unschooling

a whole bunch of Halloween fun

We spent most of our day with other unschoolers at a Halloween Carnival at the park! There were lunch and treats, crafts and games, running and exploring, costumes and friend making. It was lovely!

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Our cookies were a hit and the kids made lantern jars and decorated masks. They raked leaves and played in the trees and by the stream. Lilah hula hooped and I painted her whiskers and nose and Gavin helped a bunch of younger kids try to get a ball down from a tree with a giant branch. For me, it’s the moments where kids of all ages come together in some spontaneous purpose or play that really make my heart full at our gatherings. There’s just something so special about it!

Gavin hit it off with several other kids around his own age and that was huge for him and for me as he’s been struggling with getting through that first barrier of introductions moving into play and fun. I think he’s at a hard age to make new friends. Anyway, he made several today and I’m so excited for him! I think he’ll feel so much better about going to events if he’s friends with more of the kids in the group already!

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On Halloween we went over to my parents’ house where we carved jack-o-lanterns.

Then we dressed up and went out trick or treating around their neighborhood, ending at their house! After that the kids picked out a few pieces of candy to eat and picked out all their milk chocolate for Grandma and we headed home. The Great Pumpkin came and took their leftover candy and left Gavin a Minecraft toy and Lilah a pony toy.

This year, Gavin dressed up as a ranger from the beloved series Ranger’s Apprentice by John Flanagan and Lilah dressed up as a cat. Chris and I dressed up as Vikings.

While we were out trick or treating we came to a house where there was a still figure sitting on the porch who began to move and make spooky noises as we approached. This kids stopped immediately. We told them that it was okay if they wanted to go up and trick or treat. They said they didn’t want to; they were scared. So we walked to the next house. After that Chris and I were talking about how great it is that they don’t feel obligated to do things they are scared of and feel fine saying so. I mean, I do want them to be able and willing to do scary things if they want to or need to, but otherwise, it’s good to recognize that something is uncomfortable and feel okay saying that and stopping whatever it is. Seems like an appropriate thing to talk about around Halloween.

unschooling

a few October days

We enjoyed an Autumn Celebration with our local unschoolers group.

We raked leaves and did a scavenger hunt and made mobiles and played with salt dough and punched out leaf confetti and made magnets and climbed trees and rolled down the hill.

I made a leaf necklace while Gavin watched.

We played with friends at our house.

Gavin began plans for and making of a book. It’s an adventure story. I hope I will get to see more!

We roasted and pureed a pumpkin from our garden and a banana squash that was gifted to us.

The kids played war with Hello Kitty cards.

There was lots of Lego building and storytelling and kitten caring and cuddling.

We visited the museum and gardens for some active fun. The kids picked up a map and navigated to the parts of the garden they wanted to visit.

On our way to and from home we’ve been listening to Mossflower by Brian Jacques, much requested by the kids as another in the Redwall stories after finishing Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor.

unschooling

birthdays and books and betweens

We had a birthday party for a 10!! year old boy with a favorite beautiful animated film with lots of fascinating mythology in it: Song of the Sea by Tomm Moore, a cooperative game of Castle Panic, showing off and making use of the several candy dispensing, coin collecting machines the kids made with Legos beforehand, chocolate avocado cupcakes with chocolate ganache and marzipan leaves, birds and flowers on top. Ten years is a long beautifully vast time, and I am hungry for every day I get to spend with my amazing children.

Lilah finished her reading journal (filling out the writing portion) and we went to Barnes and Noble to collect her free book. She chose Princess In Black by Shannon Hale and Dean Hale which turns out to be a charming story about how people have more than one dimension and identity. I love that the perfect pink princess turns into a black wearing, monster defeating leader in secret. I hope it’s not always a secret that getting dirty, wearing black and fighting monsters is awesome. Several weeks on, she’s read the book at least four times. I think we’ll see when the next one comes out!

