Birthday boy

Yesterday was Charlies birthday.  To celebrate we took him to Petsmart and bought him a new bowl and bone.

I think the kids were more excited than he was, but he got lots of love and seems happy with his new toy.

Story time

She loves reading with daddy!

Wordless Wednesday: Play time

Take 2

We thought we had the potty training thing mastered, but we were so wrong!  After lots of frustration, more pull ups and a ridiculously invasive test, now we've got it.  We've had 2 weeks of using the potty and no accidents!  So after 10 years and 10 days of constant diaper changes, we are now, for real and officially, all potty trained!

Catch

Starting him young

He loves to work out with us.  He's getting pretty good!

Always moving

When he isn't talking, he's singing.  I think his head would explode if his mouth stopped moving!

T ball

Zach loves hitting the ball with Jon and he's pretty good at it.  We found a t ball league for 3 and 4 year olds and he started last week.  They just worked the basics, but it was pretty adorable.  

Zach said it was to sunny for a nice picture!

28 (again)

Happy birthday to one of the coolest chicks I know!

Wordless Wednesday: 1st time roller skating

Library

We hit the library with friend this week during a big rain storm. Ben is officially too old and too cool to play in the kid section with his brothers and sister.

Waiting

I thought Ellie was going to be our difficult child.  Turns out Zach is our pain in the butt...literally! We headed down to Akron Childrens Hospital this morning for a little test.  We should have the results on Monday and we'll go from there.

Coding

Ben is interested in learning some computer coding. Luckily, we know someone who has some experience in that area!  Ben had his first lesson this week and he's having a blast.

Wordless Wednesday: Before and after

Unschooling

In 1964, an elementary school teacher named John Holt wrote a book called "How Children Fail."  In this book, the teacher blasted schools and the educational system.  He felt, "what kills the (learning) processes are the people interfering with it or trying to regulate it or control it."  He tried to inspire children to learn, not just memorize facts, and focused less on grades and rankings. As one can imagine, this didn't sit well with his employers and he was fired.  
John Holt didn't invent homeschooling, but he started the first homeschool magazine which connected homeschool families and empowered more parents to take their kids educations into their own hands.  He took the notion of homeschooling a step farther and coined the term unschooling in the 1970's. Unschooling is the belief that children learn through every day, natural experiences. It challenges kids to take learning into their own hands by exploring the world and how they fit into it. Unschoolers believe "that the more personal learning is, the more meaningful, well-understood and therefore useful it is to the child."

A friend of mine told me about unschooling many years ago.  I think Ben was barely talking at the time.  When I first heard about it, it sounded kind of crazy. I could wrap my head around homeschooling, but unschooling was too extreme for me.  We're going on our 6th year of homeschooling and, I think I finally get it.  The kids love being homeschooled.  They have no desire to go to a public school.  That doesn't mean they enjoy learning. The boys always got their work done, but even going at our own pace, they didn't retain much more than an average student and they rarely smiled during school. They got to sleep in, hang out in their pj's every day and do school on their own schedule.  This would be most kids dream, but they weren't enjoying it. Learning should be fun. I want my kids to enjoy learning and be curious and go out and explore things that excite them. We're taking the next step in the homeschooling process and we've become unschoolers.  All summer long I was thinking I'd unschool, but still throw in a few things here or there for them to actually do and learn.  That plan lasted about a week.  That is not unschooling.  If we're going to do this, we're going to do it right. Right now we're in the process of deschooling. Deschooling is basically taking time off to discover what you (the kids) are actually interested in, explore it and not feel obligated to stick to a certain schedule, curriculum or learning model. We're slowly making our way to discovering what the kids actually like and want to do. An outsider looking in would describe deschooling as lazy and unproductive.  We've definitely had a lot of that. However, we've also discovered Sam is interested in taking things apart and putting them back together. Ben has helped dad on a chair renovation project and has been the driving force in making a marshmallow shooter, a pocket sling and a bow and arrow. Had we stuck to our regular curriculum, I wouldn't have learned about these likes.  Thats not bad for month 1.

