Camping Fun to follow.....

Girl Scouts and oportunities to be leaders

You may or may not know... our new obsession is roller derby. my two older girls live on it, breath is, and SMELL LIKE IT. (Sorry girls, but it is as stinky as hockey. Peee uuuuu!)

How we first heard about Junior Roller Derby, was we went with our scout troop to scout night at the Girls roller derby. AND who was there playing a scrimmage during the half time? The Jr Roller Derby. My girls were hooked from that moment on. They talked about it all summer and bugged me about it in the fall until it finally started and they took flight (on wheels of course.)

So this year, when scout night came around again, the girls were asked to wear their sashes and vests over their derby clothes and help with the pre-game demonstration for the other scouts who had come to watch.

They demonstrated the game with the derby adults, then they fielded questions with everyone too. Such a great "girls leading girls" moment for our derby scouts!

 

WHAT she doesn't know how to READ?

This past weekend was our scout overnight to a Tipi Camp. My troop of Juniors and Cadettes were tipi camping for Friday and Saturday nights. Marley's troop of Brownies and Daisies were coming on Saturday for a one night overnight. Since Marley is MY child and I had to stay for two nights, of course she camped out with the big girls the first night before her troop got there. Because how else was she going to get there?

A funny thing happened when we were there. I came over to a table of my girls (all three of MY OWN girls were there) plus a few of my scouts, one of which is a school teacher's daughter. As I get to the table I hear the (school teacher's daughter) scout say to my older daughter, "she doesn't know how to read??"

Which first of all, is not entirely true. She does TELL people she can't read. She can READ. Not fluently. But she can sound out words. And she is 7 years old.

If she were in school, she would be in first grade, maybe second, I donno. Our town has all day kindergarten so that when they start 1st grade they can start teaching to the test. That is how they get their funding. I don't hate on that. It is what it is for them. They have to keep their funding. And no doubt they are scrambling and tripping over eachother making sure those kids know all the right words and all the right math equations... and the exact right pieces of history. If a kid doesn't read by first grade, how will they learn to fill out all those worksheets? How will they do homework? How will they PASS the test? If everyone passes the same test, then everyone has the same information. If everyone has the same information then we can rest assured that our education system works.

Except that if Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Galilei, Da Vinci (to name a few) all had the same education and same information in their heads, where would we be now? Who knows.

Marley can't "read". She and I were taking a walk the other day and talking about the planets in our system. And what our system was called and all that stuff. But she can't "read". Sometimes she asks me to drill her on math skills (which btw she hasn't ever done a math worksheet) but she can't "read". We read together all the time. She wants me to sit and read with her. She is a barrel of knowledge and she wants to learn. And aparently she doesn't need to be "reading ready" for that. Not here anyway.

What Is The Big Deal About Reading Anyway???

I saw this when I woke up on my fb. Bree is my daughter. She always tells me she doesn't like to read. I am sometimes worried about her lack of reading. It bothers me because there are so many classics I would love for her to know. I want her to love the experience of reading a book and watching it go by like a movie in her head, only she created how the characters look (in her mind) and she recreates the scenes (in her head.) It is something different from watching a movie.

 

And when I read a great book, like the Hunger Games series, where no one gets fed by me, and no laundry gets done, and the dishes sit in the sink for two or three days while I read everything; then I see the movie and try to explain to the girls how the book was so much better than the movie, and how so many things in the movie are unexplained, but I understand them because I read the book, while they pass right by the scenes not knowing there is so much more detail than they know. (How was that just one sentence?? I need to start watching my grammar and sentence structure. hahahahaha.)

 

I love to read!!!! I can't do it enough because I have a family to take care of (see the paragraph above about what happens when I start a good book). But I LOVE TO READ!!!! It is hart to be a book lover in a family of non book lovers.

 

So I satisfy my unschooling mind by realizing she reads all the time. She is constantly on fb, she reads instructions, tutorials. Her grammar and spelling, for someone who wasn't "taught" grammar and spelling, seem to be as good as anyones. She asks how to spell things when she needs to. When she doesn't capitalize something it is usually because she doesn't want to, not because she doesn't know to.

 

I try to stand up for kids rights, to do what is right for them. For them to read what is right for them. To be who they are... Just... as.. often.. as.. possible... and as often as I remember to. Because lots of my old habits are not so freeing, sometimes I lapse back into old ways. But I try. I also remind myself often that if I force the classics on my kids, they will remember the classics as things I force fed on them. And they will reject them anyway.

