Purple Squirrel Bloggy Book

A friend of mine Tammy has made a wonderful Blurb book of her blog and I just loved it!
So I decided to make one of the highlights of the Purple Squirrel for myself. I can't wait for it to arrive any day now!
Really, I could of filled dozens of books with Purple Squirrel post... it was VERY hard to decide which ones to include!
You can take a peek of part of my book here, if you'd like.
www.blurb.com/books/1110553

Bumper sticker insult?

On my way to work today I saw a bumper sticker which read...

"My Mastiff is smarter than your home student."

Not sure what to think of the lady driving that car... either her dog is incredibly smart and she is comparing his intellect level to that of a homeschooler or she thinks homeschooled students are dumb and thinks it's okay to insult people. Now I would agree that Mastiffs are rather cute in a homely kind of way.

The Christmas Woods

On this week's nature walk we found Mother Nature preparing for Christmas with red, green and a touch of gold. When I start feeling out-of-sorts with the world, I know I'm over do for a walk in the woods. Have you had your walk lately?

A sweet empty nest.

A perfect Christmas leaf.

Stages of Homeschooling... the unschooling stage.

Finding his own path...

I homeschooled my two oldest children during 8th-12th grades off and on. Letting them choose if they wanted to go to school or homeschool. They were older and able to school themselves pretty much. I guess we were unschoolers for the most part, although at the time I didn't know it.
When we decided to bring Noah home after second grade... or "set him free" as he calls it, he really needed to go through the stages of homeschooling.
First there was the deschooling stage, I knew this wouldn't take long for Noah. At first I asked him what he'd like his homeschool to be like. He said subjects, schedules, extra classes, find other homeschoolers. So this is what we did. Sometime during the first year, he wasn't too sure of the "schedule" part any longer. Let's just do things in random order he suggested. Okay, fine I replied.

Letting him find his own way through this experience has being interesting to watch. So during the rest of the first year we still planned subjects to study, much of it his own interests. I did manage to get him to a good place with math. That's the one subject I was a little iffy on when it comes to unschooling. I wanted to get him a good math foundation before he moved into unschooling. (me knowing all along he'd move into this direction.)
So we called ourselves relaxed, eclectic, interest led homeschoolers the first year.

This year Noah is on the path of exploring unschooling. He keeps referring to himself as an unschooler. Now my job as a unschooling mom isn't any easier by no means. I need to be sure he has all of the resources and materials he needs to learn his heart's desires. I will carefully strew interesting items in his path. (Love Sandra Dodd!) I will help find him classes, experiences and people to help him along his unschooling journey. I will explore, teach and learn right along side him.
I most importantly will remember to trust that Noah is a capable, eager and willing to learn all he needs from this world. I'm right here by his side, snuggling on the couch, walking in the woods, driving him to classes or the library and taking him on interesting field trips.
Whatever he needs... I'm right here.

Boozhoo!

Boozhoo! (Greetings!) Ojibwa
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Hope everyone enjoys their Thanksgiving Holiday!

We'll be having our Ghost supper on Saturday with my mom, sister, her family and my brother.
We don't celebrate a traditional Thanksgiving... being a Native American family.

Instead we have a Native American Ghost supper, we honor our ancestors and give thanks (Megwetch) to the Great Father for all the blessings that He gives to us. We do eat the traditional foods... my favorite meal of the year! We'll play games and spend time together as a family.

Turkey shoot practice with a nerf gun. Gobble, Gobble!

Some Homeschool Stuff...

Strategy Games Class. Favorite game: Settlers of Catan


Noah reading a part from a play in Drama class.


Autumn made a Camera Obscura in photography class.
Camera= a Latin word for room. Obscura= a Latin word for dark.
We covered all the windows with black plastic and cut a small hole in one of the window's plastic for the lens. Turned off the lights and presto, an image of the outside is projected into the room. It was a gloomy day out, a brighter day would of made the image show up better.
The image is projected upside down into the room. We could see trees, houses and cars driving by.
It was pretty cool! I must say that I am so impressed with Autumn. Who knew she'd be such a great teacher?!

Sniffy Treats

We made Sniffy some treats yesterday.

(Of course Harpo wanted to help, anytime food is involved.)

