unschooling

another full week

We visited the Treehouse Museum. There was flag designing, castle play, illuminated manuscript making, a sword in the stone, and much more.

We went to the library, enjoyed reading in their inviting kids lounges and brought an armload of books home, most of which were read that very day!

We found a new playground and tried it out thoroughly.

Lilah and I baked Toffee Cinnamon Bars and then we watched Song of the Sea, a new favorite movie.

They’ve played My Little Pony Life, Puerto Rico, Magic the Gathering, Carcassonne, and Candy Land together in the mornings.

We got out some instruments and played music. Lilah made a rug on a square loom with stretchy loops for her dollhouse.

Lilah and I practiced for her upcoming gymnastics meet. She’s working on her beam routine at the moment.

Gavin and I biked to a playground while Lilah and Chris walked. Gavin’s really enjoying biking and Lilah’s so close to being able to go on her own but it hurts so much to run in the crouch that it takes to support her that I haven’t gotten around to doing it with her recently. I think that might be my least favorite part of parenting; running in a crouch while holding a bike with a nervous kid on it. Incredible pain. Still very much worth it though.

We took a very short walk up on Bonneville Shoreline Trail to play Ingress, stopped at a playground on the way there and then picked up a friend afterward and came home to play elaborate storylines filled with queens, invisibility cloaks, potions and special royal bathrooms.

We did some cooking and talked about how to add fractions like 3/4 and 1/8. We drew pictures to figure it out on the whiteboard.

They did some building with Gavin’s physics set.

Chris and the kids went to Spiral Scouts and tried playing different instruments. Gavin’s favorite was the ukelele and Lilah’s was the didgeridoo.

There was roller skating down the hall, crashing (kids were fortunately not hurt enough to stop skating back and forth) and sometime soon we’ll get to work together to patch up a small hole in the wall. There’s a lengthly list of home repairs and maintenance that needs doing… at some point soon I should knock a few things off with the kids help.

We finished Little House in the Big Woods and immediately began Little House on the Prairie. They are very much enjoying those stories.

We took a trip up the canyon and visited Hidden Falls.

Here they are looking at the waterfall.

The kids loved it and afterward when I asked them if they wanted to climb further and find the top of the fall they said yes so we hiked up further and discovered the stream and the pines and the top of the fall.

It had snowed and so the kids ate quite a bit of “fresh snow” on the way. We saw squirrels and old dead trees tattooed underneath the bark with squiggly lines from beetles and butterflies, orange, white, yellow.

On the logs, the kids noticed there were different sized squiggles and wondered if they start small and grow or if they were different beetles. We talked about climbing safely in steep places and how to cross streams on log bridges. It was beautiful! On the way down we spotted a “cave” made by a huge boulder perching on top of several other boulders and decided to check that out.

Here’s the view from inside.

They each wrote a letter to Grandma & Grandpa. It was stressful for Gavin but the results were good. His handwriting and spelling are both much improved but how he feels about writing hasn’t changed.

And, after much asking and wishing for weeks, we made it to the skating rink. When we arrived they had a mist over the rink and were flashing strobe lights with the main lights off which made Lilah a bit nervous. But she ended up enjoying it and then they turned the lights back on and the music back down and we had a wonderful time. They can do tricks like turning around that I can’t now. Here they are dancing and doing tricks in the center of the rink.

unschooling

A quiet day

We played some Magic the Gathering.

They played a game of Pandemic, stopping mid-way and combining characters’ abilities and making it their own.

I looked up some directions and they came over and played with Google Earth, looking at different neighborhoods and navigating.

We did another MadLib together. They are beginning to remember the meanings of adjectives, nouns, etc. and we are having a lot of fun doing them.

We read some more of Little House in the Big Woods.

They played with their Harry Potter Lego game.

I went for a bike ride and they watched an episode of Cosmos.

We read and looked at some information about the Friendly Floatees, a shipment of rubber ducks who went overboard and have been studied to find out more about ocean currents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Floatees

unschooling

Out & about

Up to Red Butte Garden.

Lilah took along a pen and notepad and drew some observations and fascinations.

Exploring. Enjoying.

