We had a pretty big week this week in school. One purpose of this blog is to record for ourselves, so we can look back and see how far we've come, remember what we've learned and done etc. But it's also to pass on information for my kids school, of some of what we do. We do homeschool. We decided 100% what we do and how we do it, but My Tech High is the organization that allows us to do so many cool things. In other words, they give us funding, which we would otherwise not have. It's the same funding that is alotted to public schools for each child, but in this case, they use some for administration, and pass the educational resources on to us. What a great win-win system.  

To begin the week we finished our book "Summer of the Monkeys". We've loved this time more than anything with homeschool so far.

This has been the scene at our study table lately:

Ada and Nahuel had their very first day of co-op where they celebrated finishing the book and sharing a few of their favorite things with the other kids in the co-op. While they had their fun, Astor, Leonardo, and I made pompoms, pom poms, and more pom poms to use with Astor's Tinkercrate claw game. 

Together with our co-op friends Ada and Nahuel started 4-H shooting sports. They were both a little nervous, as it's been a while since they shot a gun. Ada was worried that it would kick into her shoulder. Nahuel was worried about the noise, and if his earplugs would protect his ears enough. All the kids shot .22 rifles. It was paired harmoniously with Summer of the Monkeys. Ada came away with the idea that having a pony and a .22 would indeed be about the best thing ever. 

One of the best things about homeschool is that it's not about school. It's about learning. Educating my kids can't be about simple book smarts and arithmetic. I'd be short changing my kids if I didn't try to teach them about the broader spectrum of what success is. So I don't feel bad taking a break from books to get a little work done. We heat half of our home, ideally more, with wood. And this year we have a lot of wood to pile, to split, to stack. The kids moved this stack of wood from where it was to a protected, more convenient place for using it in the winter. 

One other fun family project was putting this slack line obstacle course up between two apple trees in the back yard. It's not quite an obstacle course yet. Mostly just individual challenging tasks. But that just means we have lots of places to grow.

 
Each rope hold is more challenging for one than another...