Pickles

So this past wednesday I immersed myself in pickles. I prepared and canned 32 pints of pickles. That is way more than I have ever done before. I never even liked pickles until I made them myself last year. That's what happens when your friend offers you cucumber seconds and says make pickles!

Enjoy Life Unschooling Conference!

Have you heard of the Enjoy Life Unschooling Conference yet? This September for a cool 2 days, come and Enjoy Life with unschoolers of all ages in the mountains near Frederick, Maryland. We will have fabulous speakers, chat sessions, and funshops to fill your days. In the evening, there will be a campfire with music, s'mores, and storytelling while inside our coffeehouse will feature an open mic, a service project to help animals enjoy their lives, henna to decorate your body, crafts, and games. Registration is quite inexpensive for a conference, so come on and join us!

My Problem

So I had my homeschool review a while back. I was told I had a problem. Wanna guess what it is? Go ahead, I'll give you a minute ....

Nope, that's not it. Not that either! My problem is that I am learning centered in my approach to homeschooling. Yes, you read that right. Being learning centered is a problem.

My reviewer said he was teaching centered. He had to be because of his job. I was learning centered and that was very different. We agree on that. He did suggest we meet in the middle so he could do his job easier. Could be worse!

Ok, so I didn't bring the samples of my kid's work. Bad me. They will get over it though. I brought two of those calendars which look like books - one for each kid. They have at least 5 different things on each DAY (and way more than 180 of them) which the kids did for learning purposes. I was told "Anyone can bring this in, we need to see what your kids actually did". Hmmm. This was the proof of my instruction. It seems a little silly that they truely want to see 5 pieces of paper from my kid. That is how we got into discussion about My Problem.

You are wondering what I have to do now, aren't you. I have to bring in samples of my kids' work to my next review - next year. That sure showed me, huh?! Yes, I might remember to bring the samples next time. Or I might join an umbrella group and not have to see them again. There are probable a whole host of fun ways to handle this situation, but a 12 step program for My Problem is not one of them :-) I like my problem.

Oh, my kids did start blogs however. We'll see how that goes...

Bye Bye Trampoline - Hello Chickens?

Last week we took down our trampoline. It was used when we got it from our neighbor oh so many years ago. We have enjoyed it a lot. But ... the stitching started disintegrating, a few springs fell off, and then the fabric started ripping. It no longer was safe to jump on it and be sure that it would hold you when you landed. So down it came.

We had been thinking about ways to recycle or reuse the materials from the trampoline instead of adding to the landfill. The best by far was to turn the frame upside-down and attach chicken wire to make ... you guessed it ... a chicken enclosure! So what do you think? Should we start having chickens next year?