It's fall!

Trying once again to blog.

I'm a Mimi now!  I have a beautiful, sweet grandbaby.  Here's Maverick Finn and his beautiful parents.

The Harmon Family

We homeschooled through summer until this little guy was born in late August.  We had gotten up to WWII in our Modern History study and started doing a unit on WWII from Build Your Library Curriculum.  I think we were in week 3 when we stopped for Maverick's birth and are currently taking our fall break.  School will start back up the first Monday in November. 

During our break we are still learning.  I'm reading aloud The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder and we just finished Coraline last night by Neil Gaiman and had planned on watching the movie today, but we remembered we gave the DVD away because honestly, the movie was creepy and disturbing.  I had watched it with my oldest daughter a few years ago and we agreed we didn't care to see it again.  Of course I had forgotten all this and I don't see it on Netflix or Hulu.  I really wanted them to see the book come to life, so I'm going to see if our library has it.

Caitlyn and Brett have made a few short videos, that's their "thing" now.  They're currently working on props for a video they plan on making with their friends on Halloween.

They've skated some and played tennis together.

Skating in St. Marys

We took some good beach walks, some of which I'll blog in a separate post.

Exploring Big Talbot Island

Beautiful driftwood on Big Talbot Island

We explored historic St. Marys, GA again and visited the Cumberland Island and War of 1812 Museum, they faintly remembered doing that about 7 years ago.

Brett seeing how he would look in the early 1800's

 

Brett is on the 7th Harry Potter book, he had taken a break from the series a while back and recently read the 6th and now is on the final book.  Caitlyn has been reading some Manga, one series I know she is reading is Bakuman.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I signed up for a class on Laura Ingalls Wilder, he life and writing with Canvas Network, I'm currently reading Laura Ingalls Wilder:  A Writer's Life by Pamela Smith Hill, who is also the professor of the class.  It's been very interesting and I'm learning a lot about Laura, the Little House series, the autobiography she wrote and her daughter and her own writing career.

Caitlyn is, as always, working on her anime drawing.  She is currently working on her own anime, making mini food from clay and let me tell you, it looks so realistic.  Very cool.  Today she is moving into sewing.  She wants to make clothes for cosplay so she is making her first outfit for her Halloween costume.  Her sister has been teaching her how to use the sewing machine.

Learning to use the sewing machine

I think that's a pretty good catch-up.  I used to love blogging, but with Facebook and Instagram I've gotten lazy and it seemed so redundant to keep a blog.  However this is a better way to share and record our lives and learning so I'll see if I can remember it's here ;)

Harry Potter & Catching Up

Well, once again I forgot about this blog.  I even forgot I had come on here and did a post about our Harry Potter unit study.  I'm getting old.

Anyway, we really enjoyed the unit, the most fun was using the cookbook and making quite a few yummy recipes.  It was great reading the book aloud again to the kids.  I think I'm going to reread the next book too and we will just add in the cookbook recipes that correspond with it. 

Right now we are back to work on My Father's World, we're doing 1850-Modern and right now we're almost to the turn of the century, talking about Industrialization and the British Empire mostly.

We are also rereading the Little House on the Prairie books and watching Season 1 of the show.  I know Cait (15) and Brett (14) are a little older for that, but they can't grow up without having heard mom read Little House.  I did read them all aloud to my older kids years ago and the little two did listen in some, but it's not the same.  I still enjoy them at my age, so I'm sure they are too.  They're timeless. 

Soon it will be time to choose curriculum for fall, Cait will be in 9th grade and Brett in 8th.  I want them to be independent with their school work for the coming year and that will be a new thing for both of them. 

My oldest daughter and her husband are having a baby and I find myself thinking a lot about all the fun homeschool-y type things I will get to do again with my grandbaby.  I can't wait.  Five in a Row is the first thing we plan to do.  Actually Before Five in a Row, which I never used with my own children (we did do FIAR).  Kaleb and Alexis plan to "unschool" or gently and naturally teach their child and they both want me to help a lot with that.  School is not a word that will be used, there will be no "school time".  Just a lifestyle of learning that's woven throughout the day.

I'm excited about that too and even though we did live like that when my kids were younger, I always felt we had to do "school time" as well.  I wonder what would have happened if I had been brave enough to just follow my children's lead.  I have so many great memories of our days when they were younger.  As they got older none of my children enjoyed school.  It will be interesting to see the difference and see if their child will be able to retain their love of learning if school books are not forced upon him/her. 

I've started becoming more social (a bit) lately and we went strawberry picking with some friends last week and...here's the big one...I started a small group of moms who are using or want to learn more about the Charlotte Mason method.  We had our first gathering at a state park/beach and we had a really good time and so did the kids.  We'll be doing a book study of A Charlotte Mason Companion with just the mom's meeting to discuss the book and methods and exchange ideas and resources.  I'm hopeful that it will be something that works for all of us and keeps going. 

I'd like to start blogging more, so let's see if I remember I have this blog a bit more often and actually use it.

Enjoying a beautiful day at the beach

Nature studies by our home

Summer Fun

Monday we went to the zoo.  It was $2 day and since we haven't been in a couple years, I decided it would be a nice morning out.  It was very hot and crowded but it was nice to get out for a bit.  We saw our favorites.

The elephants

The capybara is always a favorite due to the wonderful children's book Capyboppy 

 We picked up sandwich fixings on the way home and after lunch the kids went to the pool.

Today we went berry picking up in Georgia.  It was a nice drive and we found the place easily.  We will definitely be going back next year.  It was super hot outside, but I have lots of helpers.  We picked blueberries and blackberries. 

The boys at the blueberry farm

Alexis found all the ripe blackberries

Beautiful blueberries

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My beautiful teenagers

The girls made mini blackberry pies and blueberry buckle cake when we got home.  They all went swimming again to cool off.  It was so nice to have all of them together to have some family fun.