Konnichiwa!!!!

Blogger has been down for a couple of days so I have not been able to share the wonderful news:

WE ARE GOING TO JAPAN!!!! 

We will be reporting in December, which thankfully leaves me just enough time to get the dogs ready to go so that they don't have to be in gov't quarantine for six months upon arrival. We are so excited and it is what we have been wishing for :)

I also just noticed I have a few blog posts missing from this month... I sure hope they are able to recover them- I will be very upset if they can't!!!

I heart Self Design!

It is always nice to see what you have done in writing, for me it validates the hard work I have done and reminds me that I am doing the right thing for my family by homeschooling. This week I turned in my report of all of the things we have done and I received the final draft product that will be sent to the Ministry of Education.  I would love to include them in my blog but I haven’t quite figured out where to put them because they are all quite long even though they only cover the last ten weeks, which is how long we have been enrolled in our current homeschooling organization.

From the beginning of the school year until February we were enrolled in a distance learning school. I have learned that it is not technically home school. Distance based learning is more of home learning because you are given curriculum that you have to complete and there is no freedom to explore or try out other things that your child may like. This was one of reasons I decided to leave the program, that and it was purely Canadian based history and for the past three years my kids had not learned anything about the US or the rest of the world, only Canada. I am glad my kids are getting a 

chance to learn about Canada in depth but I also want 

them to know about their own country’s history and 

geography s it was important to me to find 

something that included that as well.

A Blue Whale skeleton at the Biodiversity Museum

   

 Right now we are with an organization called Self Design and I LOVE IT. I mean I really, truly, with every ounce of my heart LOVE IT. It is an enthusiasm based methodology where the learning is directed by the student. In early February I made the switch and had to decide exactly how we were going to home school since the distance learning school required all of their books to be given back.


 

Self Design is amazing because they supply you with a certified teacher called a learning consultant (LC) who is there to encourage and help when needed. She also reads my weekly reports of what we have done and translates them into learning goals for the Ministry of Education. I love my LC- she has been so encouraging and has answered all of my questions and concerns with care. We are also eligible for a learning incentive throughout the year to help pay for schooling items and activities since our organization reports to the Ministry. The boys got just over $1000 and Mia got just under $500 since kindergarten is only funded half day in B.C. The incentive has helped us really have fun with our learning. I especially love how excited my kids are to learn. I have never seen them this happy or excited!

 

One of the Orca whales we saw on our whale tour

We have found being eccentric homeschoolers works the best for our family, meaning we aren't tied to only one thing and I use a mix of classic and other education styles all together. We do use an online curriculum called Time 4 Learning  which the kids adore because it feels like they are playing video games (it is actually a curriculum designed and modeled after the curriculum used in the U.S.'s top charter schools but introduced in a fun online format)

Brandon Geocaching for Easter Gifts

We also pick subjects to research in depth throughout the year. Since February we have learned about whales, food and art. Our themes get us out of the house and active because I believe learning doesn't just take place in a book. So far some of our activities for thematic learning have included going on a whale watching tour on a boat, visiting an aquarium and a biodiversity museum, going to local farms, raise baby chicks, making a big vegetable garden, buying produce at the farmer's market, enjoying art museums and galleries, creating art out of different mediums and painting pottery! This week and next week we are researching one of B.C.'s most famous artists, Emily Carr. There are currently exhibits of her work and life at both the art museum and the B.C. History museum and we get to visit her actual house in Victoria. Whoever said school and learning wasn't fun should really try homeschooling- half of the time my kids don't even know that hey are learning :) :) :) :)      

Is it spring yet?

The past couple of days have been so busy. We finally saw the elusive sun and I had a lot of work to do outside. Maintaining 10 acres and a plethora of animals is no easy task, especially when it rains 9 months out of the year! This week during our two days of sunshine I was hoping to have the chance to pull the horses out and do some lunging work but instead the back yard got mowed, the front garden got pruned and weeded and I had to move the baby chickies outside because they have gotten stinkier and noisier as they have gotten bigger!


Thankfully I have my coach coming out to the house tomorrow so I will actually have an incentive to not get sidetracked from pulling the horses. Someone is also coming to take a look at Willow. I really hope it works out- she will be one lonely pony when we have to say goodbye to Roman later this month. She cannot go in with Gryphon and would get so lonely in a paddock all by herself. I am sure the kids will be upset but it is best for the little girl.

Today the rain came back so I had a day to finish up the laundry and pick up the house. (Oh, the glamorous life of a housewife) I also found out that I had to spend the kids' learning incentives by the end of the month so I spent a better portion of my day picking out some different curricula and things I wanted to try out. I ended up ordering the Funnix Reading Program for Mia, the Handwriting without Tears curriculum for Aidan and Mia and also signed both Brandon and Aidan up for an eight week writing course through Time 4 Writing. We have enjoyed doing our thematic studies but after May I need a break. Planning out a month of activities and lessons pertaining to a subject is trickier than it sounds, especially when my goal was to teach all of our learning goals through these themes. As the sun comes out we try to spend a majority of our time outside having fun (Our lovely Pacific Northwest sun only shine for 3 months out of the year) so these types of things are nice to have on hand to do in the morning or evening so that we can have the rest of our day free.

The other day I wrote my kids' Annual Reviews for our homeschooling office and they have met all of the learning standards for the year. We are technically done with "school" this year but I only want to take a 1 month break in June for vacations. I never understood the whole summer break thing because all of the kids would forget everything and have to spend the next 1-2 months reviewing what they should have learned the previous year. I figure that it won;t happen if we don't take such a long break :)