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

Del Norte

We visited Grandma and Grandpa who live too far from us, the redwood trees and the beach in California just for a short few days, but wow, was it fun!

We had a few brief but treasured afternoons with Grandma and Grandpa, mostly spent at the beach but with enough time for hugs and catching up.

The kids tried blackberry picking and eating from the wild bushes all along the path down to the beach. They decided they like blackberries freshly plucked and which don’t have any red pips. While looking for berries we saw some small snakes living in the bushes.

We looked in lots of tidepools

and discovered many, many purple and orange and red sea stars, small and big, and one leather star that I couldn’t get a clear picture of because the tide was coming in and making for murky water.

We spotted a sea cucumber,

anemones, giant green and smaller pink and cream kinds, periwinkles and hermit crabs and dungeness crabs,

caves, including one we could go into through one channel and out another,

nudibranchs, animals I’ve only rarely spotted,

lots of iridescent sea weed

some bright orange washed up sponges that were so bright and so rubbery looking I thought they were washed up balloons at first

shells of various kinds

pink and orange sea lichen or algal crusts, not sure which, but I used to think of it as tidepool wallpaper

mussels and barnacles, in the thousands.

We played in the water and on the rocks and read signs about the area.

We climbed on redwood stumps in our campground and spotted a few banana slugs and many jays. Lilah even collected some jay feathers.

On the sandy beach down the road we found hundreds of sand dollars, big and little, bleached and still covered in mauve fur. Here are a few of the most intact sand dollars we found.

The kids spent hours pushing and throwing sticks and logs into the wavelets and watching them come back, running back and forth in the ocean’s edge.

At the campsite, Lilah and Gavin arranged firewood and kindling and Lilah lit the fire, as she had been very anxious to be part of that since Gavin had done the same on his own at scouts just a week or so back. She was successful and we had some s’mores before heading to our tent.

When we pried ourselves away from the beach and drove the hundreds of miles home, our cats and bird and dog were waiting. Lilah made a welcome home card for the dog and put it on his carrier.

Much of the way there and back we listened to Douglas Adams on audiobook, reading his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. He’s particularly good at voicing Zaphod Beeblebrox, who particularly amuses me.

Much to his annoyance, a thought popped into his mind. It was very clear and very distinct, and he had now come to recognize these thoughts for what they were. His instinct was to resist them.

– Z. B. by Douglas Adams

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

hot days

Recently we have been enjoying

kaleidoscope play with patterns and mirrors

reading and reading and reading some more

a mining party where we searched for and cracked open geodes, panned for gold and identified gems in a raw state

playing at the museum

puppeteering and castle building at another museum

tree climbing

earthquake testing on different structures

fireworks watching and cuddling with Grandpa

exploring up Storm Mountain with Daddy on a Sunday, trying rock stacking after watching a video of a man nicknamed Gravity Glue who makes huge and amazing rock stacks in Colorado rivers.

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

locations & destinations

We went geocaching for the first time!

It was a learning process, and a fun one. We downloaded an app on my phone that allowed us to look for caches nearby and then we headed up to the Capital grounds where we used the compass and map on my phone to move toward the cache until we were in the area. Then we had to use our eyes to find its hiding spot. We found two caches and tried but didn’t find a third. I think I need to do more research before heading out and we need to choose carefully. We’re hoping to do this with another family over the summer.

We played on the playground with friends before heading back here for more play, goodbyes and then soccer for Gavin and Broken Age playing for Lilah.

Broken Age is an amazing narrative computer game where you solve puzzles of various kinds and difficulties. Gavin has been playing it with his dad when Lilah does gymnastics and recently Lilah requested to play too so we’ve started another game, she and I.

Gavin had soccer games and practice.

They played Small World.

We visited the Wild West playground which is a really fun set up with local places of significance represented in a unique playground. When they got hot and tired we had a picnic lunch in the shade and I read a few pages of Castle in the Air before they ran off to play some more.

We happened upon an article about the old Wasatch Warm Springs Bath House history, which is now abandoned and in our local park so we read about it and looked at some old photos.

The kids built various things out of K’Nex. It’s fun to watch the complexity of their creations grow along with their building and planning skills.

We spread mulch over our vegetable garden. We need a bit more but it’s a good start. We haven’t tried mulch before this so it will be interesting to see how it does. I think I spotted a pumpkin sprout and possibly a dumpling squash as well this morning. Lilah was thrilled that there was a pink strawberry on one of the plants. Today it was ripe enough to pick and eat! It’s such fun to watch the changes and help nurture the plants along and then enjoy the harvesting and feasting.

