unschooling

Late February

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

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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.

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Train track building.

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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.

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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.)

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

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Roller skating.

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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.

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Working on cards for Grandpa.

 

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unschooling

Monday

Gavin watched Pokemon and played on coolmathgames.com this morning.  When Lilah got up she played a game on cool math games and Gavin helped her.

We went to the library to return some books and find new ones to borrow.  They each picked a few and I picked a few and they sat down to read while I finished.  Then we stopped to pick up a few things at the grocery store before coming home.

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I read some more of Matilda to the kids while Lilah cuddled with me and Gavin built with legos.

Lilah and I played several games of Rat-A-Tat-Cat and she won every time including one time when she managed to get only zeros (the best possible card)!  Gavin read some magazines while she and I played.

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After that Gavin and I played Chess together.

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We worked on a puzzle with barns, carriages and hot air balloons.

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Lilah made a few things out of our tangram blocks.

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Gavin rested (he’s not feeling so great today) while Lilah and I did some Bollywood dancing (dance moves inspired by Bollywood films of India) before dinner was ready.

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unschooling

Wednesday

They played with Legos and story told for hours, inspired by their many varied interests.

Lilah decided to try oatmeal for the first time for breakfast and enjoyed it with almond milk and honey.

We finished the puzzle we’ve been working on.

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Lilah got out her stickers and played with them.

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Gavin worked on a crocodile in flames, titled Sorry Crocodile! made with perler beads.

The kids made quesadillas (with Daiya cheddar as we are vegan) for themselves for lunch and Lilah cut some carrot coins for herself from one of the rainbow carrot bunch, a white one this time.

After lunch they wanted to do more perler bead crafting.  Lilah worked on a heart ornament with color patterns and finished it.  A year ago, it was too frustrating for her to do any kind of pattern in perler beads, with spills and the length of the process so she often gave up so it’s great to see her succeeding with that now.  She was thrilled with the results!  Gavin made an ornament next, with translucent and opaque beads.

We walked over to the park to collect things to try painting and stamping with.  We found pinecones, juniper, some seed balls from the sycamores.  The kids helped me look for some round, smooth rocks for some holiday projects later.  As we walked home, they carried some rocks they’d chosen and they began galloping and clicking their rocks together, pretending they were in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  (In the movie, knights who click the halves of coconuts together imitate the sound of horses hooves as they gallop on foot.)

We got out the paint and paper and began painting.  Lilah painted for a long time and Gavin switched between painting and more perler bead creating.

They admired each others progress and process.  I believe that our unschooling approach is helping all of us be kinder to each other, have more time for each other and generally be happier most of the time.  It’s not that we weren’t striving to be kind before, but there is most time and space for our interests and needs and feelings now, and that leads to being in a better place to appreciate other people and the world.  I am so grateful for kids who encourage each other!

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“Mama, can we watch an episode of Cosmos?”  (Cosmos, a Spacetime Odyssey)  This episode was about the age of the Earth and how it’s been interpreted and determined through history.

We read several chapters of Matilda and then there were cuddles and songs and sleep.

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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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unschooling

Thursday

They began with computer games and pokemon watching.  Then puzzling and a bit of balance play on the balance beam.

There was oatmeal muffin baking.  And talk about rising batter and baking powder and falling as the muffins came out rather flat.  But they tasted delicious anyway!

While Gavin worked more on our latest puzzle, Lilah glued some flowers we pressed from a hike earlier this summer onto card stock to give a friend.

Gavin wrote some thank you letters for friends.  He embellished one with a Spiderman illustration.

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Lilah read several Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems to me.  They are some of our favorites!

There was lunch, more writing and balancing.

We did some silly walking, inspired by Monty Python Ministry of Silly Walks and some more lego play.

Then off to City Creek Canyon to go up to the top for the last time before they close the road for the season.  We went two miles up, to the snow data collection whiz-gigs.  Right near the bottom we spotted a lynx cub a little bigger than our pug heading down toward the creek.  No pictures as I was busy watching and pointing it out to the kids.  I didn’t expect unschooling to pay off like this, but I was very excited! I’ve never seen a wild lynx close.  It looked like a big cuddly cat with a short tail.  Amazing!

 

We saw many kinds of mushrooms that I hope to research later based on pictures we took.  We climbed and tossed rocks in the creek.  We saw a snake, lots of grasshoppers and butterflies.

On the way down, the kids were world-spinning, each choosing a weapon to master and having their own school to master it in, with elaborate backstory.  “I learned to use the sword as a kid from my father.”  “Well, my mother taught me to use a staff.”  Then they were bears, eagles, rhinos and a rhino-corn, evolving into different forms.   They found curved sticks and used them as pretend bows to hunt, “but not really, Mama, because I don’t hurt animals in real life.”

Finally, back home for dinner and evening rituals.

It was good.

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