Going with the Flow

     Every day is a new beginning! This is what I say to myself when I'm feeling up to the challenge of homeschooling. On other days, not so much. As the boys continue to get the hang of our new schedule this year, with classes at Urban Homeschoolers, music with Dan West, Tru's rehearsals with Rising Star and Chester's basketball league with ARC, not to mention all the work and exploration on our own, there have been a few bumps in the road. But sometimes, as a parent, you just see it flowing and that's when you sit back and enjoy the ride :)

Some things I've observed in the past few days:

This is one of Truman's many drawings, just doodled as we read last night before bed. I love his artwork! It's always offbeat and action packed, just like him. He's been watching Bruce Lee and playing with his homemade nun chucks, which might be the inspiration for this drawing.

We went on a field trip with our UHS friends to the California Science Center to see the Pompeii Exhibit. There were artifacts from the civilization that was destroyed, along with information about volcanoes and a super intense Imax movie about natural disasters called Forces of Nature. In preparation, we read the book The Secrets of Vesuvius by Caroline Lawrence. Historical fiction brings events like this to life and anything that has to do with ancient Greece or Rome is always interesting to the boys.

Truman has a short writing assignment for his science class and I thought this would be a great opportunity to introduce Mindmapping as a technique for brainstorming, writing and organizing thoughts and ideas. I love it and I thought that Truman, especially, might like the artistic aspect since he sometimes struggles with putting his thoughts on paper. This is just our first go at this powerful tool and I'm sure we will go deeper with this as time goes on but, for now, they seemed to get it. For this first attempt (the goal was just to try it out, the writing assignment will come later) Truman chose the main topic "Parkour" and Chester chose "Halloween", a big holiday in our family. I think Mindmapping can be a great way to generate ideas and make discoveries.

Meanwhile, our house is filled with music as Chester follows his passion for piano and Truman is working on lines for the show. We are struggling through reading The Halloween Tree  by Ray Bradbury aloud at night (this is our book club's October selection) and the volcano we made out of paper mache but have yet to erupt sits waiting on the porch. Good times :)