I love Wednesdays.
Today began with a few surprises. First, Isaac couldn't find any jeans without any holes in the knees. That's not the surprising part. I just bought him 2 pair just before Christmas and already he's bust through them. He asked me to search while he watched from his warm bed. Sure enough, no intact jeans but ho now, what's this black rectangular thing??...THE iPOD!!!!!!!! We'll not question the reason for it being there.
Yesterday, we were all in quite a fug having played an annoying game of musical beds all through the previous night. I finally fell asleep at 2:00(this happens to me about 12x a year, about every 28 days...) and was in no mood to put up with kids who didn't care to tow the freakin' line the next morning. Of course everyone felt that way and there was a lot of "He's looking at me!" screaming and general shenanigans. After the Math marathon was over Tobin and I worked on a Change.org online petition for his basketball court campaign for Councilor Morelli. He really had started out excited about this authentic writing project back before Christmas but when he began to realize how much PR work it was going to be to get people to sign the thing he began to hate it a little and said so. Then Mom went a little bit batshit and chucked all kinds of pearls of wisdom at his face about following through with things and putting more effort into things instead of scraping by doing the bare minimum etc. I then went to my room to read a bit and relax, away from earshot of the word "Mom." Anneke broke the tension by sitting on the top step outside my room playing a blues-y tune on the harmonica. It was so ridiculous, it was hilarious and I went downstairs to clear the air and have one of our fireside chats by the register. Then we took a much needed outing to PetSmart and watched the staff at Doggy Daycare endlessly throw balls to 10 dogs in a small room and we discussed the importance of getting an education.
Back to this morning's surprises. After choosing the jeans with the smallest holes for Isaac to wear, I went downstairs and checked my email and Facebook. A neighbour posted the news that Councilor Morelli had actually died just this morning. I shared this with Tobin and you should have seen the guilty smile of relief spread across his face. Ward 3 has lost a faithful representative of 22 years and our heart goes out to the family....but Tobin is off the hook for getting 100 people to petition the man to build a basketball court at Gage Park. Mysterious ways, indeed.
This morning was hike day and we walked around Coote's Paradise with 5 other families. Chilly, but great to get outside and spend time with friends. Tobin spotted a new kind of duck in the water and got to add it to his Bird Life List that he decided to begin. A Bufflehead, as far as we could tell. Coolio.
Straight after hiking we arrived at the Perkin's Centre to pack Good Food boxes. Vegetables that are sold at a cheaper price than in the store, by the box so that more people can access fresh, and as much as possible local produce. Anneke really shines at this. I never have to double check her work. She's more on the ball than I am in working efficiently at a task like this.
Off to trade kids now since we switched out pairs of kids for our weekly playdate with the kids' besties. And we'll listen to Jim Weiss narrate Story of the World all the way in the van and learn about those crazy Frankish kids Clovis and Clothilde and what they were up to in the founding of the nation of France. 5 years of listening to this series in the van now and the kids still ask for it.
Wednesday, 15 January 2014
Monday, 13 January 2014
Monday #2
More questions than answers, it seemed today. Everyone was kind of tired and not terribly motivated for most of the day. It didn't help that we slept in quite a bit so by the time we got math, French and piano done (actually just one kid took forever with this) it was getting on toward noon. Tobin spent some time after this writing down 5 questions that he would like to pursue about birdwatching. There was glimmer of passion as he wrote these, he really does love birds, but it's not like he immersed himself in the pursuit of ornithology and completely lost track of time. But that's what the poster children of unschooling do all day, right? They revel in their passions until it gets them their own TED talk or at least an article in Scientific American about the new species they discovered. We've still got until August. I'm sure these things are in store for us too. :)
I perused some blogs about learner-led education this morning to read about what other families do in cases where kids don't seem motivated to lead in any particular direction. Mostly, they just don't freak out about it. We all have times when we feel inspired and times when we just need to chill. I'm not at all feeling panicky. I know the moments of truly memorable learning happen when you least expect them, often when you aren't methodically pursuing them. We've enjoyed lots of these times, which is part of the reason I wanted to take this time to value those opportunities in the first place. The blogs also reminded me that the "meta- lessons" are so much more important than the material learned anyway. Today, for me, this meant trying to take on a role as an encourager of my kids and their characters, not a nagger to guilt them into being brilliantly fruitful every minute, every hour, all day long. Wow kids, you sure are having fun playing ministicks together. That's cool. (Oh wait, now you're all mad. Oh well.)