We used corn cobs... with or without corn on it. Spread on peanut butter and rolled in seeds.
Tied on some twine for hanging.

Sniffy enjoying her treat.

The McNuttson's Family Vacation.... Gone Bad!

Here's Noah's photography assignment for his Homeschool Photography class. A story told with 5 to 10 photos.

Warning contains graphic gore that could be disturbing to some viewers!!!

The McNuttson's Family Vacation

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starring the McNuttsons; Dad, Mom, Billy, Suzy

and Sniffy the Squirrel.

The End...

Math and Science Expo at the Community College

Some wonderful hands-on learning with math and science at SMEE.

Dissecting an Owl pellet.

Noah loved visiting with the Leader Dogs. He said it was the best part.

Pigs and Chickens Math problem... no real pigs or chickens, just marshmallows and tooth picks. The college students who worked with Noah were just great.

Learning about conifers.

I swear my hair was behaving like this today!

Treasures that we bought home with us... geodes and fossils.

Noah thought it was pretty cool to hang out at his sister's and brother's school.

The Ledges

I'm a little behind on posting some of our happenings around here. Brad and I took Noah to Grand Ledge, MI to hike the trails at Fitzgerald Park also known as The Ledges. Noah was amazed that there was rock formations like this so close home. (about a 30 minute drive.) We really wanted to find some fossils, but had no luck.

We first stopped at the Log Jam for some lunch...

Noah waiting for his lunch, sipping on some Sarsaparilla.

This sign tells the history of this area. I love the part about the Natives tapping the sugar maples and the spiritualist camp... talking with the dead!

Some small passages and cave like areas.

Noah and Dad walking the trail. Such a nice time with some of my boys:)

I found this sweet little purple flower hanging in there.

There was some movie makers there. Building a ice cave with styrofoam blocks. I heard it's a remake of the movie Red Dawn. Noah really wanted to get over there to talk with the movie people but there was a fence up.

Rocks in our head!

Noah's new interest... rocks! On our trip to Ohio walking the trails to Rock House (a cave) I spotted a little round mud ball rock. I thought it could be a geode, so I told Caleb to put it in his pocket. A few days after we were home, Caleb gave me back the rock. We cracked it open and it was a geode!!! We were really excited about that.
This Saturday Noah is attended SMEE (Science, Math Elementary Education) at the community college. One of the class is geology and will have some geodes for sale. We're hoping to buy a few.
They're so fun to crack open and see the sparkling crystals inside. They are pretty homely on the outside... nice lesson to learn, never judge a stone (person) by the outside, it's what's in the inside that matters.
We've pick up a few library books to study and Noah polished a petoskey stone (our state's stone) from a kit we purchased at the Michigan History Museum.... it's hard work to polish a stone by hand, Whew!

Noah has been collecting rocks for awhile now, but since our trip he's really been excited about rocks. Our wonderful neighbor Pam, who always thinks of Noah on her trips, gave him a pencil filled with polished stones the other day from the Smithsonian.
We're hoping to visit the Ledge's in Grand Ledge, MI this weekend and do a little fossil/rock hunting. I've found some neat fossils there before.
Noah would like to know what's your state stone and do you collect rocks too?

Siege!!!

Noah really enjoyed this book called Siege: very informative in case you ever need to storm an Evil Lord's castle. Which he did!
So he set about building an encampment stocked with weapons for the upcoming attack on the castle.

The Evil Lord waits attack!

All was going to plan...

until this over sized gorilla invaded the camp and started nibbling on the trebuchet!

And then there was this lion drinking the moat water! Geesh, give a guy a break!!!

If The Hat Fits, Wear it!

..... just me, feeding the Sniffer!

It was kind of funny, because she was a little scared of me at first. Until I talked to her and then she knew it was just me being silly. I'm a witch every Halloween, my kids won't have it any other way. Mom has to be a witch on All Hallows' Eve!

Look at Sniff's cute little tongue! In all the hundreds of photos of her, I've never caught one with her tongue sticking out... of course Autumn took these photos.

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Here's some of Noah's Photography class photos from today.

Interesting effect, looking through the grating on the play structure.

Wood chips, texture.

Side face view.

Strange shot of Noah with a H.S. mom coming out his nose

and a creepy cloud face ready to bite off her head.