Off to Kingsbury Hall to take in American Tall Tales by the youth theatre group. It was a fun performance and we sat on the second level for the first time, which the kids were excited about. My favorite part was that they included part of Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind Crockett, a tall tale we’ve read many times in Steven Kellogg’s book, where a little girl is more powerful than all her brothers and sets off to find challenges in the wild.

A haircut for Gavin. “When it’s long it bothers me during soccer.”

Over to the Leonardo museum with friends, playing with electricity, motion, giant blocks, goo, and a green screen.

Biking to the park.

We pulled out our pvc pipes that we used once upon a time to build a Magic Treehouse fort for Gavin’s birthday party years ago. They’ve been asking about fort building and this was perfect for some building fun.

Enjoying a fort.

Visiting the cat sculpture park.

On a hike we’ve never tried before.

Enjoying each other.

To the botanical center.

Magic playing.

Digging rows and planting carrots. Finding the first roly poly of the year.

Playground with friends.

In between we cuddled and cried and snuggled and built and played Pandemic and practiced gymnastics and finished Island of the Blue Dolphins and began Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder and listened to Harry Potter and picked flowers and played with modeling clay and ate huge sticks of celery like bunnies.

Things are good.

unschooling

spring means kites and the spiral jetty

In between reading The Island Of The Blue Dolphins, building forts, talking about leprechauns, drawing treasure hunts and building with Legos, we got to spend a lovely afternoon flying kites with my parents

and another afternoon exploring the Spiral Jetty out at the Great Salt Lake (a work of art by Robert Smithson that is sometimes submerged, sometimes surround by the lake and sometimes, like now, is completely dry. Lilah, noticing others had left messages and drawings in the sand nearby, added her own message, “Love.”

and the Ghost Pier, close by.

It was warm out there and we saw pelicans, a lizard, and what I think might have been sandhill cranes flying by. It was fun to explore. We also got to listen to Harry Potter aaaall the way there and back again. I think we made it through six or seven chapters!

unschooling

Up Storm Mountain again

We haven’t been on our favorite hike up Storm Mountain since last fall but it’s been so nice that we ventured up today!

We also played with Lego elves sets, started reading Island Of The Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell and Lilah made me feel so special and loved by making me a necklace with pages that read: Mama, I love you to the moon and back, I love you infinity and beyond, etc. Am I lucky or what?

After lunch we headed up the canyon. It took us an hour or so more than it could have to leave the house so I was feeling grumpy by the time we left but when we got up there and breathed in the piney air and felt the sun on our skin I felt great. The kids were very excited to get to the stream where they love to climb, but it’s a steep path up.

We made it with a few short stops and they spent the next quarter of an hour throwing rocks into the water and watching them splash. After that we had a snack on a sunny boulder, discovered a rock that drew colored lines on other rocks, collected sparkly rocks and arranged them on the boulder, we continued up, climbing, splashing, leaping, balancing. We even tried putting some snow balls into the icy stream and watching them float down over waterfalls.

It was so wonderful to be there and watch both kids reveling in the challenges and explorations of the mountains!

unschooling

plural noun: bagels

We played with MadLibs and were all enjoying it very much until Gavin wrote something wrong twice and there wasn’t space left to fit it in and got really upset and decided to take some time on his own. I am happy that he’s beginning to develop strategies to use to deal with situations he’s having difficulty with.

They built with Gavin’s physics set.

They built with Magformers.

We played at the park.

Lilah and I did some yoga.

We tried a new kind of flour in gluten free bagels: cassava (which is the same thing as tapioca except it includes the whole root).

Bagels have a lot of steps. When we put them in the simmering water with sugar, they dropped the bottom and then slowly floated up to the surface. Gavin tasted the water, realized it was sweet and asked if it was the same as what we put in the hummingbird feeder. I told him, “Yes, pretty much except that doesn’t have flour from bagels in it.”

The kids each sprinkled their own bagels with poppyseeds, then we put extra cornmeal and poppyseeds on some and left a few plain.

They came out a bit gummier than I’d like, but everyone else was pleased. I’ll try without psyllium husk powder next time. This time I added it in case they started coming apart in the water, like they did in our last bagel making attempt.

We watched Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind together. It’s one of our favorite Hayao Miyazaki animated films. Lilah is very drawn to the main character who works to bring peace, understanding and respect of all living things about.

