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We had many friends over this week! I tried to post pix of everyone but I know I missed some. Some of my pictures inside came out very blurry, I think this was due to a lack of decent lighting.

One of our friends introduced us to a new website where we played a game called Pandemic II. Mady and I have had fun playing this game on and off this week. It has also made for stimulating conversation. In Pandemic II the object of the game is to kill the world's population by customizing your own disease. You do this by earning points and buying disease traits. There is a good deal of strategy and just plain paying attention going on with this game. Mady is into it!

It was fun to have only unschooling friends over one day this week. Usually we have a mix of schooly families, traditional homeschoolers, and unschoolers. This was the first time our house was filled with only unschoolers. It wasn't our entire group just a few families, that made it fun to watch all the action unfold. In the living room the little ones devised twisty, turny, train tracks with the occassional help of an adult when asked. In the kitchen there were crazy computer games, my room with the 2nd computer hosted YouTube and music videos with some insane dance moves from the kids, and the backyard had the wet trampoline which is a huge hit with everyone.

While the adults did visit some I think we played just as much. This is one place where one can observe the difference between unschoolers and more traditional homeschoolers, in my opinion. More traditional homeschool families don't play as much as this unschooling family seems to. The adults usually gather around somewhere and chat. Traditional homeschoolers seem to be very quiet, even in play. Not always, but overall, this was a difference I noticed. Unschoolers seem to say whatever is on their mind whenever it strikes them, while traditional homeschoolers still seem much more quiet.

Here is an example. Niki and one of our friends (both of whom happen to be the same age and have very close b-days) said let's have a contest to see who is the cutest/coolest. Both began listing traits, that in their minds, were traits of people that must be cool.

Coolest
cool moves
look cool (??)
do sports

Cutest
their own person
sense of style
smiley

We kept asking the kids what cool and cute meant and how would you describe it? They kept giving us these answers. Finally, Niki said, (after some prompting,) "Let's use the dictionary. I'll get it!"

cool=attitude and manner, moderately cool, reducing comfort, not excited, showing dislike

We determined the definition we were looking for was attitude and manner.

cute=clever or sharp, or attractive

It was determined we were talking about the attractive cute.

In the end, the kids decided one of them was the coolest and the other the cutest. It was fun to ask the kids questions and see where their minds would take us! I like that we ended up @ the dictionary-that seems logical to me. We use it often @ our house. Niki likes to look @ it like it is any book to read. My grammar and vocabulary are slowly evolving since we have all been reading and researching much more over the past year. I know the exposure to more words, reading, word puzzles, logic, and dictionary play, is expanding their minds further than what they would be getting in school. The fact that they are in search of it on their own makes me smile even wider. I have memories of hating to get up and go to school bc it was so snoringly boring. My kids won't ever have to feel that way. I am grateful we have this opportunity. I am also grateful we have like minded friends to share it with. Thanks you guys for hanging out @ our tiny house and letting me observe and interact with all our awesome kiddos. I can't believe it has been an entire year already. I love watching all of our kids grow up-but it makes me cry too. I wish I could keep them little forever...sometimes! (Hide is a friendship song by Creed.)