Lilah has been pretending to be Bartholomew Cubbins (from The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins by Dr. Suess) by collecting hats and then pretending to pull them off in amazement that another has appeared on her head. So much fun!

There was a hike up to Willow Lake where we found a tunnel in the willows. There was a stinging nettle plant and the kids were talking about how you can harvest it to make soup or tea and have requested we try. When we got home they assembled a stinging nettle collection kit, with bags and gloves. Sometime soon we’ll head somewhere with a healthy nettle population. They are learning to identify many wildflowers, trees and plants which is fun for me since it’s been an interest of mine for a long time too.

We started listening to Redwall by Brian Jacques and that’s been entertaining for the kids so far. There are so many stories about warriors or rangers or heros of any kind in fighting roles and the kids have been doing a lot of exploring that idea through role play and pretending.

We took our skates over to the park for some round and round the round-a-bout and then for some trying out the hills with skates both on and off feet.

We met other unschoolers at the park for a not back to school picnic. It was fun but hot and we got tired out after a few hours. There was a parachute to play with!

Our state legislature had a special session lately and they voted to move the state prison so we watched a video of the discussion in the legislature. The kids listened for a bit and then wandered off while I listened to the entire discussion. Later on the kids asked questions about the prison and some other points in the discussion.

We took a family hike up to Cecret Lake. It’s beautiful up in the mountains and there are salamanders there which are so fun to watch but too difficult to get pictures of.

The kids have begun playing Minecraft, a computer game in which you explore a world and collect and mine and build and transform. They love playing it together and seem very excited about trying new things in their worlds every day.

Once in a while I get a chance to do something like take dramatic and metaphorical photos, which I love. Here’s one I took of my reflection with a sunset behind me in an abandoned museum. I could make up twenty stories about what it says and they could all be true. That’s what I love best about visual art. It can have multiple meanings, even at the same time and they can all be equally important or not. There is room for interpretation, feelings, questions, things that words cannot say or do say with no room for more. I liked sharing the photo and why I like it with the kids. I hope they will learn that words are not perfect, though we pretend they are.

We went for a family walk up City Creek Canyon to mark the first day of the school year. Lilah would be in 2nd grade and Gavin in 5th, if we bothered with those labels, which we don’t. We spotted some milkweed and asked the kids what they knew about it. Gavin remembered that butterflies like those plants. I explained that Monarch butterflies need those plants to live and then we discovered some Monarch caterpillars happily munching and traipsing around in a patch of milkweed right by the trail. They are beautiful caterpillars!

This is our “official back to school picture” taken on our walk:

I posted it on Facebook, saying “We’re kicking off another year of learning anywhere and everywhere.” I felt like sharing and celebrating the choices we’ve made but I didn’t want to do it in a way that might make our schooling friends feel hurt so I decided to leave school out of it altogether and just talk about learning and enjoying, which is what it’s all about anyway. I wish sometimes that the moniker for what we do wasn’t “unschooling”. It is reactionary and has negative implications about other people’s choices. A better description of what I see us doing would be lifelong learning or life learning, but to connect with others and the overarching philosophy, the term unschooling is the most widely recognized label. Whatever the labeling situation may be, I love our adventures and we are amazed at how much both kids are learning and the kinds of learning they are doing. They are healthier physically and emotionally as well as coming into their own pursuits more. When I am asked how it’s going, which is often, the answer is, we love it! It’s been good.

unschooling

Here to There

“From there to here, from here to there, funny things are everywhere.” -Dr. Suess

We’ve been here and there, near and far lately, with trips to Dinosaur National Monument, trips to the park around the corner, lost of museum play, a birthday and another trip to the beach in California coming right up.

Gavin finished his summer reading challenge and picked out a book. He was very pleased. Lilah’s read three times the number of books, at least, but is still working on writing down ten.