All four of us walked over the local school playground, kicked the soccer ball around and played on the playground.

The kids and Chris went to scouts and made kites and crowns while I had some time on my own. It was good for everybody.

unschooling

word play & other play

We read some Dr. Seuss books.

Lilah and I shoveled snow. It was very exciting since it’s been months since we needed to.

She requested that I make Energy Bites for a snack – a cookie dough like snack made with coconut, peanut butter, flax seed meal, oats, a bit of honey and chocolate chips, so I mixed a few up.

We had a friend over. They dressed up fancy and built with Legos and had a fashion show and jumped on the bean bag.

Gavin organized his squishy body parts organs.

At the park we found a large tumbleweed and explored that for a bit. It has prickly parts but is fun to roll.

Lilah hula hooped with two hoops.

We talked about genes after I made a joke about how Lilah has red hair since I only ate carrots when I was pregnant with her and then Gavin asked, “But really, why does Lilah have red hair?”

The kids talked about things they are proud of themselves for: kindness, smartness, playfulness.

Gavin and I played Roads, Rivers and Rails.

We enjoyed our sprouting cucumbers. No Thai Basil or Blue Kale visible yet.

We ventured out to the Jordan river parkway, saw some ducks, a submerged shopping cart and visited two playgrounds. There was quite a bit of soccer ball passing and kicking along the way too.

We finished The Wizard Of Oz and read The Sneetches and Other Stories. Our current favorite is the story of the pale green pants with nobody inside ’em. Lilah has just latched onto my ongoing joke about nobody so she was particularly enjoying it.

me: Who’s in the bathroom?

L: Nobody.

me: Nobody’s in the bathroom?

L: Yeah.

me: What’s Nobody doing in the bathroom?

L: No. NOBODY’S in the bathroom.

me: I know, but what’re they doing in there?

L: There is not anybody in the bathroom!

me: Well, if Anybody’s not in there, where is Anybody?

L: There is NO person in the bathroom!

me: Well, you just said Nobody’s in there.

We worked on the bird puzzle some more.

We dressed up with friends and danced together.

They played Rivers, Roads & Rails.

I’m slowly learning a few things about our unschooling life and how I fit into it. I’ve learned that all that time I thought I’d just have in the day without needing to drop-off or pick-up isn’t there. If I want/need time to do my own projects I need to schedule it. Otherwise it won’t be there.

I thought of unschooling much like most parents do the summer break every year, as unlimited in time and resources and possibilities. In some ways that’s true, but it doesn’t feel that way in the midst of it. There are still so many ideas and projects that never get finished or in many cases, started. Most importantly, I’ve learned that’s okay. It’s okay to not do it all. To begin and leave it. To say, “Not today.”

We’re getting better at this.

unschooling

Late February

Enjoying the park and the sun. Spinning is such fun.

Harry Potter – listening to the books in the car, making it their own with their legos, trains, etc., watching part of the 6th movie.

Spanish game playing.

Puzzling.

Train track building.

Watching several TedEd videos. Learned about Hatshepsut (a female Egyptian pharoah), simple levers and bats.

Visiting the Museum of Natural Curiosity, exploring the maze, pushing building posts into the ground, spinning.

Dressing up and acting in winter scenes. You can see what they are doing in the room and then how they are projected onto the film clip on the screen. They also spent a lot of time making stop motion animation films with astronauts and octopi. The animation room is a favorite.

More Spanish game playing. Enjoying the quests and practicing numbers from twenties through one hundred, simple conversational phrases.

Admiring the city at night from the sky bridge downtown.

Spiral Scouts, learning songs and playing games.

Rainbow loom creating; trying a new design, getting frustrated, persevering.

Trying out some chinese jump ropes.

Writing a letter. (It was an excruciating proposition, but after empathizing and cuddling, the process and result were alright. I’ll take it.)

Planting seeds inside and making labels. “How do you spell cucumber?”

Roller skating.

Reading Dr. Seuss in an impromptu read-a-thon. (It was snowing huge flakes and I mentioned oobleck. A few minutes later, Lilah had located Bartholomew and the Oobleck. Then Gavin pulled out a few other Dr. Suess books.)

