Organic Learning

Harry Potter Love

2007-07-24T10:51:00.000-07:00

Friday we went to the midnight Harry Potter book release party at our local mass market book store. I would have rather gone to the local owned book store but C was set on this store since she knew it would be packed with other Potter-philes. And boy was it ever packed.

We got there when it started at 9:00 and it was already busy. By 11:00 they had to stop letting people in because it was fire code full. Which meant that you couldn't leave because they wouldn't let you back in. The line to get in wrapped around the building. We felt lucky to have gotten there early.

Prior to the party begining, we had to stand in line to get a queue number for standing in line at midnight. Lots of standing that day. Our numbers were 76 & 77 respectively. This is a bit misleading since for every book you ordered, you got a number. I know the woman in front of me ordered 5 books and 1 audio book.

There were some amazing costumes. I wanted to take photos of everyone but after snapping off only 2, they announced over the loud speaker that photos taken in the store were forbidden and if you were caught, you'd get kicked out of the store. Still not sure why but I didn't dare risk taking any more. The 2 I did get were of H dressed like a dementor for the costume contest and the stack of books behind the counter waiting for midnight to strike.

At 11:30, we lined up in order to buy our books and by 12:05, we were out the door and an the way home. C had napped during the day with the intention of staying up as late as she could to read. Her goal was to finish the book within 24 hours of getting it. And she did! She finished it Saturday night at 11:24 pm. YAY!!!

She's been super cool about not spoiling it for me as I won't be able to read it until at least next week, maybe later.

Now to keep the world from spoiling it for me.

Play Dates

2007-03-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

When the kids were younger, we planned all types of play dates with their friends. As mothers, we realized that we loved the play dates as much as the kids. With them getting older, it's not been as frequent. Of course I say this because we are also just getting done with a winter of limited get togethers. Spring and summer usually bring about more and more play dates. This week a great friend of ours had us over to her house to hang out. It was great! I didn't realize how much I missed just getting together to hang out. Here are some photos of our wonderful afternoon.

Now Go Have a Playdate!

The School of Sherwood Forest

2007-02-25T15:10:00.000-08:00

With the weather getting nice, we've started venturing out of the house more and more. The girl wanted to go have some target practice so we went to our local archery range. I've failed to mention how incredibly talented she is at target sports. It's sort of disturbing a bit actually.

The boy is getting strong enough to actually draw the bow back. He still has to get pretty close the the target though.

Tissue Flowers

2007-02-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

Of all the crafts I learned as a child, tissue paper flowers are still my all time favorite. Something about peeling the petals that brings me great joy. The Girl and I are going to a play this Friday. We know two people who are performing and instead of bringing the usual real flowers, I decided to use some supplies from the craft closet and make tissue flowers. They will also last a lot longer than real flowers so they can keep them as long as they like or they could recycle them. They would also make a great Valentine's Day gift. In case you've never made them or forgot, here's a tutorial.

Supplies:
Tissue Paper (you can use recycled gift tissue, it works great)
Pipe Cleaners (I like the long ones)
Scissors

First, I like to cut them into square-ish shapes and then sort them by size. The tissue I'm using is some left over gift tissue from T@rget. I think it was $1.99 for the whole package and will make an impressive bouquet.

Once I get them all cut out and sorted, I trim the edges a bit to look like petals. I try to use a different edge per size so that there is some variety.

Now your ready for construction: For these flowers, I used three sheets of each color. Layering the tissue, largest to smallest with the petals on the sides.

Next, accordion fold your tissue. Then, pinch the center and affix your pipe cleaner firmly. Fan out your tissue like a butterfly.

Starting from the center, gently begin pealing the petals towards your pipe cleaner center working you way sheet at a time until you are doing the outer petals. Sometimes the paper will tear, it's ok, they are usually so full that you won't notice unless it's an outer petal. Once it's all been peeled, you can scrunch them into shape. A vase is great to hold them as you make them so they don't get squashed. Make a lot and give them away.

Lily the Super Beagle

2007-02-05T09:09:00.000-08:00

This is our dog Lily. She's 5 1/2 and we've had her since she was a wee pup. We didn't want a tiny dog but we also didn't want a very large dog since we are already cramped for space. She's pretty good... mostly. She is a runner and given the opportunity will steal food when no one's looking. Thank goodness she's so cute or else she would be in more trouble. The older she gets the more mellow she becomes. She loves to give kisses so we have problems with her putting her paws up on people to get closer.

The boy and her have had a very interesting relationship. He was 2 when we got her and they have never quite figured out where in our "family pack" they belong. She feels that she is boss of him and he feels the need to boss her around as well. They both love each other horribly though so it always works out.

The boy loves to take photos. I don't know what we did without digital cameras. He's still learning the finer points of camera use but some of his results are amazing. My favorite is this self portrait with dog. I love that his eyes are cut out of the frame and hers are showing. It really portrays their relationship.

