Tag Archives: snow

unschooling

snow days

We’ve been snowshoeing and cross country skiing, most recently with my sister and Mom!

We’ve been sledding.

We celebrated the New Year with Chris’ parents who came all the way out to see us!

We’ve gotten back into the ninja class and our nature classes. Here we have Gavin doing the spider jump/climb, Gavin running up the curved wall, Gavin swinging on the giant wheel, then Lilah swinging from the smaller wheels, Lilah doing the spider jump/climb up to the bar at the top, Lilah hanging upside down.

It’s been snowy and cold out but still beautiful. I have been enjoying getting out, even though it’s hard to get motivated to get out the door unless we’ve made plans. So we’ve made lots of plans to get out!

We’ve been tracking animals by looking at prints in the snow. Here are tracks from a rabbit, tunnels from a vole, another vole track that looks like it just leaped into the snow and made a print of itself before tunneling away, a deer print and a squirrel print.

 

We’ve been reading The Complete Farside and the Wings of Fire books.

We’ve been looking at the golden ratio in nature and drawing it with our compasses.

Gavin’s been working on setting up a raspberry pi with camera on his 3D printer so he can watch and adjust it remotely.

Lilah’s been drawing a portrait of her new Dungeons and Dragons character, a deer ranger character.

I’ve been dreaming of sunshine and warmth but enjoying the sparkling snow and the quiet of winter.

 

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unschooling

snow!

We are enjoying the first few snowfalls of the season.

Here is the very neat advent calendar that Gavin and Chris built:

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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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