Week In Review - Sept 20-24

We had a slow start to the week after Little Bit was sick all weekend. Something kept her trotting to the bathroom for 24+ hours, even in the middle of the night. Bless her heart. We saw our alternative medicine practitioner, Monday.

We have had a week of unschooling, of chasing her interests, of learning in context, without a lot of "formal" "schoolwork".

We took more than one leisurely visit with the animals at the farm park. One day we focused on the ducks, chicken, geese. Another day, we concentrated on the goats. She's so curious. And she wants to give them all a name.

I took her to open skate when the music therapist called in sick. Her new skates have been rubbing her ankles, and, Saturday, I took them to be "punched out". She wasn't with me (she was home, sick and trotting). At the school where we sometimes go for open skate, we see only young men in dress shirts and ties. They come into the building to eat and socialize. Little Bit asked me this week where all the girls are?

We added a karate class with a homeschool group. She had art therapy and jump rope class. The rec therapist was absent this week.

We are looking for opportunities to use real life math. She really wants to see the "America's Got Talent" tour when it comes to a city near us. She wanted me to look up ticket prices - while she did something else. Nope. Not happening. So, she joined me, and we decided what words to search in order to find ticket prices. (Are you sitting down?) Prices start at *gasp* $110 each. (Is there a scholarship?) She wanted me to call her dad at work and ask him if he has $110. I told her we'd need more money than that. One of us would need to take her (she can't go alone), and that would be another $110. So we added. She, on her own, in her head calculated the total for all of us to go. And she suggested that maybe I could win tickets in a contest or on a game show. (That's creative problem solving-love it!) After having a couple more hours to process and think about it, she suggested we have a garage sale, that we can sell everything but our Wii and Wii games.

She wants a specific Wii game. We looked it up together on the internet to double check the price. We're talking about how she could earn money to buy it. She's very worried about how she'll ever earn $35. Lots of opportunities for discoveries there.

We got mail ready for the mailbox and took it to the mailbox together. She ordered for herself in a restaurant this week. We did laundry. I'm still amazed by all the learning opportunities with laundry. We went grocery shopping. Lots of opportunities there, too.

She completed a little bit of independent reading and some drawing/artwork alone.

We worked on two new vocabulary words with Vocabulary Cartoons.

I introduced an abacus to her this week, after it came in the mail, Wednesday. I won the abacus from RightStartMath from Bugs, Knights, and Turkeys in the Yard.

We looked at Charlie ad Trike in the Grand Canyon Adventure and read one page of it. Little Bit does better listening to books and reading with me at night, and I messed up by pulling this one out during the day. Thanks to Heidi for the book.

Seems like we spend a lot of time in the car, and while I tried to plan activities that give us chunks of time alone together at home, I realize I need to plan better for those times. Laundry need to be washed, meals must be cooked, shopping must be completed, and events pop up that interrupt us. Events at night can throw us off. While I want to remain relaxed and in a position to follow interests in an unschooling, eclectic sort of way, (I see her really learning that way), I do want to start and complete some structured unit studies and lessons of my choosing as part of the mix.

I realized a little after the fact that I have a neat opportunity with the Udi's items that I got to review. I am going to create a form so that Little Bit can have each family member try the three muffin flavors and record which flavor each like best.