 

So when I caught this on fb this morning I had a little glimmer in my eye. My daughter was at the library a few times this week looking to see if her book was in. (Mr. C, the child's librarian, has never seen her so much) And now... ta da... she is reading a book. It isn't Shakespeare or Samuel Clemens. But still it is a book.

 

Bree

omg i just got john's journal from the library and it's awesome!
i keep turning to the front page just to look at dean! :p 

• Cheyenne  XD dean is amazingggahh n allsooo there are some pretty cute moments in tht book
• 
  

  Bree  i haven't read a lot yet but can't wait to read more!
• 
  

  Cheyenne  Lol yeah its awesome

Where did that dang path go to??? ;-)

Bree really likes Pentonix. They perform songs with only voice. I think we first heard their interpretation of Somebody That I Used to Know, at a time when everyone was trying to cover it.

Anyway, we were watching this video on YouTube the other day. After watching the whole video through I told Bree that the thing this video really proved to me is that our era of music really kind of sucks. There are some good songs out there, but there isn't really an era of music out there right now. It seems to be all over the place, and most of it sucks.

Then I saw this on fb today. And it all seemed to go together. I like to read this without the cuss words. A cuss word every now and then is fine with me, but this felt a little over cussed for my taste. Anyway here it is...

Are we so busy trying to be great that we are forgetting that there is a path that takes us there?

May, the month of endings, and new beginnings

It has been a while since I showed up here. I haven't been doing my due diligence with my blog this year. I like to write and I like to blog, but I also love my life and it takes over for me sometimes. Well lots of times actually.

The kids keep growing, which at the very least, Marley promised she wouldn't do any more of that years ago. They are all so wonderful to be around. I wouldn't have my life any other way. Talking to the grandparents, last night, after Marley's recital, we were going over what is "wrong with the world". It reminded me how thankful I am that things are just the way they are here in our family. My kids hang out with me during the day, we plan activities and projects. We see them through. Sometimes we don't see them all the way through. Sometimes they devour our lives until we move on to something else.

And I wouldn't have it any other way. So here we are now in May, asking what we did with our year. School year, of course. And the list is probabaly endless. We finished our last year of the co op we are in for "school". I often wonder how we made it through. Waking up Monday monrnings to get there on time looks like a mountain to climb, looking back. But we did. And I am glad it is over. The girls will miss it, and they will be glad it is a closed chapter, all at once.

 Here are a couple cakes from Bree's cake decorating class. That is a Dr. Who cake up above, in case you weren't aware. I am sure Bree would like that to be made known. And the spaghetti and meatball cake down below. Both were wonderful creations of her time and energy.

Nine months of jazz classes this year for Marley, and it finally came to a head with her recital this week. This was another monday requirement of ours. Get Marley to dance on time, while making dinner, and getting the older girls ready for roller derby practice.

 Marley and her grandparents after her last recital.

Bret and a couple friends after Marley's recital, at our local restaurant, celebrating the dancing success. Bret had spent the whole day with Marley crimping her hair, doing her make-up and nails, putting her together nicely.

And then there is scouts, our May campout marks probably the last one of its kind for me and my crew, being that we are moving this summer back to our KY roots. I went on an adult enrichment campout with my service unit mgr Paula...

Bree FINALLY filled out the paperwork so she could earn her silver award from her hard work with making all those bags for the Belize project. She is following it up now with helping her sister troop make quilts for her troop leaders.

We found a weekend so she could hang out with all her old Scout crew. They hadn't been together in a couple years. They used to be inseparable. It is bitter sweet to see them all growing up so fast.

Thinking Day, Geocaching, Scout night at the City Hall, patches, badges, campouts, father/daughter dances, they have just ruled our world for years now. What will we do without it?

Even today we are off in a few hours to a Mother/Daughter Tea. It is Alice in Wonderland Themed.

Alice

The Mad Hatter

 

We have had Callie Mae every other weekend for most of the winter and spring. She is hell on wheels, just like her dad was, I am told. She is a blessing for my girls. Although I know Josh and his dad are on the outs, I like to think he would be glad that his sisters get a chance to know Callie. She and Marley are almost inseparable when the are together. Bret and Bree pamper that girl like nobody's business. She is so loved.

 

 

Here we are at the Witch's Brew Coffee Shoppe hanging out with the babygirl.

 

That's about all. It cannot possibly capture even an ounce of our days. My Little Pony's. Dr. Who. Supernatural. The Walking Dead. We are certainly caught in the middle of a bunch of great series this year. We have done so much. I cannot wait to see what it next.