So what does this mean on a day to day practical level? It means the kids can get up when ever they want to roll out of bed which is anywhere from 7:30-10am (unless we have plans). After breakfast, we might have something planned like a play date, a trip to the nature center, park time or bowling. If we choose to stay at home, the kids are free to watch tv, play Minecraft, Legos, dress up or any of the thousands of games they've made up for themselves. My job right now is to observe.  I'm seeing what sparks their interest and acting on that.  They've had restricted screen time for so long, they're soaking up as much as they can. I'm letting them have more screen time, but I'm (sometimes) directing it towards less mindless garbage. They made their pocket shooters because of a video we watched together.  Ben was inspired to make his own birthday cookies because of a kid friendly cooking channel we checked out.  He told me he wants to be a plumber, so we'll watch some Dirty Jobs and see what Mike Rowe can teach us.  We took Sam to Goodwill and bought a toaster, clock and tv for him to take apart and examine.  We've also taught Sam how to search for various things on the laptop.  As we learn more about what they enjoy, we'll dive into those areas and stick with it until they want to move on. We have no curriculum, no worksheets, no scheduled school time, no subjects, no facts to master. What we do have are books, tools, toys, computers, tv, friends, libraries, imaginations etc etc etc.  As they explore things they want to learn about, the excitement will grow, the retention will grow and the traditional school subjects will happen all on their own.  As a 5th grader (for 1 month) Ben might not be able to tell you about an equilateral triangle, but he can tell you how to reupholster chairs, where to find any type of book in the library or about the lead in a car battery, and he'll do it all with a smile!

“The true test of character is not how much we know how to do, but how we behave when we don't know what to do.” 
― John Holt

Double digits

My baby turned 10 yesterday.  I still don't know how thats possible.  We started the day right with ice cream.  We woke everyone up at midnight last year and took them out for ice cream.  Ben loved it and asked we do that again this year.  Ben actually was still awake at midnight.  Zach was all for going out, but we just couldn't get the other two out of bed.  Of course when Sam and Ellie got up the next morning, neither remembered us trying to wake them up and both were mad they didn't get to go. Lesson learned for next year!

Ben woke up way too early for being out until 1am and he made sure everyone else was up and knew he was 10.  He requested cinnamon rolls for breakfast.  He wanted cookies for his after dinner treat so we (mostly Ben) made them.  After relaxing a bit, we headed to Mongolian Grill for lunch.  It was amazing and we all ate too much.  That has become Bens favorite restaurant, and I'm ok with that! After lunch we headed to the pool.  For almost 4 hrs we swam inside and outside, went down the slide, in the whirl pool, by the bubbles, to the kid section and back again. We were all ready to leave. We went home for a little dinner and cookies.  Jon and Ben took a bike ride and the rest of us were done.  Everyone was asleep early last night.

Jon was off yesterday and today.  We went out to Panera for breakfast also per Bens request.  We've probably gained 10lbs for his b-day.  We did some bowling and the kids are working on home made bow and arrows with dad right now and loving every minute of him being home on a Tuesday.

Train time

The Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railway is letting kids ride for free in August.  Now that the public schools are back in session, we thought it was the perfect time to head out. The kids were really excited for their first train ride.  We rode around for almost 4 hours.  Our train car was almost empty so the kids got to walk around a bit.  We also made a trip to the concessions car (or concussion car if you're one of my kids).  It got a little long for the kids by the end, but overall they had a great time.

Only child day 3

I'm so glad we took yesterday afternoon off and just laid low at home.  Zach wanted to cuddle.  A few minutes later, he was out.

We headed to Chuck E Cheese after dinner.  Daddy won a jackpot on one of the games for Zach.

He managed to kick our butts at air hockey every time!

He won more tickets last night than he ever has before, and he didn't have to share them!

Only child day 2

After dinner last night, we headed out for some putt putting and ice cream.  Zach had a blast, but he needs to work on his short game.

We spent the rest of the night outside with neighbors watching Zach shoot hoops in the driveway.  He can entertain himself (and us) for hours outside.  

I woke Zach up early this morning and we headed to the toddler time at Sky Zone.  It was practically empty and he played hard.

