Friday Five – Your Homeschool’s Themes

Although we don’t like to put labels on ourselves, there have been several themes that define our homeschool and our family. These themes haven’t come around by design, but by practice. Over time, a pattern has developed, of things that we tend to do, like to do, and which fit in with our family culture.

Five of our homeschool themes:

1) Music. As I type this, we have two different music sources filling the room with song. This happens often. I have music on in the back, the kids are in the front, and they put on their music. When I sit in the middle of the house to work, I hear both. Music is everywhere in our lives. We’re either listening to or producing music.

2) Technology. We love technology, engineering, how things work, moving into the future. We are early adopters if we can afford it. We’re very curious about new technology when we can’t afford it. We’re always updating, changing, and moving forward.

3) Books. Books are our life blood. All of us. Different kinds of books for each person. Yes, even textbooks and workbooks. We aren’t book snobs. We read everything.

4) Games. Video, board, card, word, and communication games. Games are our life blood. Wait, I thought I said that books were. Well, games are too. In fact, the reason the kids turned on the music in the front (even though there is music in the back), is because they wanted to use it to play a game they made up.

5) Walking around. We just love to do things that require that we, well, walk around. We take walks, we go to the mall, we go to the farmer’s market, we go to Disneyland, we go to museums…we love walking around. And I hadn’t even realized it until I was thinking about this list, and trying to come up with common themes that run through everything we do, and drive our direction. We like to go places that allow us to walk around and enjoy the world, and each other.

Those are 5 of our themes. What are 5 of yours?

Friday Five – Places to Visit, Part 2

Last week, we talked about our five favorite places to visit as homeschoolers.

This week, how about we talk about 5 places we’d like to visit with our kids, but we haven’t been there yet.

Here’s my list:

1) All 50 states. We’ve been to 4 states together. I personally have been to about 10. I’d like to eventually visit them all with the kids.

2) And their capitals. I don’t know why I want to do this, but I’d like to take the kids to all 50 capitals. Maybe it has to do with my obsession with lists and crossing things off. We’ve been to two so far. Sacramento and Denver.

3) Japan. My husband was born there. I’d like to visit the house where he spent his first 5 years, meet some of his Japanese relatives, and experience Japan with the kids.

4) Canada. It’s so close. Come on, we have to go. Plus, Canada just seems so cool.

5) Yellowstone national park. This is where my husband and I went on our honeymoon. We loved it there. I’d love to take the kids there (and to the Badlands, the Black Hills, and Devil’s Tower).

What about you? What is on your list of places you want to visit with your family?