Teenage Boy

what my teenage boy has been doing lately

Pumpkin Picking

Some people go to the Pumpkin Farm and pay money per poundage for their pumpkins.  We pay our money for the seeds and plant the pumpkins. 

The yard becomes a viney mess and when mowing the grass you have to go around the patch.

The viney mess in the yard

But it is all worth it on the day when Pumpkin Picking time is here!

"How many more pictures mom?"



"I planted this one!"



This one is mine!

Heavy?  A Little.

Finally strong enough to cut his own!

A thick stem is hard to cut

Before we carve these we will weigh them to see how heavy they are.  By having the pumpkins right there in our yard we are able to watch the growth from a seed, to a bloom, to a flower, to a green pumpkin and then finally a pumpkin.  Now for the vine clean up (always wear gloves the vines are very pokey)!

L.S. Sews

There is a great pattern to sew animals out of a pair of gloves.  http://www.marthastewart.com/267502/glove-animals 

L.S. is 7 years old and she has decided to take after her Grandma and learn to sew.  Her mom doesn't like sewing.... at all! 

I would do the first stitch and L.S. did the rest.  She sewed where the directions told her to and she stuffed it at the end.

The bunny and dog turned out way better than her mom could ever do. 

What did L.S. learn?  Read directions, sew, problem solve, and joy of accomplishing something that her mom couldn't do at all!

Foster Beach

                  I love the beach, I hate the beach, I love the beach, I hate the beach and you are not it.

Okay I love the beach, the hot sand, the water, the relaxing on a towel, watching the kids play these are all wonderful qualities of the beach. 

Learning is always happening.  One could see this as a day where the kids played and didn't do "school work".  What I view this as a time to investigate the natural elements in our world.  John Holt said "you can't connect the dots forward but you can connect them backwards".  Who knows maybe Froggy will become a curator at the natural history museum specializing in Lake Michigan ancient sand particles.

L.S. could become a environmentalist activist to keep our water clean because of the respect she has for the water.  Time and many experiences are the only indicators of what they will become in their adult life.  But for now my kiddos are enjoying their childhood life and so am I!



Waiting Part 2

In confirmation class yesterday all the kids were required to read out loud from the bible and write their thoughts in a journal.  Well I panicked not for Teddy who was there but for Froggy who will have to be there in 2 years.  Yes I know it's 2 years away, but as I have said I don't make them read out loud or show me their writing skills. 

So I had to do this, for my own sanity and this is what the conversation looked like
 "So, Froggy, is this the bible you got?"
  "Yeah ma"
"Have you ever read from it?"
"Yep"
Mom flips through and finds a passage
"Want to read this one from number 24 to 25" (I didn't give him a lot just one with some tough words)
"Okay"
I couldn't believe it!  He read beautifully!  He even read the hard words with no problems. Sigh.   I must trust my children!

Thinking back  Froggy use to read out loud to me simple books and poems for fun while we waited for Teddy to get home from various places.  When he read to me it was his choice but it was soooooo long ago!




Thanks Froggy for calming you mom down.

Waiting for Your Children to be Ready

It has been 13 years and Teddy has not done a lot of writing.  He will make comic books and write thank you notes but he was never a kid who wanted to sit down and write.  I had many conflicts in my own brain about what to do with this.  Because of the books I have read and the conferences I have been to I took a leap of faith.  When Teddy was 6 years old I decided not to make him write, read out loud, or do projects like kids do in school.  Teddy can be found reading books hours on end and I knew this would help him when he began to write. 

Recently I have been taking graduate courses in which Teddy sees that I have to write a lot.  He would like to go to college so he made the decision to take a writing course in order for him to learn how to write for college.  The course he signed up for was through a homeschooling coop where most of the students have had a more structured schooling experience.  He is given an assignment on Monday and he has to have it turned in by Friday.  On the next Monday he has a 15 min. one on one session from a person who use to be an editor. (I have to sit in so I get to learn too!) 

After his first writing assignment which had the requirement to be 11/2 pages long or longer and written in a formal way (no I's or you's) he did it.  I am excited to see that all the years of reading has really paid off!  Teddy's teacher told him that his writing is comfortable and that a professor who would have to read hundreds of papers would enjoy reading his.  I think the teacher was a little surprised to find out that this was Teddy's first formal paper, and honestly I was too! 

I am so glad I did not pressure him through all those years to practice a skill in which he was able to learn in such a short time.  Granted he did write here and there and I would help him if he asked how to spell a certain word but for the most part there has never been a story written or a research paper made.

Waiting is hard but the benefits are great!

Now for Froggy....