We came home to have lunch with Jon.  He had to work today, but hes working from home so we still get to hang out with him a bit.  We were going to head out for a bit this afternoon, but Zach has finally hit the wall.  Instead, we're going to hang out here and maybe hit the pool tonight.  We have one more day until the rest of the group comes home.  Its going to be a complete shock for Zach.

Family of 3

Gram picked up Ben, Sam and Ellie yesterday and took them to her house for Gram camp.  We are a family of 3 for the next few days. We always miss the kids when they leave us for long periods, but its kind of nice only having one kid again.

We did some shopping yesterday.  Zach got some pretty cool sunglasses and a new TMNT shirt.  We hung out at a park, had dinner out with aunt Corrie and spent some time outside playing.  Zach even got to stay up late and had a late night popcorn snack with us.

Jon took today off.  After going out to breakfast, we headed to the zoo.  If you know Zach, you know he is obsessed with giraffes.  We've never let the kids feed the giraffes before, but we let Zach do it today.

The boy was in heaven.  He fed them, talked to them for a few minutes and made sure to say bye when it was time to move on.

Once we saw all the animals Zach wanted to see, we went bowling.  Zach was thrilled to have the lane to himself.  He finished 2 games in record time and even beat his high score.  Toys R Us is clearing out some stuffed animals so he might have conned us into buying 2 small ones, then we came home to rest a bit.  We have plenty more planned for the next couple days.  We'll do some putt putt after dinner. Sky Zone, the pool and maybe a little Chuck E Cheese is on the agenda for tomorrow and we'll see how much energy we have for Wednesday.  I'm sure the other 3 are being equally spoiled by Gram.  I see a lot of "who had a better time fights" when they come home.

Wordless Wednesday: Morning cuddles

Splash pad

We went to the splash pad with friends today.  I think the little ones had more fun playing with dirt than being in the water.

Ben and Liam are just too cool for this place!

Finally!

Shes home! After an uneventful flight home on Thursday, we've barely left her alone.  Who needs to unpack when you can hang out with these guys??

Wordless Wednesday: Playing in the rain

Pool time

Ben got a huge floatie from his secret swimmer that he's been dying to use.  We headed to the pool with some friends last week and the boy spent the first 20 minutes blowing up Nemo.

It was well worth the effort.  They were on it the entire time and had a blast.

1st day

Its that time again!  Since the public schools start really early this year, I thought we would too.  Ellie and Zach were very happy about this.  I compromised with Ben and Sam.  I told them we wouldn't do anything math related until next week. That seemed to make them happy.  I'm confused on that one though because they both really like math!

Zach is technically in pre-k this year.  However, the boy loves to learn and has already passed Ellie on basic things like counting, letters and their sounds and at 4, he can tell time!  He and Ellie will be doing pretty much the same things this year.

The kids still seem to love homeschooling.  Ellie thought she might want to try out public school for kindergarten, but with her issues, we all decided home was the way to go for her.  Shes actually the one who has been asking to start school for the past week.

We relaxed things a bit last year and plan to do more of that this year.  I really like the unschooling philosophies and we're leaning that way for this year.  As long as I can keep my type a personality out of the way, I think this could be really fun for all of us.
We have a math curriculum for the older two only because they both requested it.  We'll continue to go through some books they like and we have plenty of things around here (in and out of the house) to keep us busy and the learning happening.
Ellie and Zach will continue to work on recognizing upper and lower case letters.  We'll work on writing more than their names and I have a feeling Zach will be reading before the year is over.

If you can't read the what I want to be comments, all three boys picked you tubers.  They are dying to have their own channels.  Ben also picked a plumber.  I have no idea where that came from, he's never mentioned anything plumbing related before.  Just like last year, Sam also chose to be a mechanic.  Ellie, of course, stuck with princess!

Glamour girl

Ellie went to a birthday party over the weekend.  It was definitely a girly party.  It was at a local kids hair salon.

All the girls got makeup, nail polish, a hair style and a dress to borrow.

After they got glammed up, they did a fashion show complete with a red carpet.

The other girls were a bit older than Ellie so she was a little out of her element, but she loved all the makeup and attention.