Our unschooling adventures recap

Time has been flying by...

We have spent some time watching the Olympics. Aayla loves to watch figure skating. The first time she watched it she said to me, "Momma, when I learn to skate I'm gonna do this! I love it!" as she danced around the living room like the skaters on TV.

So I went to the thrift store this week and found some skates for the girls (I got a pair awhile ago on sale day at a local thrift store) but Sierras are a bit too small and daddy still needs some. We are hoping to find a right size for Sierra soon so we can all go try a family skate. Wasaga Beach has an outdoor rink and an arena and there is a homeschool skating group on Thursdays in Elmvale so there are lots of skating opportunities around here.

I would also like to try this nature trail skate pictured below. Click on the pic to learn where it is. I think it sounds like so much fun if it would just warm up a tiny bit here.

Aayla spends a lot of time each day creating her own fantastic games. Here she was having fun using her pull ups as stepping stones. Not only is this fun but it is a wonderful way for her to practice her balance as she walks across the wobbly stones.

We spend a lot of time in our bedroom playing. We have a king size bed and I love how it just seems to invite everybody in. Sometimes they play in there alone, or take their friends in even when company comes over but most often we are all just in there together.

One of Aaylas newest favourite games that she created herself is called 'break out'. The rules of the game are simple.

1) lay down on bed
2) stay still while someone covers you with pillows (all 5 heavy feather pillows)
3) 'break out' from under the pillow with as much exaggeration as you can muster
4) someone else lays down and it starts again

Aayla's turn to be buried in the pillows

And she breaks out

Mommas turn to break out (picture by Aayla)

She can literally play this game over and over and over again.

We have had many friends come over to play. Here Aayla does her nails with Nella as Sierra and Mattea are getting a snack. You can just barely see Mattea in the backgound of this pic.

Amber, a friend of Aayla's from her school last year, came over this week too. They had a lot of fun playing pet shops together at the coffee table. Amber recently broke her leg so they were limited in their types of play but still had lots of fun (no pics). Sierra had a friend over one day and her and Matthias had a lot of fun playing Minecraft together over the internet. He even convinced her to play out in the snow on the trampoline for a little bit...20 minutes is better then none.

Sierra also spent an afternoon at her friend Mara's house too and almost everyday our neighbours girl Kodey comes over here or our girls are over there. Kodey goes to kindergarten 2 1/2 days a week but usually comes knocking on the door when she gets home. It's wonderful that all the girls have each other to play with and the freedom to almost live at each others houses at times.  Kodey loves joining in our crafts.

So we have had a lot of social time with friends I just haven't been the greatest at taking pictures.

We have played pet shops and have built furniture for them. We've played with Thomas trains and built tracks all over the house. Aayla continues to read Thomas's Great Race over and over again and occasionally even tries a new book. We've placed new scholastic book orders, played hide n seek and flashlight tag. We are still playing lots of games. The favourites this week have been LPS Hideaway Haven, Castle Logix and Monopoly Jr. We've created with pattern blocks.

 Since our last unschooling catch up post we have been very busy creating all kinds of valentine goodies like THIS owl bowling game, and THESE wooden heart games, but my favourite by far was THIS Valentine banner we made:

and celebrating Valentines day at home as a family. We had so much fun baking our Valentine cake and pouring our hearts and love into it, and boy was it a work of art.

For the most part we are still hibernating. I miss being outside but I am tired of the bitter cold this winter has brought us and I am ready for Spring to arrive. Daddy took the girls tobaganning one day with a couple of friends but they didn't manage to stay out too long as it was just too cold. Aayla still goes out to play on occasion. She had a blast playing with Loki when Sissy Meadow and Andrew came to visit.

Don't let the sun fool you...it's freezing and I so wish we were all HERE again this winter...a girl can dream can't she?

Hopefully next winter we will be able to spend some time on the road again and beat these winter blues.

Sierra continues to learn with Minecraft Pocket Edition on her iPad. She has just started to play on the laptop as well and is excelling there with building areas that play music when you walk on them, creating paths that glow and flicker in the torch light, building amazing homes full of intricate details, learning how to add saddles to pigs so they can be ridden and oh so much more.

She teaches herself by watching youtube videos and then goes and creates them in her own worlds. She's trying to learn how to switch skins but it's proving to be a bit difficult so daddy is helping her with it. I need to learn how to get printscript pictures from the computer to save and be accessible for use on my blog :)

We are considering signing her up for some courses on www.minecrafthomeschool.com as she has expressed an interest in playing online with others. She thinks the courses sound too much like work but I think if we get her the first  lite course she will like it, excel at it and want more and if not I think the $10 cost is worth the investment to try.

Are any of your children using the homeschool minecraft courses? Do they enjoy them? We'd love to hear about your experience with it.