Thursday, May 15, 2008

Playing with Fire, Basketball, Fencing

Yes, I let my kids play with fire. Very heavily supervised. This is one of the great parts of homeschooling. We can do crazy things like this. My kids have been enjoying making fires, so I let them make a fire in our fire pit while I'm there to watch. Wild Man today discovered that dry pine needles make great tinder, but the sticks trimmed from a bush less than a week ago are not dry enough to burn well.

Actually, today was a nice, relaxed homeschool day. The kids babysat this morning (while I stayed home - I didn't feel real well today). This afternoon we watched "Ace of Cakes" on the Food Network. The kids then cleaned up the backyard so Ga'Hoole Girl could mow the grass. They then proceeded to play Medieval Pokemon - a game they have made up in which they play Pokemon but with the cool stuff from the Middle Ages that we're learning about. Wild Man and I did some reading together then I read history to the kids while they walked/played on the trampoline. We had some great discussions about separation of church and state.

Wild Man got his basketball hoop (birthday present) put up today. He's just thrilled. We did our little fire-making while Mr. Math Teacher and a friend were working on the hoop. When it was done, Wild Man let me take a shot. I got it in the first time! So, I didn't try again.

We are going to see "Prince Caspian" tomorrow night here in our little town's movie theater. We can walk to the theater - that's really cool. Of course, the theater is really old and it shows. The seats are not as comfortable as in a nice new theater. But, it has character, and I think we'll have fun.

The kids first fencing class is Saturday morning. Yes, fencing. They love to pretend swordfight and were asking about learning to fence. It took a little searching on the Net and a couple of phone calls, but I found out that the Lawrence University fencing coach does fencing classes on Saturday mornings. It's a 30 minute drive on a Saturday morning, but it's so worth it if the kids enjoy it. And it's cool - how many other kids on the block fence?

I've got lots of thoughts and ideas about relaxed homeschooling and unschooling, but it's getting late. I'll post more later.

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