The Karate Kid - then and now

When the first Karate Kid came out, I was twelve years old. I remember liking the story very much, but not so much the fighting. My kids wanted to see the new one but I thought they should watch the original Karate Kid movie before we rented the new version with Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan. A few days ago, we were able to watch that first Karate Kid movie (1984) from our local library with the famous "wax on, wax off". My kids loved it and I enjoyed watching it again.

Tonight we rented the new Karate Kid and all watched it. It is a bit long, but Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith are awesome in this version. The story follows very closely to the original, with some interesting changes, in particular the setting. The new story takes place in China. There is beautiful scenery in mountains, the Great Wall of China, and even inside the Forbidden City. Unlike the first Karate Kid, there is no blood in this new movie, but still a lot of fighting. The focus is again on gaining and giving respect, training hard and focusing.

I have a couple of favourite quotes from this new movie:


Dre Parker (Jaden Smith): " I thought you were just a maintenance man"
Mr. Han (Jackie Chan): "You think only with your eyes, so you are easy to fool."

~

Mr. Han: "You have taught me very important lesson, Xiao Dre. Life will knock us down, but we can choose whether or not to stand back up".

Advice for a wanna-be-unschooler from freeplaylife

I have enjoyed reading freeplaylife's posts on unschooling and homeschooling for the last few months. I also feel like I have connected with Tiffani (as much as you can in the virtual world) through her self portrait BAM project on flickr. She is a beautiful, fun loving, inspiring woman.

I have been thinking a lot these past few weeks about our homeschooling life. The kids and I have been into a routine since the summer, and it works. It works, but that's about it. I feel at times that we have lost that love of learning and that we are just checking things off a list. That love of learning that we have when we follow a particular interest, passion, or do a really cool project like Mystery Class.

I decided a few days ago to send a personal e-mail to Tiffani from freeplaylife and ask her this simple question:

"When you have a minute, I would love to hear your top 5 advice for a wanna-be-unschooler like me. I will go and read more on your blog later, but I figured you probably have some tips or insights...I have noticed that we are all getting bored of always doing the same thing. My oldest is even considering going to high school... We need to get the love of learning back in our house."  I thought maybe she would send me an e-mail back with a few points when she had a chance, but instead she decided to make a series of posts on her blog! So far, she has written two excellent posts, and I can't wait for the rest.

You can read the first one "Advice for a wannabe unschooler: Widen your Concept of Education" , and the second one "Advice for a wannabe unschooler: Get to Know Your Child as their own Person". I have called myself a wanna-be-unschooler for a few years now, always thinking that I couldn't completely unschool my kids. I have read a lot about unschooling and we also have unschooled friends. As time goes on, though, I am realizing that maybe we could, in our own version,  unschool. I shared a quote today on my facebook from John Holt, and it reflects very nicely how I feel about education at this point:

‎"Since we can’t know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead, we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned." 

A love of learning and an ability to teach yourself is what I hope to give to my children.

I am looking forward to the next posts and the advice that Tiff will share with all of us on her blog. The second post put a smile on my face when I read it, it made me feel good. I do feel I know my children very well and we have done many of the things on her fun list. It gives me hope that we could do this “unschool” stuff!  

Book Sharing Monday :: Callie Cat, Ice Skater

Callie Cat, Ice Skater is a picture book written by Eileen Spinelli and illustrated by Anne Kennedy. Celeste chose this book at our library because of the cover, she loves to skate and also likes cats. I found the story is a little different than most, and really appreciate its message.

Callie Cat loved to skate, as the story says, she loved it "more than chocolate cake". She spent a lot of time at the little ice pond near her house skating by herself. The author talks about Callie felt "a melting sweetness" whenever she skated.  Everyone knew how much Callie loved to skate and when they heard about the Honeybrook Ice Skating Contest...

...Everyone thought she had to compete and cheered her on during her many practices for the contest. They all thought this would be her big chance and that she could win the big prize!
The story continues with the performance at the competition and Callie discovering that winning isn't everything, that doing something you love is its own reward. This is a beautiful story for its message, I thought.

"They showed the flyer to Callie's mother.

"Do you want to enter this ice skating contest?" her mother asked.

Before Callie could reply, May piped up:

"Of course she does."

"She'd be a banana if she didn't," said Liza.

And so it was settled."

If you are participating in Book Sharing Monday, please include your link below. If you would like to participate in Book Sharing Monday, it's easy! Just post about a favourite children's book on your blog, including photos and a quote from the book, then come back here and share your link so that we can all visit your post. Thanks and Happy Reading!

Happy Halloween!

We had another great Halloween here, a bit chilly and windy, but still a lot of fun! This year, we all went out together trick-or-treating.
This year, we had Celeste as a witch with a slightly green face, Andre as Harry Potter, and Adrienne as a corpse bride. I like to go along with them and dress up a little, this year I did a quick skeleton face..
We hope everyone had a great Happy Halloween!

Year 5 :: Week 12 :: Home Learning Report



This week was more productive than the last couple of weeks!

We continued working on all our Math and Language Arts.

In World Geography, we are now in Europe. We completed maps on Scandinavia and the trivia questions.

In Canadian History, we learned more about the settlers of Canada, and read several stories in The Spirit of Canada. We really enjoyed the excerpts from Canadian Crusoes and from Roughing it in the Bush. We learned and talked about the Rebellions of 1837.

We talked very briefly about Napoleon and looked at this painting from Jacques-Louis David, a painter that we will study in a few weeks as part of our Art Appreciation course.

In Music Appreciation, we continued and completed our study of Frederic Chopin. We listened to Classics for Kids to learn about his life and listen to some of his music. We completed a notebook page.

In Art, we worked on some splatter painting using this workbook. This Klutz book has been a lot of fun so far. We will be using these paintings to create something else next week. We splattered the paint on the paper and also used straws to push the paint around.

I love this little guy. Adrienne drew this one using the previous lessons of free brush strokes!

This week, we also attended a fun birthday party, took a family portrait, and survived the "Great Lakes Cyclone", which really didn't turn out to be much of a storm. It did give us an opportunity to practice our storm/tornado/cyclone safety plan...

My kids love storms and were very fast at packing up their stuff, bringing food, radio, and flashlights to the basement!