Hula hooping.

Working on cards for Grandpa.

unschooling

tea for three

There was Rat-a-Tat-Cat playing.

We listened to Harry Potter in the car.

We did some more building.

The kids spent some time enacting scenes with Hero Factory characters. “Oh, you defeated the Dark Lord. You’re doing really well!”

There were oatmeal fraction discussions. “If we use 1/4 cup of oats and 2/4 cup of water how much oatmeal do we have?” “What’s another way of saying 2/4? I’ll draw a picture of 2/4 of a circle on the whiteboard.” “One half!”

We used tea pot (our first ever!) for a green tea party. We were all excited to try out our tea pot and the kids enjoyed trying green tea and peppermint tea and talking about all kinds of tea.

There was a game of Monty Python Fluxx. Then we watched Monty Python’s Ministry of Silly Walks sketch.

We visited the Hill Air Force Base museum.

The kids enjoyed looking at the planes but ultimately both decided they didn’t really enjoy the museum. It wasn’t terribly kid friendly. I’m actually quite excited about this as I think it’s a great opportunity to try something new and then decide, oh, that’s not really my favorite.

Now we know. There were a few planes painted with teeth which entertained Lilah and Gavin really enjoyed looking at a huge plane engine which was displayed with the ability to watch the gears turn inside.

Unbeknownst to me, Lilah had brought her stuffed animal with her from the car (where I usually ask that they stay) and we lost it in a network of huge warehouses two separate times. Luckily we found it both times but it was frustrating and both of us need to make sure the animals stay in the car before we head out on an adventure.

The kids helped vacuum the house (it’s on our list of chores they can choose to do and get paid for) by choice. We took the glass over to the recycling center in the park and then collected sticks and bark to build a fairy house as a birthday present for a friend.

The kids each painted a cork as a fairy and then we hot-glued some ribbon as wings on the back.

Then we started building the house, clipping sticks to the right size and hot-gluing those in a log-cabin style for the fairy house, finishing with an open bark door and bark roof and pinecone chimney.

We stopped for a bit to watch as firemen arrived to put out a small fire nearby. We got to see the ladder on the truck in use as well as their long hoses.

Lilah had a friend we haven’t connected with since the spring over. It was so good for them to have time to play! They explored the house, and then got out the marble blocks. It’s always fun for me to see what different combinations of kids gravitate toward.

At the same time Gavin had playtime with his friend,and now pen pal, at their house. He tells me they built a temple with legos, jumped on the trampolines, and ate noodles.

The girls dressed up as villains, made a haunted house, played dead, drew on the whiteboard, made a slide with the bean bag and gymnastics mat. And giggled A LOT.

After both play dates had ended, we finished the roof of the fairy house, cuddled, read The Wizard of Oz and the Ranger’s Apprentice and then bed.

unschooling

an order of coffee

Today there was Wild Kratts (a television show about animals) watching for both kids first thing.

After breakfast they played with their Hero Factory pieces, building characters and then making stories together.

Lilah worked on writing a letter to a friend and coloring a picture for her.

Gavin and I went on a walk and played Ingress. Gavin felt really excited to be out and about, just the two of us. I need to make that happen more frequently.

They had an disagreement over something and Lilah went into the bedroom feeling bad. I followed her in and cuddled with her and then I asked her if she’d like to read to me. She said yes and Gavin wandered in soon so she read a library book, an Elephant and Piggie story, to us.

Lilah and I picked up a friend and they painted and played while Gavin and I had a game of Tokaido.

Then all three played with play dough. Lilah has very much been taking advantage of having easier access to the art supplies already, even just one day after setting it up. Woohoo! They had a restaurant where they took my and Chris’ orders and then made the food and brought it over to us. The coffee was a little purple and a bit solid (wink), but it was lovely.

Before bed I read another chapter of Wizard of Oz (Lilah’s choice) and Chris read another chapter of Sorcerer of the North in the Ranger’s Apprentice series by John Flanagan (Gavin’s choice) to the kids.

Yes is a World

Category Archives: unschooling

another full week

A quiet day

Out & about

spring means kites and the spiral jetty

Up Storm Mountain again

plural noun: bagels

word play & other play

Late February

tea for three

an order of coffee