I love being able to strap her on my body when things get busy!

Three cheers for hands free movement!

I’ve been looking forward to the end of school for weeks now and having it coming so quickly is making me rethink my stance on the subject. It will be nice to have more time to relax and less time working on getting the kids motivated but I know that they are going to be spending a lot of time outside. I’m all for having kids out playing but that means less one on one time with my big kids! That’s terrible!

I’m sure I’ll get over it though!

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the Sports Day. The first picture might need a bit of explanation. Laurelyn likes to pull her hood down over her eyes and pretend to be a zombie. Can you tell she has brothers?

It is a great talk and even though the talk is not embedded into this post I really hope you click on this link and watch the video.

Three Jovial Welshmen

The choir performed at the Cochrane Childrens Talent Festival and won first place in their division. They were also the only competitors in their division so it wasn’t hard BUT I’m sure they would have won regardless! These videos are a little jittery because David was sitting on my lap while I was filming. My apologies.

Under the Sun (I think)

Joshua Fought the Battle

At the same time I saw this NBC segment on unschooling. I don’t have cable but thankfully Youtube has all the crap TV I need. Yeah, Youtube! Here’s the link in case you want to see the dribble that NBC put together.

Unschooling Segment 1

Unschooling Segment 2

Now, I don’t unschool. I do what is called traditional homeschooling. We use books or computer programs and field trips. Unschooling is something I find intriguing and I would love to actually do it but I haven’t quite figured out how I would do it myself.

Watching and reading all the blog hub-bub about unschooling, pro and con, I’ve remembered that I love homeschooling! I love having the power to change our schedules, our curriculum, our learning method or anything I else I want in order to make schooling fit into out lifestyle and/or budget.

I like what one blogger said. For traditional public schooling families it’s a stretch to wrap your brain around homeschooling and it’s a whole new ball game to wrap your brains around the concept of unschooling. Even among homeschooling communities there can be some strain between traditional homeschoolers and unschoolers. One believing that the other is inefficient at best. What I am uncomfortable about is that a piece done by NBC on unschooling, especially one so obviously biased, can easily skew the public’s opinion on homeschooling in general.

There was, and still is a huge uproar about how unschooling should be illegal and so on. How many more specials done by our unbiased news media before any schooling outside of a public classroom is brought before a courtroom.

I’m also sensitive to this mentality because it’s the same close minded understanding that was thrown in my daughters face.

We carpool to Girl Guides (scouting for my non-Canadian friends) and it was one of the other families turn to pick up. On the way home the dad of one of the other girls started asking Jocelyn math questions. The conversation went like this;

Dad: Do you know your numbers?

Jocelyn: Yep. I’ve been practicing them for 8 years.

Dad: Well, what’s 81 times 81?

Silence.

I can’t help but imagine Jocelyn trying to figure this out in her head while two of her best friends are sitting next to her, watching this exchange.

Jocelyn: I don’t know.

Dad: If you had really been practicing your numbers for 8 years then you would know this.

This just happened last week. We talked to the Dad and he admitted to giving Jocelyn a hard time and apologized.

I’ve had several friends ( non of them really close friends) start quizzing my kids when I say that they’re homeschooled. Why? I don’t ask to check when you tell me you have a boy and a girl. Who’s business is it of mine to check your kids out and make sure they really are male and female.

I went looking at some unschooling sites and found two amazing sites. The Not Back To School Camp and the Unschool Advetures, Trips for the untethered teen. Both have amazing experiences to offer to unschooling, homeschooling or even public school kids. If I had to choose between a classroom or experiences in the real world I know what I would choose.

The same choice I made almost 4 years ago.

Friends of ours thought we should bring the kids to see the new pony that was born. That pony was born months ago so I thought I better drop in before the pony is too big to pass as a pony to my astute kids. I’m sure they would call me on it if I tried to pass a horse off as a pony. They’re pretty literal that way. We spent some time feeding Hailey and her baby Oreo. Laurelyn was fascinated, from afar. David wanted to jump in and wrestle with the pony. I think David would wrestle with anything. The kid has no fear!

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Once the novelty of the horses waned my kids traipsed around the barn/storage shed like it was a treasure trove. They climbed the mountain of hay bales, swung on the wooden swing, played on the four wheelers and chased the barn cat. At one point Jason smiled up at me and asked, ‘Can we stay here ALL DAY?”

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What better way to end a field trip to see a horse then with a field trip to see dinosaurs?

The Calgary Zoo revamped (and I’m not referring to actual vampires because there’s no such thing in case you were wondering) their dinosaur park by building motion sensitive, roaring, moving dinosaurs. I think that the dinosaurs could have been a teensy bit more realistic in their robotic movements but the kids were thrilled. Really, that’s all that counts! (Although I was slightly disappointed.)

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One of the things I laughed about with my friend was that David has only one speed. Saunter. When we’re outside David doesn’t run around. He saunters over to look at things. He uses a leisurely pace that will get him to his destination eventually but will infuriate me in the process because I walk fast and I hate to wait for anything. This creates a problem or as the saying goes, we are at an impasse. I usually get annoyed and make him sit in the stroller so I can speed along blissfully unaware of all the beautiful things David would have stopped to look at.

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Since we’re on the subject of David’s observation this is a picture he took of me reading my book and snacking on carrot sticks while the kids set off a roaring T-Rex a couple thousand times. Making a dinosaur roar never gets old and my book was really good so it made for a great day all around!

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Don’t your arms want to wrap around him? My little man.

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I can’t believe how quickly Jocelyn is growing up. Slow down girlfriend! It’s not a race. Stay a little girl forever if you can!!!

I love field trip days and I love the spring time weather making it more possible. The snow is almost entirely melted in my front yard and that is a huge undertaking, you should have seen my front lawn!

I wonder where we’ll go on our next field trip!