Piercings, Pie, and Epiphanies

We are back from a three-week break

with a new haircut and a second piercing.

Lu's mama thinks he's lookin' pretty cool.

Last Saturday he spent the entire evening baking

for the community market on Sunday.

He made a key-lime pie and a cheesecake,

and took his earrings to sell too.

 Both pies were gone in under half an hour!

He made over $15!!!

And around here, considering he only invested 4-5 hours,

that's almost enough to live on!

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Breaks always bring some sort of epiphany for me with them.

This break really made it clear that:

a) my little boy is almost no longer a little boy

and

b) I want to spend as much fun time with this little boy,

for the little bit of time I have left with him, as I can.

So, I've decided to slow way down on the academics

and give more time to playing games,

swimming, hiking, singing, dancing,

and making things...

like this homemade, natural amplifier that Lu made

with bamboo for his iPad. 

Genius!

There will always be more time to learn history or algebra. 

I'll be 39 tomorrow and I'm still learning :)

Tossing the Schedule

 A few months ago,

 I tossed the idea of having an hour-by-hour schedule.

In it's place, I created a spreadsheet 

on which I record everything we do in the day,

at the end of the day.

To my surprise, I found that we do

WAY MORE COOL STUFF.

This week, we played in the river.

A friend came and made mini-rafts with Lu,

and they sent them down the river to see whose design 

would go the furthest.

Lu finished the Narnia series and wrote a 5-page summary,

even though I'd only asked for a few paragraphs.

We finished our studies on the Byzantine Empire.

 Lu made a timeline,

and we wrapped it up by watching History Channel's 

Engineering an Empire: The Byzantine Empire.

In our studies of Religions of the World,

we learned about Taoism, and Lu made a poster - 

In math, Lu's been doing MEP worksheets

and lots of Khan. (both are free!)

 In science we've been learning about atoms and electrons,

and heat conduction...

 He loves these videos, and asks for them every day.

We've also been watching BBC's "Space" with lunch,
and learning about Super Novas and Black Holes.

He assembled a digital monitor,

 and has been cooking up a storm.

He's been making dinner a couple times a week.

 

He learned Potatoes Au Gratin

 He made a casserole, cheese dip, guacamole,

and pie to take to a potluck party

at our neighbor's house.

Everyone was very impressed!

 and he made his first cheesecake -

For creative writing,

Lu wrote about what he needs to be happy,

like peace and spending time in nature.

He also wrote about what his current interests are:

cooking (of course), music, and dance.

 And now he's reading a pirate story.

Not having a schedule makes for a lot less stress. We can do the things that fit in best with our day and our moods. We are finding more learning experiences in the day to day - running errands, housekeeping, pet training, walk-taking... I've had schedules ALL my life, so it's hard to think of a day where ANYTHING can happen.
But it's good. So good.

Someone's In The Kitchen

... and it's not me.

 

Lu made dinner the other night:

grilled zucchini and eggplant, and a beautiful cucumber salad.

I've mentioned Lu's cyclical passions in the past, and cooking is one of them. Others are playing the guitar and the piano, hula-hooping, choreographing, drawing, blogging, gardening, and other more one-off ventures. They come in waves, and usually last a few weeks. But cooking has been a constant for a while now, lasting longer than usual, and Lu even talks about going to the States to take cooking classes at a community college when he's older.

This past week, Abu (short for Abuela, a.k.a. my mom) was here and teaching Lu a whole bunch of dessert recipes. She says I was never interested in learning to cook - which is why this ability has skipped a generation. But Lu is VERY interested and showed tremendous focus, so I let all other homeschool plans go for the week, and let them at it.

Abu's Vanilla Pudding recipe:

Spanish Flan:

This is one of my all-time favorite desserts. 

Pure gooey sweetness.

It's basically baked condensed milk and eggs. 

Lu made a complete breakfast for his Abu, 

in appreciation for everything she taught him in the kitchen this week.

Their favorite breakfast: 

tortillas and cheesy eggs with fresh tomato sauce.

 Of all the things Lu made in the kitchen, 

this one was my personal favorite, because he made it just for me -

KEY LIME PIE!!!!

My very, very favorite.

He found the recipe online and made it all by himself.

At some point in the week I realized that we hadn't done much math, or history, or writing of any kind. But really, what could be more important than giving the time and the space for following a passion? He learned SOOOO much this week, and I am more convinced than ever that learning is better off without a schedule.

Taking Breaks and an Addition to the Pack

Ah! How nice indeed it is to take a homeschool vacation!

We took a whole wonderful two weeks off.

 And we were visited by an awesome homeschool family from Iowa.

We met through SHS - a great place to meet secular homeschoolers.

 It was really neat to hang out with other homeschooled kids,

especially since there are none in our community.

They collaborated on a new habitat for the tadpoles.

And...

we added a new puppy to our pack.

Sadly, he has distemper,

a virus that kills 50% of infected dogs.

Lu has been nursing the puppy with great tenderness

and dedication. It has been beautiful to watch.

On Monday we got back to work.

But Chewbacca (as he has been named)

wants to be held by one of us ALL the time.

 You may recall our other pup, Achik, from a recent post.

She came to us from the street, severely malnourished.

Just a couple months ago she was Chewbacca's size,

and look at her now!

Anyway...

about taking vacations...

It was very refreshing. 

This is our third year homeschooling, and I'm just starting to understand the importance of taking breaks. Learning doesn't stop during breaks. After two weeks of watching Lu build an ecosystem, bake new desserts, and learn about pet care - among many other things, all of his own accord - I am more and more interested in changing up the way we do things and looking more towards unschooling.