unschooling

Wednesday

Lilah rediscovered a Winnie the Pooh lamp that I had in my room when I was a kid and was looking at how it’s put together this morning.

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After some lego play and pop bead story telling, the kids and I spent a lot of time playing Ingress.

It’s a brand new game to us, where you walk and capture portals which are located in specific places so you have to move to them in the real world.  We did a mission which was walking along the trail to Ensign Peak.  It was fun and good to be out, even though it was chilly, especially up on the very top of Ensign Peak!

We enjoyed seeing the city from way up high and reading about early settlers in the valley.  Unfortunately you can’t see our house from the top because we’re right below a hill that juts above but we spotted the University and the temple and the Capitol building.

At home, we played Hedbanz, a game where you have to guess what you are without asking “What am I”?  Instead you ask things like, “Am I an animal”?  “What letter do I start with”?  We laughed quite a bit.  The kids got better at their question strategies. Gavin’s first card to figure out was purse and Lilah’s was key.

We read some more of Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George.  Gavin is enjoying that and Lilah is getting bits and pieces here and there.  They are both intrigued by the idea of communicating with animals, as I am.  They have been talking about that idea together more since we’ve been reading this, though they both have always loved animals.

We did some more rhyming with Hickory Dickory Dock.

After we’d spent much of our energy walking around, we watched a documentary called CaveDigger by Jeffrey Karoff about Ra Paulette’s life digging and carving caves solo in New Mexico.

 

It was fascinating, though some of the interpersonal dynamics included weren’t as interesting as the story of how and why he digs.  The website for the film is: http://cavediggerdocumentary.com/index.html.

Later on we adventured up to the Capitol grounds with Dad for a bit more Ingress.

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unschooling

Tuesday

The kids got out the pop beads and made characters out of those.  Then they asked each other, “What could we build them houses with”? They tossed a few ideas around and settled on the K’nex so they got those out and began building and story telling.

Each of them vacuumed a room of the houses.  We have a chore list up that they can choose to help with or not.  Each chore has a value in money and they are in charge of both choosing what to do and keeping track of what they’ve done.  When it comes time to get their pay, they get to add the amounts together and figure out what we owe them.  It’s a great system for us because I don’t feel the need to nag and they feel ownership of their help around the house.

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Lilah and I did some Spanish practicing.

We wrote alternate rhymes to Hickory Dickory Dock and pointed out the rhyme pattern.

The kids adore Ella Fitzgerald.  We have an album called Miss Ella’s Playhouse which is a collection of Ella’s songs for kids that we listen to all the time.  So I asked the kids if they’d like to learn more about the kind of music that Ella sings.  They said yes so I asked Chris for some suggestions.  He’s studied music copiously and it’s one of his favorite subjects to explore.

So, we listened to Miss Ella’s Playhouse.  Then I briefly explained the history of Jazz.  We listened to Scott Joplin’s The Entertainer to get a taste of Ragtime.  Then we listened to Louis Armstrong sing It’s a Wonderful World, Ella and Louis sing Dream a Little Dream of Me, Miles Davis play from his Kind Of Blue album and Thelonious Monk and John Coltrane play Ruby My Dear.  We talked about syncopation, the different parts that voices and instruments take, and how improvisation is a big part of what makes Jazz special.  The kids got out our drum and did a little drumming.  I think we’ll explore more soon!

Gavin built another really nice lego spaceship.  His designs get more and more nuanced.

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Lilah and I drove over to pick up her friend from school and then the three kids played with pop beads and K’nex for the rest of the afternoon.

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unschooling

Monday

The kids set up a lego restaurant with dishes, tables, customers and a menu.

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We watched a crew clean our street and then cover the cracks with tar.  I asked the kids why they thought they cleaned the street first.  Lilah said, “To get rid of the dirt”. Gavin added, “Because it wouldn’t stick with the dirt on it”.  Then we talked about what happens if water from snow gets in cracks in the road and then freezes (and expands).

We worked on some Makit plate designs for holiday gifts.  They will make plates with the designs the kids draw and color.  The ones from years past are some of our favorite plates to use around here!  Gavin drew an owl with wind, tornado, crown and jewels.  Lilah drew several cats.  They both have a particular interest in those animals right now, which is fun.

Gavin and I solved a sudoku puzzle with his Chocolate Fixx set while Lilah was still working on her drawings.

When she finished we played a game of Magic The Gathering.  It’s a very complicated game and not really something Lilah can grasp fully, or even Gavin for that matter, but they enjoy playing it at the stage they are at now and it has so much to think about: math, strategy, order of phases in your turn, lots of new vocabulary, art on the cards.

Lilah and I drove over to her gymnastics class

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while Gavin stayed home and built a lego spaceship and watched an episode of Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey.

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