This Year...

Well, September is approaching and our school year with it. I am excited and anxious about the coming year. I will be adding more "school" activities for Gwen to participate in and will be giving Alyssa more time to complete her activities on her own. She is currently exhibiting very creative vibes and I am excited about what this means for our school activities. I see a lot of cooking in our future. She is having an absolute blast experimenting with cooking and baking and it is nice to have someone take over the kitchen for a time.

I am going with a theme approach this year because our (very loosely based) classical style just is not working itself out in my mind this year. I just feel too confined. So theme time it is...this will be fun for all of us. I am looking forward to using this style. I am wondering why I did not do this last year when there were struggles. Tiny struggles, I suppose, they didn't make enough waves to stop us from trudging on to the end. But we were a bit battered in the end and needed this summer break, which was something I was not planning. Typically we start in September and go to July, with traditional unschooling in November and December.

I am thinking wildly of themes and need to write them down and sift through the ones I want to use this year. The possiblities are endless and I am really excited. My dear homeschool mentor at http://homeschoolfeast.blogspot.com/ has started using lapbooks and they sound like something my kids would love. I have been stumped about how to organize this year and I finally figured it out...with one week to go. *sigh* Well, at least it came to me, via an internet blog...thanks homeschoolfeast!

I am looking forward to blogging about our year and reading all the great posts about everyone else's adventures.

Why we like Harry Potter...

Obviously, he is the hero and likeable just for that, but moreso, he gives us a sense of hope, hope that we can struggle through our difficult times and make it out on top, even in the most extreme situations. We are loving the Harry Potter series as a family and it is fun! I enjoy reading these books aloud, everyone comes to the living room when the pages start to turn. We now have the Harry Potter Wii game and the girls are having fun exploring Hogwarts and casting spells. All the movies are favorites, too, but we all agree the books are much better. There are countless hours of "attending Hogwarts" play and it is rich with learning! Harry Potter has become a friend who we love to root for. We are always anticipating the next page, paragraph, chapter. It is a fun world we love to explore.

We are currently on book 5 and cheated and went to see the movie before we finished the book. I felt like Alyssa would be missing out on a fun, memorable experience, so I said OK and we were not disappointed. It was a fun movie to watch. She had a blast. It's fun to watch your child get interested in something and have fun learning everything about it. Without doing tedious lessons or fighting about one more worksheet, your child is learning at every turn. My daughter is learning to read by reading ahead in the read aloud book. Believe me, I never have to force her to read at those times...and they tend to be often...she's sneaky! lol Reading is important but so is loving it. That is what Harry Potter gave to us, another reason to love reading.

Currently...

I am inspired to start blogging our school fun again and will return with new links and fun stuff!! Have fun reading about our adventures last year!!