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Sunday, May 31, 2009

Playing Dressup

My girls absolutely love to dress up and put on jewelery and play make up and I have always given them that opportunity and supported their magnificent imaginations. They have tons of dress up clothes and accessories from halloween costumes to animals to pioneer dresses and hats. I have always believed that dressing up and pretending to be someone else teaches children about the different roles people play and what things we do while in those roles. Such as dressing up as a casheir they count money and put groceries in bags or when they dress up as a ballerina they twril around and do flips, or when they dress up as a mommy they take care of their baby and do all the things a mommy does. This is very important in their life role playing and using their imagination teaches them so much about not only who they are as individuals and what their values and beliefs are but it teaches them that others do not have the same values and beliefs that we do and we should respect their values and beliefs because we would want ours to be valued by others. I love seeing my girls play different roles while they are playing dress up they love being different people and it is changing all the time one minute they are Cinderella and the next they are playing cops and bad guys or indians and cowboys. This Unscholling life has taught me so much about how this so called play is actually learning at it's best. I ahve began to see how much they are actually learning from dressing up as different people. I will always encourage their love for playing dress up and I will give them new opportunities to use their imagination by providing new dress up clothes and accesories.


Digging for Fossils with Grandma and Grandpa

The girls spent a week with my parents out in the desert. They learned so much about living off the land, digging for fossils, animals that live in the desert. I am glad that they got the opportunity to have this experience with their Grandma and Grandpa. They are so good with my girls and they helped them to learn so much about something so new to them. My girls brought home lots of fossils to look at under their new microscope that hooks up to the TV they look so cool and they get so excited. I am always wanting my girls to experience and learn new things about the world around them and this trip did just that they had so much to tell all the way home and for days after. What a wonderful learning experience that they got to take part in. Here are some picture of my girls digging for fossils and taking rides in the dune buggy trailer.


Digging for Gold




My girls favorite thing to do at the moment is dig in the dirt and look for fossils, gold, and of course make their famouse mud pies. Their new thing is having the dogs dig thier hols for them because digging in the dirt is so hard when you are so little. They get so excited when they find rocks and other things buried beneath the dirt. I use to get so upset when they would track dirt into the house because I would spend all day cleaning. But one thing this unschooling life has taught me is that their love for nature is a blessing and I should allow them to pursue that passion without fear. I have learned that the house work can wait until they are in bed but learning can't wait for me to clean and learning can't stop just because I have cleaned. Children are messy learners they love to get dirty and explore and I am grateful to have found such an amazing way of living where I can be learning right along with them getting dirty and digging in the dirt right along with them. Trusting my children with their learning is my passion I know that they will learn no matter what they are doing. I want my kids to have that passion and love for learning that humans are meant to have and so far I have seen first hand how children learn without having text books and teachers treating them like walking sponges. Digging in the dirt is a learning experience and each time they dig it is a different experiecne all together. Man what a wonderful life.

Finger Painting Adventures





My girls like all kids love to finger paint. They love the feeling of the paint on their hands and the colors they make as they mix the paint. I cherish these paintings I keep all of them because I feel so guilty throwing away their art work. Their art work signifies who they are as individuals. Destinee is my down to earth girly girl so her art work is always neat and has a theme. Cearra is my spontanious girl that has a huge imagination so her art work is crazy and messy with no real theme but it is still beautiful. Kaley is my cheese ball who has a very comical personality and her art work is the masterpiece of a 20 month olds hands. I love their finger paintings and I love being able to give them the opportunity to create such beautiful finger paintings that tell so much about them as very unique individuals.

Living Life in the Fast Lane


As an unschooling family we are always living our life in the fast lane. We are always finding fun adventures for us to do as a family. Our life revolves around our kids we are always doing something new and exciting. We love our adventerous life and cherish every second of it. Our life just keeps getting better and better everyday the more time we spend with our kids the more we get to know them as individual people that are unique in there own special way. We have learned so much about our kids and our selfs this past five months we are more intuned to our needs as well as our childrens individual needs. I love our new profound life and I know it is only going to get better.

A Love For Cooking

My kids have a huge passion for cooking they want to be right there every step of the way. Destinee enjoys reading the recipe and getting everything we need together, Cearra enjoys cracking the eggs and stirring all the ingredients together, and Kaley loves to help clean up by licking the bowls and beaters. I as a mom love allowing them to follow their passions and giving them the opportunities to try new things in life. Cooking is one of those everyday skills that the kids learn just by watching mom and dad cook and being involved by helping out whether it may be setting the table, helping us prepare meals, or helping clean up afterwards. Destinee has learned about measuring cup and spoons and what all the numbers mean on them. Allowing them to help Sam and I in the kitchen allows them to master those skills needed for when they get out into the real world. I am very blessed to be able to facilitate a love for cooking and baking in my children.


Learning Their Way




Since we began this new journey of unschooling I have realized how much they learn on their terms in their way. I am utterly amazed everyday by the amount of knowledge they gain just through doing what they love doing at that moment. Destinee my oldest began to become interested in writing and letters and she has been copying books from front to back. Well the other day I heard them playing very nicely together and Destinee came to me and was very pleased with her self. She was telling me that she had wrote some letters very nicely so of course I wanted to see her masterpeice so she brought me her baby sister. She had written some letters across her baby sister Kaley's forhead. I said WOW very nice work Destine and named the letters that were printed so neatly on Kaley's head and asked Destinee if she knew the sounds to those letters and she began to say them and I was pleased. This made me chuckel inside and it is a memory that I will never forget and of course I had to snap some shots of this wonderful experience. I am always amazed at the things that my girls come up with from day to day. I am one proud mommy.

Documenting our amazing life.

Well hello this is my first blog. I am very excited to document our amazing unschool life. We began sending our oldest daughter who is five to kindergarten and she liked it at first but she then began to hate learning which made me very sad for her. Learning is supposed to be enjoyable learning is part of our everyday life. So I like any mom began to really worry about her she cried everyday before school and when she came she didn't like anything that had to do with learning. I myself love to learn new things so this really devastated me because I want my kids to love learning too. So I decided in February of 2009 to pull her out of school and home school her. Well I began to become very overwhelmed with our schedule it was like she was still in school and it was very hard to get her to want to do any worksheets. So I took a different approach I asked her what topic she is interested in and we would dive right in and I would print out worksheets and workbooks that went with that theme and I still struggled to get her to want to do it. I finally gave up and was very discouraged and wondered if I had done the right thing pulling her out of school. I was surfing the Internet one day and came across unschooling and it felt so right for our family. So now we unschool we do not do worksheets, or use workbooks. We do a lot of hands on activities that they ask to do and they really enjoy learning and I am extremely amazed at how much they have learned. And I am so in love with our life now I have a found a new way of living and have realized that my kids are independent they should be treated as individuals and every part of them should be respected as an individual. I have now put trust in my kids that they will learn and be successful at it I just step back and give them the tools and support that they need as individuals.