We puzzled.

We read more of Castle in the Air. It’s a delight.

We met with other unschoolers at a new to us park in Ogden called Ogden High Adventure park. It was full of ropes play, spinning things and other challenging equipment, plus there’s a river flowing right behind it. What a fun park! I’m going to play more on it next time too!

Lilah counted up the money she’s earned (with my help) from doing chores and then when we went to Target, she bought herself a Lego Hero Factory set.

We visited the aquarium. It had been quite a while so that was fun. Gavin particularly likes the river otters and Lilah enjoyed seeing the caiman alligators. I always like the cuttlefish and octopus especially. The penguins were all nesting and we watched them carefully picking up small stones and carrying them to their nests and arranging them while their partners lay on the top of the rock nests.

We met up in the canyon with other unschoolers for “Forest School”, which was a bunch of families meeting in a forest meadow and exploring and we scouted a creek and found bones and climbed rocks and hauled a rusty car hood over to make a bridge.

And in between all of this, reading and story making and researching and experimenting and hula hooping and painting and giggling and cuddling and cleaning and negotiating. It’s been good.

unschooling

planting & growing

This week, we planted pumpkins, butternut squash and rainbow swiss chard seeds in the garden and admired our rapidly sprouting carrots and less rapidly sprouting but still growing quite nicely kale.

We met up with the local unschoolers again, played hard, and afterward decided to invest in foam swords so we don’t constantly need to borrow them, since they are an essential play item when groups of boys of all ages get together and play outdoors. Chris and I have been having long conversations about how we deal with toy weapons and weapon play in our household and I think our approach is shifting. I’ll write more on that soon.

On a Memorial Day adventure with dad the kids noticed some horsetail by the stream, recognizing it from Lilah’s Wildcraft game and told us about its healing properties. (It’s good for headaches, low energy, etc.)

We went to the Museum of Natural Curiosity where the kids favorites were the bank where there is play money, a teller window complete with vacuum shoot and a back alley where robbers are constantly in action, and the outside play area where they love the cave and spend long periods howling like animals inside the caverns.

We hiked up by Jeremy Ranch, saw wildflowers, deer tracks and droppings, lots of mushrooms and then got rained on and hailed on and headed back down quickly, though not quickly enough to avoid a thorough soaking.

We swam again, working on going underwater, swimming strokes and kicking and propelling ourselves through the water. Lilah discovered she could somersault in the water and was quite pleased.

All four of us went up to Silver Lake and enjoyed walking on the boardwalk, climbing rocks, spotting a beaver? muskrat? otter?, watching ducks and squirrels and butterflies and maneuvering through areas with snow and areas with spring run-off streams rearranging the landscape. We spotted a dark colored butterfly with yellow edges on its wings and Gavin wanted to know what kind it was so we looked it up at home and decided it was probably a mourning cloak butterfly.

On all of our drives lately we’ve been listening to the first book in the Brotherband Chronicles: The Outcasts, by John Flanagan.

In between there was lots of building, imagining, reading. Bedtime and othertime requested stories lately are The Ranger’s Apprentice series (also by John Flanagan) and Castle in the Air by Dianna Wynne Jones. I think Castle in the Air may be one of the first stories the kids have encountered with a genie (and a magic carpet) in it, and they are enthralled.

unschooling

Several weeks in May

Gavin has been watching/listening to the google doodles lately. Today he informed me that today’s “google thing” was about “how girls are as good and the same as boys”. Thanks, Google!

They rode and walked to the park with my sister for some cops and robbers games.

We had a friend over and played with Legos and marble runs and cars.

Lilah made a beaded necklace to give a friend.

Gavin wants to write a book about Castle In the Sky so he was practicing the lettering from the front cover this afternoon.

Lilah has been picking bouquets from the yard to enjoy inside.

We spent the day in a city an hour or so away, buying a new to us car. The kids and I spent most of the day at various parks.

We watched a favorite film, Ponyo, again.

We had a conversation inspired by a coupon saying “Save 20%” so we talked about what that means, how much 20% of $100 and $10 is and if it’s a small or large amount and if it’s worth doing. The kids decided it is worth using. Since it’s for the bookstore, I agree!

We visited the aviary and saw the sandhills cranes with an egg! We got friendly with a parakeet and ran and explored and reveled.