We camped near Dinosaur National Monument at Steinaker reservoir with friends and

Gavin started his very own fire

we roasted marshmallows over Gavin’s fire

we swam in the lake

walked right up to amazing petroglyphs

we started boondoggle keychains

the kids prepared kebabs for dinner

there were dinosaur bones up close at the quarry and

both kids earned their Dinosaur Monument junior ranger badges after learning about dinosaurs and then swearing in with a park ranger.

I’ve been working on a long overdue project at home: a big mandala on our wall. I painted a background for it, a large blue circle with drips underneath, 4 or 5 years ago but never got around to working on the mandala. It’s been more fun with kids help anyway! (They would have been too young to help much at all when I made the background.) It’s still not finished but here’s some of the progress. I drew it by hand and then painted it with help here and there from the kids. It feels so good to be doing it finally and I’m really enjoying the process and the progress!

Lilah painted another on her own.

We did some more geocaching with friends and found three caches in about an hour.

It was really exciting, the mapping, the hunting, the eventual victorious finding and the recording of our names in the cache log.

There were games, like Mine Shift.

Computer coding games for kids have been popular at our house lately. Chris has been looking into more options for them to keep exploring. This one involves code writing to make designs which they print out and admire.

Lemon cucumbers and cherry tomatoes are ripe in the garden.

From there to here, from here to there, beautiful learning is everywhere.

unschooling

Moose Cabin

We had the opportunity to spend a few days in the mountains at the cabin of my parents’ friends. (Thank you, Mama & Daddy!) It was pure loveliness!

There were games of all kinds.

We played inside

and we played outside.

The kids spent hours! on the swing outside.

We saw a family of moose on our hike up to Dog Lake, ambling down as we were ambling up.

It was wonderful to be in the cooler air, to hear the birds and squirrels, to be more conscious of nature, to slow down for a bit.

unschooling

summery week

We went up to play at Red Butte Garden.

After really enjoying some picture books we checked out of the library with a raven character who says, “Nevermore”, I read Edgar Allan Poe’s poem The Raven to the kids. Here’s the first stanza with the raven quoted:

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient Raven wandering from the Nightly shore—
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

They enjoyed it, though I’m sure there was a lot of they didn’t grasp. I don’t worry about that very much as long as I think (or find out) that they can enjoy things on some level, if there is vocabulary or concepts too advanced for them, all the better to be exposed now. I’m sure they can catch things I can’t because my brain is too busy with the fancy vocabulary and tricky abstract concepts. It was fun for them to know that the character in the picture books came from that poem.

Gavin and I played Ticket To Ride and he won, after deciding to change strategies toward the end of the game. He even built the longest route!

We baked double chocolate muffins.

Lilah painted over her glue resist design. And added salt.

They read Fox In Sox together.

Lilah worked on walking backward on the beam (among many other things) at her gymnastics class.

At the park, they climbed trees. This is happening all the time recently and it’s new. I’m not sure why they never had much interest before but they sure do now and I’m so glad.

We tried out our new sun umbrella (necessary for all those summer play times at parks with no shade) and the kids staked it down.

The kids vacuumed the car.

We visited a recycling center and took a tour and brought some recycling items with us. I learned a lot about how hard it is for many things to be recycled. The take away was compost, don’t use plastic bags, and don’t use styrofoam. We’re already fairly aware of materials we use and trying to use less and recycle/re-use more but we can improve here and there.

We went geocaching, with friends this time and had fun but didn’t find the cache. We thought we found it once and were very excited but it wasn’t the cache.

I’m going to have to go back myself and look again if the kids don’t want to. Maybe I will scout out some caches ahead of time to bring the kids and our friends to so we have better luck, at least until we know what we’re doing more. A GPS unit other than my phone might help too.

A friend came over and they made up stories with lego characters and made designs with pop beads.

We took a weekend trip to Bear Lake.

Chris and the kids haven’t been before and it’s been years since I was there. It was beautiful and fun, though the water was pretty cold beyond the sand bar it was very warm on the shallow sand bar protected side. There were lots of tiny snail shells and clam shells, pelicans and killdeer, other waterbirds I couldn’t name.

