Exercise isn't always fun, but it sure is FUNNY!

 

PE in the Winter

Idaho has lovely cold weather winters, complete with snow, ice, and inversions. This type of weather equals cold, miserable, windy, wet and muddy outdoor play. Our family always sinks into a sort of hibernation mode and it is harder to get the kids out to play and be active. To keep us motivated and away from the TV, I try to look for opportunities for us to get out and be active.

The community offers a few solutions for a fee. The pools at the local Recreation Center and YMCA are always a big hit. In our area we are also fortunate to have a few Bounce house places like Monkey Buisness in Boise and Jumpin Jungle in Nampa. A new place opened this year in our town, an indoor trampoline park, called JumpTime. It makes for a great indoor workout and tired kids after.

For a lower cost winter workout, we will rent different children's workout videos from the library.  Some old  favorites of ours are Sesame Street - Elmocize and Yoga Kids. For some more recommendations check out this article.


Other cold weather options take advantage of our lovely Idaho snow. Sledding, tubing, hiking, snow shoeing and cross county skiing are all great workouts.

What sort of winter PE activities do you do in your homeschool?

Perspectives

When you suffer from depression one of the first things you learn in treatment and therapy is altered perspectives. Not everyone views the world the same way. Our perspective is how we see the world through our own lens. These lens can be tinted, coated, and fogged up by all kinds of things like culture, up bringing, education or lack of education, experiences, tramas, stress, addiction, gender, ethnicity, etc. Depression is a HUGE lens that alters perspective. To help you cope and counteract the effects the Depression lens has on your perspective, your therapist may have you practice looking at things in your perspective and then how they really are. It can be a very challenging exercise depending on how depressed you are or how long you've been living with depression and your altered perspective. You are pretty much having to tell your brain what it thinks is crap and then you have to try to tell it how it really is. They call this cognitive therapy, but I like to call it the Twilight Zone.

Anyway, I stumbled upon this funny little comic about how people generally see the world and how it really is. The little monsters make it even cuter. You'll probably need to visit the original to read everything.

November Nature Walk

Our little Homeschool Nature Walk group went to the Star, ID River Walk just before it got too cold out. It was a great day, as we walked and warmed up the kids took off their jackets. The trees were in full blown Autumn mode. Maple, Birch, and Oak leaves covered the path crunching under our footsteps and falling on us as we strolled along.

Beautiful Fall Colors

One of the girls found a nice fat slug hanging on to the last few days of warmth. What to know more about slugs? Check out Snails and Slugs at the Backyard Nature website.

PHYLUM: mollusk

CLASS:gastropods

Growing on a lovely sitting log along the trail, we spied this mushroom. The mushroom looked like it had already been a snack to some incests.

KINGDOM: Fungi
  PHYLUM: Basidiomycota
    CLASS: Agaricomycetes
      ORDER: Lycoperdales

King or Queen of the Hill.

Schedule Burnout

 Photo from Confessions from the Couch blog http://www.missteacha.com/?m=200805

So we've been using AO strictly for a whole term and I hate to say it but with 4 kiddos doing 4 different levels of the curriculum, I am burned out. We haven't been getting to the 'fun' stuff much and I really need the 'fun' stuff to keep me and the kids motivated. I'm looking into reorganizing things for next term, using AO books but combining some subjects. Currently I have a 12 yr old in YR6 that is average, a 10 year old in YR3 that is behind in reading skills, an 8yr old in YR2 that is advanced and a 5 year old in YR0 that is average. Any thoughts from anyone on the best subjects to combine?

Yummy!

 

Grandma and Grandpa Mitchell got us some Christmas-y donuts for snack today. More snowman carnage in December, as the boys ate the heads off the snowmen first, and were then disappointed that they weren't jelly filled.

Everyone loves a Parade!

Ian, Kaleb, Oliver and I attended the Meridian Winterland Parade today. Josef wasn't with us because he is still feeling sick, we left him in bed. It was fun, but cold. The boys collected quiet a bit of candy. Oliver ended up with a frisby,he turned it upside down and held it out like his own personal offering plate. "More candy please, sir?" Then we headed to Hasting's Hardback Cafe, sat on thier couch with some cocoa and watched the snow fall outside the big front windows.

Here some photos of us with our after parade glow.

Ahh! That blissful Christmas-y feeling!