won't be moving to Montana until next year, it would really be a shame to wait that long seeing as Emma is really into LEGOs right now." 

So, I told Emma that if Gramma was ok with it, she could open it anytime she was ready. 

She didn't wait very long. 

Last night: 

All I did was explain to her a bit how the directions worked, helped her open the (many) plastic baggies, and occasionally held the directions for her. She started working on it while dinner was cooking, took a quick break for a bit of mac and cheese, then went back to work while the rest of us ate and chatted. 

She wasn't super excited when bedtime came around, but I told her she could work on it some more as soon as she woke up. 

Which is exactly what she did. 

She had quite a bit done by the time I got up 30 minutes later. She had some help from Boppa before he had to head off to work. 

A play break was needed after all that concentration. 

And now back to the directions. 

Her favorite stuffy, Pepper, was happy to hang out and keep an eye on things.

All done!

And the horse is already getting good quality care :)

Horse Books Rule

If I could go out right now and buy a handful (or two) of easy reader, or easier to read books that have horses as the main subject, I would. Emma would be reading by the end of the week.

Not that we are really in a huge rush or feel that she HAS to be able to ready by a certain age/time. I like reading to her. I have been reading to her since before she was born. And I plan to read to her until she won't let me anymore.

About the only time I wish she would hurry up and learn to read is when she asks me (for the 10th time in 20 minutes) what her computer says. Without trying to read it first.

I really need to set our computers up closer together.

We made a stop at our new local book store on Friday because it had been a very long time since anyone had gotten a new book. We use to go to Borders all the time. We were so sad when Borders closed, but BAM opened up not to long after, so we were happy that we had a book store again.

I miss Borders. At Borders, there were no tears when Emma was refused a toy (because they didn't have very many). At BAM, it seems the kids section has almost as many toys as they do books. This was our second or third trip to BAM, despite the fact that Emma asks all the time if we can go. So she can get a Barbie. At a book store. It's a little sad really.

So on this trip I mentioned that we were going for one book each, no toys, nothing else. Just books. From the bookstore.

After browsing through almost all the books in the kids section, we managed to find two great books about a pony named Pal.

Emma got two books because, well, all the books and magazines I wanted were $15 and up, so I decided to just get her a second book, saving us at least $11. Jared got a mountain bike magazine. 

Anyway, after picking out her two books, we were off to find Da when Emma spied a stuffed unicorn. I had a feeling we might be in a bit of trouble when she turned to me with a sad puppy dog face and said, "I really wish I could get the unicorn instead of the books."

I gently reminded her we had come in for books, nothing more. She seemed to be a bit sad, but o.k with the decision. As we wandered looking for Da, she asked again if she could get the unicorn. When I told her, again, that we were just getting books she started to cry. "But I really want the unicorn!" I hugged her and told her I understood that she wanted the unicorn, but that we had come for books. She settled down a bit and, once again, seemed like she would be ok. 

When she asked for a third time, and started crying again, I may not have handled it as well as I could have. "Emma, if you want, I can put these books back and you can get nothing."

Which of course made her cry harder and made me feel like an a$$. So, I snuggled her a bit more, tried again to explain to her that I understood that she wanted the unicorn, but that is not what we were spending our money on today. Today was for books. 

All this time I am thinking in the back of my head, "She must be tired. She usually only acts like this when she is tired."

Anyway, to try to shorten this story up- Once we found Jared, he asked Emma if she would like to show him the unicorn. She said yes and off they went so I could look real quick at the magazines (why do all the magazines I like cost as much as a book?). I met them as I was headed to the register. Standing in line, I saw those peanut butter cups shaped like eggs. I love the specialty peanut butter cups. I looked at Jared and pointed at the peanut butter cup. He shrugged a "Sure, why not" at me.

 But then I stopped. What an awesome display of a double standard that would have been. I can have something other than a book, but Emma can't? Didn't I just finish telling her that all we were getting was books? 

So, we paid for our two books and one magazine (which counts as book in my eyes), went home, and took a family nap. 

We didn't end up reading the books Friday night, but we did read them last night. Or, I should say, Emma read one of them and I read the other.

The book ended up being longer then we expected, so I helped with a page or two, but she really did a great job. The longer she read, the less she paused to look at me to see if she had gotten the word correct. Towards the end, she didn't even need me to reread the page (which she sometimes has me do if she was so focused on the words that she didn't grasp the meaning). 

Looks like letting her read a few board books may have helped out after all! 

Resources Updated

I just did a quick update to my resources page. If you know of any good ones, please share!

Resources