Maybe we’ll make another trip there later in the season. As Chris said, it’s not nearly as satisfying as the ocean, but it’s pretty enjoyable anyway. We talked a lot about how lakes and oceans are different, especially tides and waves and animals, because the kids were really fascinated on the way there trying to picture Bear Lake when they have most beach experience in California.

We have a trip to the ocean planned later in the year though. I can’t stand the idea of not visiting the ocean at least once and the kids apparently feel the same as they’ve already begun asking over and over to go.

unschooling

gardening and other physical explorations

The three of us went to the garden store and picked out vegetables for our garden and some pansies for our porch. Gavin chose some red and orange pansies and Lilah chose some dusky purple.

We finished reading Little House on the Prairie. We don’t have a copy of Farmer Boy (next in the series) at the moment so we started Hello, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty McDonald in the mean time.

Lilah went to gymnastics class where they are preparing for their meet.

We planted the pansies in little pots to brighten our porch and a geranium inside by the window.

We visited the Leonardo again.

Our Harry Potter listening in the car came to a finish as we just listened to the end of the last book so I’m looking for some new series I think the kids would enjoy hearing in the car.

Gavin began his spring outdoor soccer, practicing with his team. Lilah and I watched, did cartwheels and practiced her gymnastics routines and played with our own soccer ball.

Gavin came across a recipe for soft pretzels and asked if we could make them together. He read down the recipe to make sure we had everything we needed and decided with my help, that we did.

We weeded the garden, dug out tree roots and planted the strawberries that Lilah insisted we grow this year, and plant first. She was disappointed that we only had a few plants so I shared that trying something new in the garden is always an experiment.

They found worms and trash and roots and lots and lots of weeds. Gavin dug and dug and dug with the new kid sized shovel we got.

Lilah asked me why I was rubbing the roots of the strawberries so I explained that the roots need to expand into their new home and if they are a little more flexible, it helps.

We mixed up the pretzel dough and kneaded and rolled snakes and shaped pretzels. Then they played with Hero Factory characters until the dough was ready to go.

We slipped the pretzels into the bath, hoping they wouldn’t fall apart, like happened in our last attempt. They actually held up pretty well. I think the difference was popping them in the freezer right before boiling.

After a “tea time” with pretzels and green tea we headed off to the roller skating rink.

The kids practiced their tricks, I practiced my decidedly less exciting ones. Lilah was skating and noticed a girl about her size with covered head and long clothes (very colorfully styled hijab)and stared, then smiled. The girl had her roller skates untied and was falling. So Lilah stopped and tied her skates for her. I was very proud and happy to see her in that small moment of connection. She told me later that she’d expected the girl spoke another language but was surprised when she spoke English and so we talked about how there are lots of people here who are not exactly like us but still speak English (and have a lot more in common too.) (Photo is very fuzzy because of bad lighting and pictures while moving.)

Off to the park we went when we got home to practice Lilah’s floor routine and for a few kicks of the soccer ball before dinner. I read a chapter of Hello, Mrs. Piggle Wiggle by Betty McDonald to them while they finished up dinner, then a chapter of The Ranger’s Apprentice series in the bedroom before cuddles and songs and dreams.

unschooling

Home again

We reconnected with our life at home today.

Zombie Dice.

Escape!

Music videos and singing along.

Fantasy soccer team adjustments.

Legos.

Computer games.

Returning library books after choosing some to renew.

A trip to the Leonardo for drawing (cats, of course) and

building using real tools and hardware and

circuit making and

airplane testing and color play.

Gavin reading Japanese fairy tales to Lilah at bedtime.

So good.

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

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.

Yes is a World

Tag Archives: games

a whole bunch of Halloween fun

a few October days

birthdays and books and betweens

Here to There

Moose Cabin

summery week

gardening and other physical explorations

Home again

another full week

Out & about