$Moooolah$

2007-01-11T18:39:00.000-08:00

Being kids, they don't get to make a lot of money. One thing they jump at is the chance to dog sit or in this case dog walk. The owner of these two had surgery and isn't able to exercise them as they are accustomed so he asked us to come over and walk them. We've dog sat for them before and they are wonderful dogs. The big red fella is Bentley and the fiesty little black guy is Dion. The Boy really likes to walk the big dog and I think Dion is glad for it because he doesn't care for The Boy's jumpy jerky energy. It's been so cold the last few days though and we are really bundling up when we walk them. By the time we are done with our walk, we are nearly frozen but Bentley is actually panting.

Geese

2007-01-10T15:53:00.000-08:00

My kids won't eat bread heels. The Boy won't even eat the crusts. What's a mom to do with all that waste? Well, luckily, we have a duck/goose pond in our community that we can feed it all to. They aren't mean necessarily but they sure do get right up close and personal with you. They will nip at each other and man are they loud. The Boy is still a bit freaked out since he's only head and shoulders above them. When we went yesterday, they stood back to back and walked in circles throwing bread hunks at the geese until they just couldn't take it anymore, threw the bag to me, and made a run for the car. You can feed them from your car but take the risk of being surrounded by a whole lot of geese. They will move but you have to drive really slow in case they change their mind. Last month, we did this across from the pond and created a traffic jam on the road. They will not move if you honk at them.

Yesterday it was unseasonably warm for a while then the wind came in and got really cold. We're supposed to have super cold weather for at least a week. I say super cold but it's actually what we should be having this time of year.

Walking The Dog

2007-01-06T11:38:00.000-08:00

One of our family goals this year is to walk our dog Lily everyday. We've done it everyday this year so far. Yesterday it was super cold. None of us wanted to walk her. The wind was so cold it cut right through your coat. The sky was very cloudy and threatened to rain or snow. I finally got them ready to do it and we walked her around the block then back home as soon as we could get there. We're glad we didn't miss the day but man it was so cold. The sun is out today but the wind is still blowing. It might be another one block day today.

After we walked the dog, we went to a friends house to play. The boys were outside playing and all of a sudden, The Boy came running in screaming, "Please make them stop biting me!!". The boy he was playing with had let his dogs out of their kennel and one of them is a border collie. The collie's brain went into instinct mode and he attempted to herd The Boy nipping at his ankle and one bite on his side. We don't blame the dog, it was only instinct. We've dog sat for them before and he's walked the dog and knows that the dog isn't a mean dog. He was bit through his clothing and even though there were some blood marks left my the teeth, it was very superficial. Besided a bruises and scabs, he's fine. It did give us some time to talk about what to do if a dog does come after you. You should never run from a dog because he things of you as prey. We talked about standing tall and yelling NO!! very firmly and asking someone to go for help. The boy we were visiting felt really horrible about letting the dogs out of their kennels and kept apologizing. It was a crazy playdate for sure.

In other news, The Girl went to a sleep over birthday party last night. She's never been one for the sleep over so I was shocked that she decided to stay over. I was still waiting for the call however, but it never came. She's a kid that really needs her sleep and sleep overs leave you at the mercy of the other people there. When she doesn't get enough sleep, she gets physically ill. So, she usually does a late night-er and we pick her up really late. It only took almost 14 years but she's finally ready to do sleep overs.

The Future

2007-01-04T12:09:00.000-08:00

Today the boy decided to do a bit of self grooming. A few years ago he got a kids shaving kit and we kept the plastic razor so he could shave with his dad once in a while. As you can see, he's still getting the hang of cream application. And, he learned that shaving cream in your eye kinda hurts...well it hurts a lot actually. Sorry for the blurry photo, he's pretty fast and this was the only one I could take before he darted off to finish the job.

Later today we'll be doing nail polish in red "because it looks like your bleeding". Where this came from I have no idea, right before he was watching a show about Ancient Egyptians on the National Geographic Channel.

A New Year, A New Blog

2006-12-31T11:44:00.000-08:00

As one of my new year goals, I'd like to keep a blog of our homeschooling experiences. It will serve as a sort of scrapbook. Something I can look back on and say, "Oh yeah, that was fun". We do so much and yet a lot of times, at the end of the day when I'm asked what we've been up to, I'm at a loss.

Why Organic Learning? I feel that the best way to learn is by being exposed to new things. The world is our class room, our teachers are everyone we meet. I'm always so shocked at how my children learn things with little or no instruction, they are amazing beings.

I have two awesome children. The girl is 13 almost 14. She's not a girl-y girl and has a love of the theater. The boy is 7 and a legos-starwars-playmobile maniac, he also has a lot of energy.

Welcome to our adventure!

Happy New Year!