Category: Thoughts on Life

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Homeschool Musings of Sam Video

I Introduce My Kids to Programming Using Robot Turtles

I introduce my kids to programming using Robot Turtles

Months ago, I backed a KickStarter project called Robot Turtles, a board game designed to teach kids fundamental concepts of programming. I had been thinking about using programming as part of our home school curriculum, and this was a great place to start. We received Robot Turtles just before Christmas, and it was one of the gifts opened during our Airstream Christmas.

At the request of the kids, we pulled out the game and figured out how to play. I recorded one of our games to share.

The game is played with an adult acting as the Turtle Mover and the other players acting as Turtle Masters. Turtle Masters cannot directly move their turtles, and must use the instruction cards to instruct the Turtle Mover as they move pieces on the board game. The game action cards include Right, Left, and Forward, as well as Laser, Bug and the Function Frog. The Function frog teaches code reuse. The Bug is for when they incorrectly instruct their Turtle and want the Turtle Mover to reset their game piece. The game does not include loops or conditionals, but otherwise does a great job teaching the basics to kids.

When I say kids, I mean all of them. Rachel and Andrew play very well, but even little 3 year old Cara understands the concepts and plays well. She is more easily distracted, and frequently directs her turtle  out of the way to ‘laser blast’ an ice wall. Despite her shenanigans, it is very clear that she understands the basic ideas.

Jess took the kids to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas this week, and the kids rocked the ‘program a robot’ exhibit. I didn’t get to see it happen, but Jess was ridiculously excited about how well our kids were able to program the robot to navigate the maze.

Today for #roadschool my kids programmed robots to navigate a maze. #soproud #currentlywandering #astc #Dallas #texas #PerotMuseum

There will be more Robot Turtles (and related teaching tools) in our future.

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Mommy Diaries

I Hope the Sunsets Never Get Old

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“Wow!”

I sit up quickly from my relaxed position on the couch. “What is it? Is everything okay?” I say.

“Check out that sunset!” Sam exclaims from across the table. “Its beautiful!”

I watch in amazement as he snatches up his phone, grabs his shoes and is out the door in 5 seconds flat. He’s gone for a few minutes and then comes breathless back in the door. I can tell he had been running pretty hard.

“Did you get it?” I ask.

“Oh yes,” he says as he shows me the sunset over the lake captured brilliantly with his camera phone. “Oh yes.”

How often do you notice the sunset? Everyday? We have spent lots of our life never seeing the sunset. Living in the Airstream gives us a window in our kitchen that faces West and we can watch as the sky lights up orange, red, yellow and then fades to black.

We have been full-time on the road for nearly 2 months now. 2 months of ever-changing scenery, glorious vistas, and stunning sunsets. I hope they never get old. I hope that we can continue to cherish each day. Each new place, each lake, forest trail, and museum will continue to force us out of the mundane routine. That nothing ever becomes “normal”.

This lifestyle is forcing us to live in the moment, and we love it.

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Mommy Diaries

Why I Am Not a Pinterest Worthy Mom

Why I Am Not a Pinterest Worthy Mom

There are a lot of things I am not.

I’m not super skinny.
I’m not an amazing cook (I’m just decent).
I’m not a world famous photographer (not sure I could even deal with the attention).
I’m not a Pinterest-worthy mom.
And I really do hate glitter.

I struggle with this. In a world where there are amazing mommy bloggers that come up with cute crafts seemingly out of nowhere, take amazingly good photos of them, write a blog post and get a million pins on Pinterest, I feel a little out of place. They have so much ENERGY. How do they do that?

I hate it when my kids mix the Play-Doh colors, or when their water coloring activity ends up as puke brown smears across the paper. I just want to get in there and do it for them! It has to be PERFECT. I get stressed, kind of cranky and mostly just have to leave the room. And then I remind myself that they are just kids. They are little and still learning. Maybe eventually they’ll draw something I can recognize, but right now when my 3 year old looks at me with those shining hopefully eyes and hold up a paper of random circles declaring it to be her “best work” how can I not praise her efforts?

