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.”

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

Biking to the park.

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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.

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Visiting the cat sculpture park.

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On a hike we’ve never tried before.

Enjoying each other.

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To the botanical center.

Magic playing.

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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.

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unschooling

word play & other play

We read some Dr. Seuss books.

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

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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.

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Lilah hula hooped with two hoops.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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They played Rivers, Roads & Rails.

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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.

 

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Uncategorized, unschooling

Monday

Gavin started off with some Chima online while Lilah slept in a bit.

Then they watched They Might Be Giants Here Come the ABCs together.

There was lego play and organizing and other building toys.

We puzzled.

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After eating lunch, I read the last three chapters of Pippi Longstocking to the kids.  Gavin remarked at then end that he does not want to be a pirate when he grows up.  I’m a little concerned.  Wink.

Then it was time to go pick up Lilah’s friend from school.  They played a bit on the playground and then we came home and played school.  We walked to our neighborhood park and played there.  There was tag and swings and toss the stuffed dog while swinging.

We came home and built with magnetic toys and played hide and seek with stuffies.

After we said goodbye to friends, we went out in the garden and picked cherry tomatoes and tomatillos and checked progress of our pumpkins, and fleet of butternut squash.  They are huge plants!  I’d never grown them before and they are taking over our garden plot!

We walked to the local elementary after dinner to play soccer and enjoy the playground before bed.

 

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