Notebooking!!!

        I have been turned on to a whole new way of keeping track of progress when homeschooling... NOTEBOOKING!!!  I think its the coolest lol.  It's a lot like lapbooking, but in my opinion, a lot easier.  You can find a bazillion free templates and tutorials online, and I found a couple tutorials that show you how to make your own using PowerPoint or in my case LibreOffice Impress (I'm cheap!).  I have been experimenting for the last couple days and thinking of what I could make now, without the books I'm going to be using next year, to make some for the kids.  I finally decided to make either an alphabet book or a number book for Lil Man.  He's been wanting to learn how to write the letters and names etc lately, so I don't feel like I'm pushing to awful much by making him a little book up to learn them.  I was having some problems, creatively speaking, on the alphabet one, and ended up finding a template I like better than my own attempts online.  The number one, though, was a lot easier.  He already knows his numbers to see them and can count pretty high, so really, all he needs to learn is how to write the number, and recognize it's word form (i.e FIVE versus 5).   Using the tutorial I found by Notebooking Nook on YouTube I created a title page and number pages up to Ten/10.  It would be helpful to know that you can download and install all kinds of fonts online any more.  I found one called Print Dashed on 1001freefonts that looks just like the dashed letters you see in "Learning to Write" type workbooks.  I'm pretty darn proud of myself!  I'm going to use Notebooking to keep record of our learning next year with both kids.  It seems like a heck of a lot more fun than regular old worksheets and essays etc.  And it helps to make things more adaptable between the two of them, which means less money spent on my end.  I'm going to attempt to add the pdf file for the number notebook I created on here, in case anyone should come across this blog post and want it.

Number Notebook

        On the "unschooling" front, the kids are mad about Netflix here lately.  We've watched LeapFrog videos, National Geographic documentaries, and who even knows what else.  We have it on our Wii, Sophie has it on her iPod, and the kids LOVE it!  I know for a fact, one of the documentaries was about sharks because Sophie was asking to look things up on the computer about them.  She has always liked sharks (from a distance! lol) and I'm glad that she is still learning new things about them :)  We have also been learning a lot about baby animals, raccoon's in particular.  My mother in law found an orphaned raccoon the other day and is keeping it for a pet.  It's barely a month old and still nursing from a baby bottle, with a homemade animal formula.  The kids all love the little critter, and I think his/her name is going to be Smokey, a play on Smokey and the Bandit.  It's very friendly and cuddly.  I do believe we are attached already!