Looking Back To Move Forward

I find that the end of the year is the perfect time to look back through my old posts and review what we've done in 2013.

 I enjoy looking back to see how much my boys have grown, changed, and learned. It's not always easy to notice all the little day to day changes but when I look back over the past twelve months some obvious areas of growth really stand out to me.   

Of course, looking back over the year I also see lots of ways we can improve too and that helps me formulate new plans.

In reading my first post of 2013 I was reminded of my New Year's resolution to spend more time with the boys outside everyday--oops! I don't think I've been outside with them since October!! 

We'll have to remedy that.  

I also stumbled upon our state studies that we seemed to have stopped altogether in the past few months.  While the boys didn't enjoy all the worksheets that went along with each state study, they did enjoy reading books, watching travel videos and learning about the states so we should start up with that again too.

I want to plan some more fun field trips and we need to get messy with some fun science experiments too. 

For now we'll focus on unschooling and enjoying our winter break

• So far the boys are keeping occupied with TV-- they watched a new episode of Wild Kratts (and learning about sea horses), Axe men, Highway Thru Hell, and Alaska the Last Frontier.  
• The boys also have tons of new Lego sets (seriously I think in the past two days we've come home with at least a dozen or so!) and they have been busily working on all of those.  I have seen Ian and Alec working hard putting very complicated sets together on their own before but this was the first time Evan took it upon himself to open up a set, follow the directions and make a set all by himself!  
• The boys have been playing new games like Quirkle and fooseball.  
• Evan has new superhero action figures he's been playing with using expressive language and his imagination. 
• Alec has been learning new bird sounds with his new bird sound identifier.  
• They all have new remote control vehicles that they're speeding around, crashing into gifts under the tree and one another.  
• They have cleaned out the playroom, re-arranged their own rooms and are constantly making room for their new toys.  
• Of course, my boys have also been playing new video games, Evan got Donkey Kong Country for the Wii, Alec received Kung Fu panda 1 and 2 for his DS and they all came home with some new free apps they wanted to download to my phone and kindle from their cousins.  

It's vacation so it's pretty much anything goes around here.  I've resigned myself to the fact that they'll probably be sitting like zombies for the next week or so but that's OK, we all need our downtime and I figure that is the best motivation for me to get back to teaching/ homeschooling.

I will use this time to reflect and plan and enjoy watching my boys entertain themselves.