May is gone! oh me! oh my!

Again, time has sneaked up on me, but no worries, I have managed to publish some of our pictures from each month in the albums. I hope you get a chance to look at them.
Our Daisy Girl Scout season is coming to an end and Laura is ready to "Bridge"(graduate) to the next level (Brownies), which is keeping me very busy. Watch out everyone... Cookie time is near!

April is for Outdoors

How beautiful spring is around here! This year we really got a chance to experience it first hand. We had fun park days, attended two outdoor nature classes, learned about bees & had honey from a honeycomb, camped at the beach and hiked a lot.
Laura continued making gadgets in her "Engineering with Legos" class, learning Chinese, music on the keyboard and playing math games. We went to see "Henry and Mudge" and "Winnie the Pooh" on stage, learned about gases with Mad Science, and shared improv classes with our group. We also made a fabulous new home for cookie, Laura's new hamster. Laura made her little house.

COSTA RICA in MAY

We looked forward to this trip ever since my sister announced to us her wedding location more than a year ago. Being a native Spanish speaker I was eager to utilize my mother language and share my culture with our daughter in a more natural environment once again. Laura and I had been to Colombia (my country) two years ago visiting family.

After my visit I can say that Costa Rica is one of the most beautiful places I have been to. It is just like Colombia. It made me long for my own country and its beauty with bitter sweet memories of its landscapes and people.

The varied topography, biodiversity and people are amazing. Although you can’t escape from a tourist trap or two, an occasional pushy street vendor and must be watchful of your belongings (as one should anyhow) it was none the less a fantastic trip.
This was especially true for Laura, who got to experience things that she had never gotten a chance do here. We went to a butterfly farm, saw dozens of new species of insects, rode horseback for hours into a primary rain forest and swam in fresh river pools. We sailed and snorkeled, visited the mangrove ecosystem, zip lined thousands of feet above ground, visited the gold museum, hiked and walked on hanging bridges, experienced unique flora and fauna up close everyday and kayaked and swam to our heart's content.
We also met people from all over the world, including an American family that was taking their time to travel around the country by car.

We stayed in San Jose for two nights and south of Quepos for the rest of our 10 day stay. At Quepos we stayed at Tulemar, a beautiful resort overlooking the ocean nestled among the rain forest, adjacent to Manuel Antonio Natural Reserve. Most everyday we went out on a guided excursion. Most excursions offered breakfast, lunch or both depending on the time it took place.

On our return, I had to complete Laura’s attendance record for her charter school. I wondered which activities to count as “academic” enough to list each day. Admittedly, we did not worry about fulfilling any lessons at the time. However, the cultural and language immersion, ecological education, environmental awareness, physical challenges and overall experience my daughter was exposed to during our visit are worth their weight in gold to us.

BACK TO LA- End of year, development assessment

It has been a mellow "academic" return to reality for us. We have been doing a lot of field trips instead. In the last two weeks of May we managed to try out a new fencing class for the fall (which laura loved), go camping to the beach, visit the renaissance faire, go to Disneyland, visit the museum of Natural History and an Alpaca farm. Also, Laura and her friend collected donations to benefit the Chinese earthquake victims by giving out lemos, oranges and grapefruits from their gardens (our dog, Avery helped too).

Sometimes I wonder if it is just too much action. After all, there are no written rules, transportation issues, or public funds (or lack there of) to rule how many times we go out on field trips. Then I talk to veteran home school parents among our support group to take in their wisdom. Everyone tells me the same: Homeschooling is about having fun discovering, creating unconventional learning experiences and listening to your child's interests. All right then, we are doing very well.

Laura's reading is coming along great. Her math and writing skills are well were they should be. Her reasoning, logical mind is sharp and alert. Her compassion, concern, respect and love for others is one of the things that make me most proud of her. Her creativity flourishes daily, either by way of making up a new board game, gathering materials for a self directed project,solving problems found along the way or any other surprising way. She beams self esteem and is not trapped in trendy merchandising fads.

We will continue doing a little work in the summer, trying out new curriculum here and there, having fun and enjoying life.

I am glad we left the school when we did. We still love the people there and think of the fun parts of it, but I am grateful for having this opportunity in front of me. I see it as an extremely beneficial experience for Laura. I can comfortably say this for both James and I, even though we've had to make financial sacrifices and are still trying to settle into living without my income, however small it was. I will try to freelance some this summer, trying make it work better for us. Again, I consider myself lucky in that aspect because my trade and location allows me to do this. I love it and wouldn't change myself or our decision to home school Laura in kindergarten for anything in the world.