We went swimming. The kids have been asking about going to a waterpark and we’ve told them that we’d love to, as soon as they can swim. So, they’ve been asking and asking to go the pool and work on learning to swim. In some ways, this is their first Big Unschooling learning goal. So, we went and I found some simple games to develop the skills needed in swimming and we worked on those for a half hour or so and then they went down the slide and played. But, they both made some nice progress and I think if we keep it up they’ll happily be swimming soon, without me scaring them or forcing things along. Woohoo!

We went to the library again, this time to try to find a specific book Gavin has his heart set on reading: Galaxy’s Most Wanted by Jon Kloepfter. After a computer search we found it yesterday and he’s now finished with all 208 pages (the next afternoon). Lesson for me here is: let the kids choose their own books when possible. Wow!

Gavin asked us who the main character in Mrs Piggle Wiggle’s Farm is. What a great question! I am so impressed by his interest and the fact that he shows a lot of nuanced understanding, asking this because the book has a different main character in each chapter, so it’s really different than most literary situations. So, we got to talk about how usually the way you can recognize the main character(s) for sure is by the changes they undergo, as a character.

A week after we went swimming the first time, we went again. We did more of the same little games to work on swimming skills and both kids absolutely amazed me! Lilah is just about able to swim all on her own and Gavin is nearly there and determined to work at it. He’s able to float now, which means totally relaxing in the water and trusting his body and Lilah is willing to put her whole head under the water to propel herself, over and over and comes up with a huge grin on her face. I told them both they looked like dolphins and they were so, so proud of their progress. Woohoo!

Gavin’s been doing soccer games and practice three times a week and has been working hard on his defensive skills.

Lilah’s continuing gymnastics once a week and is getting better at hand stands, cartwheels and is beginning to work on round offs. She’s gained a lot of strength in the past few weeks and is more and more able to pull the moves off.

More and more the kids are telling me what they are interested in doing with their time, like Gavin told me he wants to do more science experiments and Lilah has been asking for time to draw (cats mostly) and color (mandalas mostly). I’m excited about these developments, as my own reflections on learning are that it’s most beneficial when it’s something chosen and pursued by the learner (with help and encouragement often, of course).

Every day we are working on how to make decisions about our time together without conflicts, and how to deal with conflicts when they come up. It’s a work in progress.

unschooling

Up to the mountains

I’m still working on another post about the last several weeks, but here’s a story about today. After some card games (war and speed) and some Playmobil play and some puzzling this morning, we headed up to Storm Mountain for a hike. It’s been awhile, partly because we’ve been busy with soccer and gymnastics and partly because it’s been raining almost every day lately.

The kids were getting into arguments before we left but as is almost always the case, once outside there was no conflict. They love going on hikes where there are a) rocks to climb and b) water to play in, so Storm Mountain is always enjoyed even though the short hike up to the stream is steep. We saw flowers and new growth on trees and shrubs. We saw birds who frequent the stream. The kids tried drawing with rocks on other rocks and enjoyed the different colors and textures they could make. Lilah found bunches of what she called ladybugs but were different varieties of red beetles some with dozens of spots, some with none.

We spotted a snake by the stream and many striped spiders. I was thrilled to watch Lilah excitedly discovering and interacting with ladybugs, roly poly bugs and was even moving closer to see a spider. When she was three she got stung by an insect and was terrified of anything that wasn’t a butterfly for years. She calmed down about it after that but was still wary, even last summer. Today, she was friendly with those beetles.

They were discussing what kinds of trees were on the path (they remembered maple and pine but not scrub oak) and I gave them a refresher on what stinging nettle looks like because there’s a bunch of it up there. We found itty bitty male pine cones that had fallen and we admired new patterns in the trail from all the rain lately.

They climbed and drew and dug in the dirt and picked dandelions. I sparked an interest for the kids today in natural art by arranging dandelion tops on a rock crack and later on the kids were excited to try their hand at it.

On the way down the trail, the kids tried to hide and camouflage themselves. Fortunately for me, they were wearing purple and blue so I found them and found them again. Lilah was also showing interest in tracking and leaving signs of what’s ahead or behind, possibly picked up from some books we’ve been reading lately. So, we made a cairn and we put certain rocks this way or that way to show, “I’m going ahead” or “the trail goes left”. It’s so good to get into nature. I love it but it’s so easy to forget or not make time for that. Maybe a scheduled hike day each week is in order.

As an added bonus, we got to listen to Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling on our way up and down in the car. They are hilarious and captivating, O my Best Beloved.

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.

Yes is a World

Tag Archives: reading now

birthdays and books and betweens

Del Norte

Here to There

hot days

summery week

locations & destinations

planting & growing

Several weeks in May

Up to the mountains

gardening and other physical explorations