The other thing that stood out from the blogs is how important it is for Mom to model enjoyable productivity. Just as I read that the phone rang. I had won a trip to the Bahamas. Then the phone rang again and it was actually a real person. The president of Partners Worldwide (the organization that my Little Wooly Mama money goes to. See posts from 2011) was calling to arrange a meeting with me to find out how PW can support me in my connection to their ministry. Wha? So random. I almost said out loud, "Do you babysit?" but instead I tried to sound cool and unsurprised that they should be calling me and asked "Interesting. What would this support look like?" He said he would like for me to meet some other representatives in other regions and discuss the importance of connecting globally. One of these women is a banker, and the other I can't remember what. SO glad I was on the phone and not speaking in person. It reminded me of the times when our financial advisor calls us into his office to sign papers because he's transferring funds from here to there due to ....what follows is usually said in Charlie Brown's teacher's voice. And I sit there having conversations in my head like: "Try to look interested, Alicia. Focus your eyes like you know what he is saying. NOT THAT focused, now you're cross-eyed....Did he just slip into Cling-On? Dang, I wish I had paid more attention in Cling-On class back in school..." Then I spend the next 5 minutes trying to keep a straight face and nod at the appropriate times. But I'm sure this won't be like that at all. Maybe the banker and I will have a lot to say to each other. We'll talk about global markets, economies of scale, employee management, importing and exporting until the cows come home. Oooh I like cows. So many black and white spots. Some are brown... Anyway, I said yes, let's pursue this and see where it leads. Good modeling, Mom.
Anneke baked cookies.
The girls and I went grocery shopping. Anneke helped my compare prices on butter. She chose the one that was $2 cheaper because cartons of chocolate milk were on sale for $1 a litre. "We can get two of those now, because we saved $2 on the butter!" Smart kid.
Tobin finished his letter to our Ward Councillor about getting a basketball court built in our park and knocked on a few doors to get signatures to hand in to City Hall with it. He was excited to do a real life writing project back when we had this idea back in December. Knocking on doors and asking for support is way. way. out of his comfort zone, though, so he needed some nudging to get out and follow through today. I thought it was worth the gentle pushing to prove to himself that he is capable of doing things that are hard, and things that matter. I hope he gets enough signatures to make this a successful venture. And heck, if the park gets the basketball court, they better put his name on it.
More questions than answers, it seemed today. Everyone was kind of tired and not terribly motivated for most of the day. It didn't help that we slept in quite a bit so by the time we got math, French and piano done (actually just one kid took forever with this) it was getting on toward noon. Tobin spent some time after this writing down 5 questions that he would like to pursue about birdwatching. There was glimmer of passion as he wrote these, he really does love birds, but it's not like he immersed himself in the pursuit of ornithology and completely lost track of time. But that's what the poster children of unschooling do all day, right? They revel in their passions until it gets them their own TED talk or at least an article in Scientific American about the new species they discovered. We've still got until August. I'm sure these things are in store for us too. :)
I perused some blogs about learner-led education this morning to read about what other families do in cases where kids don't seem motivated to lead in any particular direction. Mostly, they just don't freak out about it. We all have times when we feel inspired and times when we just need to chill. I'm not at all feeling panicky. I know the moments of truly memorable learning happen when you least expect them, often when you aren't methodically pursuing them. We've enjoyed lots of these times, which is part of the reason I wanted to take this time to value those opportunities in the first place. The blogs also reminded me that the "meta- lessons" are so much more important than the material learned anyway. Today, for me, this meant trying to take on a role as an encourager of my kids and their characters, not a nagger to guilt them into being brilliantly fruitful every minute, every hour, all day long. Wow kids, you sure are having fun playing ministicks together. That's cool. (Oh wait, now you're all mad. Oh well.)
The other thing that stood out from the blogs is how important it is for Mom to model enjoyable productivity. Just as I read that the phone rang. I had won a trip to the Bahamas. Then the phone rang again and it was actually a real person. The president of Partners Worldwide (the organization that my Little Wooly Mama money goes to. See posts from 2011) was calling to arrange a meeting with me to find out how PW can support me in my connection to their ministry. Wha? So random. I almost said out loud, "Do you babysit?" but instead I tried to sound cool and unsurprised that they should be calling me and asked "Interesting. What would this support look like?" He said he would like for me to meet some other representatives in other regions and discuss the importance of connecting globally. One of these women is a banker, and the other I can't remember what. SO glad I was on the phone and not speaking in person. It reminded me of the times when our financial advisor calls us into his office to sign papers because he's transferring funds from here to there due to ....what follows is usually said in Charlie Brown's teacher's voice. And I sit there having conversations in my head like: "Try to look interested, Alicia. Focus your eyes like you know what he is saying. NOT THAT focused, now you're cross-eyed....Did he just slip into Cling-On? Dang, I wish I had paid more attention in Cling-On class back in school..." Then I spend the next 5 minutes trying to keep a straight face and nod at the appropriate times. But I'm sure this won't be like that at all. Maybe the banker and I will have a lot to say to each other. We'll talk about global markets, economies of scale, employee management, importing and exporting until the cows come home. Oooh I like cows. So many black and white spots. Some are brown... Anyway, I said yes, let's pursue this and see where it leads. Good modeling, Mom.