I loved when I posted on Facebook back in December about hating glitter and how it was everywhere in the Airstream after we put our names on our .99 Christmas stockings, and so many of my friends jumped in with “me too!” and “I hate doing crafts with my kids, I get so stressed out!” It made me feel a little bit less alone in this world where everything seems to be measured on the Pinterest Scale.

HOWEVER. I do have my moments. As time passes (and honestly, as my kids get older), there are certain crafts I can do with my kids that DON’T stress me out. Well, at least not to the level that I banish all the paint from the premises. We pulled off some of the crafts over Thanksgiving – and my kids looked absolutely adorable in their Native American headbands and vests. And the other is actually playing with modeling clay. Probably because I actually enjoy it, there’s an instruction manual, and my kids love it when I help them and their animals end up looking exactly like they do in the book.

Maybe there is hope for me yet. Until then, however, we’ll keep the crafts to a minimum and the adventuring to the max.

Thanksgiving Crafts with Kids

 

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Faith Most Popular Posts

Everyone Else in the Campground Probably Thinks We are Really Weird

Everyone Else in the Campground Probably Thinks We are Really Weird

Sometimes I wonder what other people think when they see us. Especially on Sundays. Let’s face it – most people go to a campground on the weekend to get away. A mini vacation is just what some (okay, a lot) of us need after a stressful week. Pull out the camper, pack up the s’mores, buy the firewood and off they go! Everyone else sits around the campfires in the evenings, or plays games by the lantern light on the picnic table. The family next to us tonight is even having an outdoor movie night. Something Christmas-y.

We’re different. Most of the time we’re inside at night (hopefully that will change come summer). We rarely build a fire and roast s’mores because I hate everyone climbing into their sheets smelling like smoke (I just washed those!). We don’t go the campground to get away, because, well, we ARE away.

We are living, and part of that living includes going to 3 hours of church every Sunday. We don’t just believe our faith, we LIVE it. So we go. We shower the kids Saturday night, and Sunday morning (hopefully not TOO early) the girls put on the dresses, the boys don their ties and we drive anywhere from 10 minutes to 45 minutes to the closest LDS meeting house.

One Sunday afternoon in a particularly remote campsite, Sam decided to call his mom to catch up, and since we didn’t get very good cell reception went roaming the campground in his white shirt & tie trying to get a signal. He walked past the couples lounging in shorts and t-shirts outside their campers, past those in swimsuits on their way to the beach, and the families with smaller children out riding their bikes. He didn’t think twice about it until he got back and said to me, “I wonder if everyone else thinks we are really weird?”

Maybe they do, but this is our life. We are going to live it.

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Faith

2014 A Year For New

2014 A Year For NewWe started 2013 not at home, but in Denver, Colorado. A wedding shoot for Jess on the 28th of December turned into a weeklong trip through the snowy mountains of Western Colorado to Denver for the New Year. Jess took pictures, Sam worked remotely, and we explored Denver.

This year we are tucked away in the greater Houston, Texas area. We’ve explored museums, spent time in State Parks, and visited with extended family.

If you had told us a year ago this is where we’d be – living in an Airstream, working remotely, homeschooling – we would’ve laughed and said you were crazy. Now, we can’t imagine our life any other way. 2013 was full of small steps that brought us closer and closer to this moment. Life is that way. Sometimes we don’t see where we are headed until we round the corner and suddenly there’s a breathtaking view across a lake. We imagine 2014 will be much of the same. We have decisions to make: Do we sell the house? Do we keep traveling? Is homeschooling right for our kids? Which clients should Sam work with? Should Jess try and get more photography clients?  With each of those decisions, however, we know that we will guided and blessed by a loving Heavenly Father who knows better than us our path in this life.

So, here’s to a Year for New. New friends, new places to visit, new experiences, and new heartaches and trouble. No matter where 2014 takes us, we know it’ll be great. Happy New Year!