Anneke baked cookies.
The girls and I went grocery shopping. Anneke helped my compare prices on butter. She chose the one that was $2 cheaper because cartons of chocolate milk were on sale for $1 a litre. "We can get two of those now, because we saved $2 on the butter!" Smart kid.
Tobin finished his letter to our Ward Councillor about getting a basketball court built in our park and knocked on a few doors to get signatures to hand in to City Hall with it. He was excited to do a real life writing project back when we had this idea back in December. Knocking on doors and asking for support is way. way. out of his comfort zone, though, so he needed some nudging to get out and follow through today. I thought it was worth the gentle pushing to prove to himself that he is capable of doing things that are hard, and things that matter. I hope he gets enough signatures to make this a successful venture. And heck, if the park gets the basketball court, they better put his name on it.
Friday, 10 January 2014
Friday!
If we have been hibernating during the cold snap and getting kind of restless, today we made up for it. We went swimming at 11:30-12:30 and then drove across town to an arena to play homeschooler shinny for two hours. The pre-wet hair under the helmets made the boys feel like cool, sweaty teenagers when they were through. Thankfully, they still smell like sweet babies and not post-pubescent hockey players. It was so much fun to get out and be active with friends and other homeschooled kids and their parents (Yay! Other people for me to talk to who don't ask me to peel their apples). This shinny "league" is a real confidence booster and skill-builder for the boys. The more relaxed play lets them try stuff they would be too timid to do in their other hockey league (which is also pretty lax). Never mind all the subject matter we try to get into our kids, I think our efforts at building their confidence will carry them further than any other lesson. Scoring a goal is more of a healthy ego boost (and street cred boost) than being able to list the major Pharoahs in order. That's what more than justifies the cheque I wrote to pay for more hockey.
Before heading out in the morning we got our math and piano done and the boys actually initiated a "guess the province capital" competition. Maybe the separation line between learning things and having fun is fading...or maybe it was another opportunity for older brother to kick younger brother's butt. But they both enjoyed it and Isaac did some butt-kicking of his own. Thatta boy. Fight smart.
When we got home from the arena we ate carbs and drank tea and read aloud on the couches. MMmmmm, I love those times. Then off to hockey, cadets, and a birthday party in the evening. What a fun day. And now it's the weekend. Time to make an abrupt end to all learning for two days. (insert winky emoticon with tongue sticking out.)
If we have been hibernating during the cold snap and getting kind of restless, today we made up for it. We went swimming at 11:30-12:30 and then drove across town to an arena to play homeschooler shinny for two hours. The pre-wet hair under the helmets made the boys feel like cool, sweaty teenagers when they were through. Thankfully, they still smell like sweet babies and not post-pubescent hockey players. It was so much fun to get out and be active with friends and other homeschooled kids and their parents (Yay! Other people for me to talk to who don't ask me to peel their apples). This shinny "league" is a real confidence booster and skill-builder for the boys. The more relaxed play lets them try stuff they would be too timid to do in their other hockey league (which is also pretty lax). Never mind all the subject matter we try to get into our kids, I think our efforts at building their confidence will carry them further than any other lesson. Scoring a goal is more of a healthy ego boost (and street cred boost) than being able to list the major Pharoahs in order. That's what more than justifies the cheque I wrote to pay for more hockey.
Before heading out in the morning we got our math and piano done and the boys actually initiated a "guess the province capital" competition. Maybe the separation line between learning things and having fun is fading...or maybe it was another opportunity for older brother to kick younger brother's butt. But they both enjoyed it and Isaac did some butt-kicking of his own. Thatta boy. Fight smart.
When we got home from the arena we ate carbs and drank tea and read aloud on the couches. MMmmmm, I love those times. Then off to hockey, cadets, and a birthday party in the evening. What a fun day. And now it's the weekend. Time to make an abrupt end to all learning for two days. (insert winky emoticon with tongue sticking out.)
Thursday, 9 January 2014
Thursday, the First:
The day began like any other. Ruby smashed her toe on the basement stairs till they bled a little bit. It hurt, but the hospital was narrowly avoided once more. To distract her from her pain, I asked her to count the polka dots on her shirt. The older kids helped out and it was discovered that she had at least 250 on just one sleeve. We used the method that they use to count hundreds of thousands of bats in a cave that we learned a few years ago. Count how many are in a small patch and multiply the number of patches to cover the sleeve. Ok, Tobin rolled his eyes at Mom's bringing out math at breakfast but oh well, I can take it.
After eating, the kids snuck upstairs and immersed themselves in lego creations. This is the oldest trick they've got. It's a clever ploy to be busy with something constructive and creative to avoid the math books. And by golly, it works because it's not every day that they get excited about lego. I told myself that I could write a very schoolish assignment requiring the children to visually represent scenes from their favourite literature, Lord of the Rings, in 3-dimensional space. A+ for occupying themselves for over an hour with it. It is a shame that Captain Underpants does not come in lego sets.
Besides lego, the hamster is a new and popular diversion. Isaac and Tobin segued into a new construction venture of building mazes for the hamster with toilet rolls. Isaac took it one step further and built mazes out of wood blocks. What if we turned this into a beginner lesson on Structures, thinks Mom? I asked Isaac if he could build a bridge that would support a hamster and then gave him some supplies. He gave it a go until Big Brother made a disparaging remark and kicked his rough start over. And Younger Brother has a rule that he lives by: If at first you don't succeed, destroy your attempt and mutter about how it wouldn't have worked anyway. Oooooooooooooooooh the lecture was boiling and festering just behind my clenched teeth. Here's what I managed not to spit at him: "Well, with that attitude you'll never get anywhere! How are you ever going to get a job if you quit before you really try? You'll end up sitting on my couch until you're forty playing video games and getting chips all between the couch cushions. And another thing...." It's the fear that makes us crazy. Fear that your kids won't succeed and you'd better do something about that right here and right now. But if you give into the crazy you're more likely to bring about the thing you feared in the first place. By the grace of God, today, instead of making him a condemning speech, I made him a sandwich. The pressure that he felt, thinking that I expected architectural genius in his hamster bridge-building project subsided and we all returned to our heads after lunch and sat down to play with the building materials. We had watched a Bill Nye youtube on strong shapes used in bridge building and we experimented with a few and the little rodent made it safely across the pass.
Tobin spent a part of the rest of the afternoon writing up and printing a flyer he wants to distribute in the hood to promote his snowshoveling/dog-walking services. He's trying to save up dough to replace the ipod that I may or may not have lost 3 weeks ago. A real life math problem that didn't make his eyes roll was figuring out the cost per page to print the flyers at home vs. at a copy store. He appreciates sensible problems that could actually save him real money. He also spent time researching information on the net about hamster care and social behavior . He thinks he wants one of his own. We spent a little minute learning how to search online and order library books on hamsters too.
I feel like I learned more than the kids today. I want to direct their energy toward ideas that might take their play and work one step further to open their eyes to new possibilities. But you've got to do this without being super lame or putting pressure on them to perform brilliantly when all they want to do is putz around. Die hard unschoolers will defend to the death the educational benefits of a kid watching videos all day while eating Doritos. I think the sweet spot of freedom and inspiration in education lies a little to the left of that scenario. It's a delicate balance.
The day began like any other. Ruby smashed her toe on the basement stairs till they bled a little bit. It hurt, but the hospital was narrowly avoided once more. To distract her from her pain, I asked her to count the polka dots on her shirt. The older kids helped out and it was discovered that she had at least 250 on just one sleeve. We used the method that they use to count hundreds of thousands of bats in a cave that we learned a few years ago. Count how many are in a small patch and multiply the number of patches to cover the sleeve. Ok, Tobin rolled his eyes at Mom's bringing out math at breakfast but oh well, I can take it.
After eating, the kids snuck upstairs and immersed themselves in lego creations. This is the oldest trick they've got. It's a clever ploy to be busy with something constructive and creative to avoid the math books. And by golly, it works because it's not every day that they get excited about lego. I told myself that I could write a very schoolish assignment requiring the children to visually represent scenes from their favourite literature, Lord of the Rings, in 3-dimensional space. A+ for occupying themselves for over an hour with it. It is a shame that Captain Underpants does not come in lego sets.
Besides lego, the hamster is a new and popular diversion. Isaac and Tobin segued into a new construction venture of building mazes for the hamster with toilet rolls. Isaac took it one step further and built mazes out of wood blocks. What if we turned this into a beginner lesson on Structures, thinks Mom? I asked Isaac if he could build a bridge that would support a hamster and then gave him some supplies. He gave it a go until Big Brother made a disparaging remark and kicked his rough start over. And Younger Brother has a rule that he lives by: If at first you don't succeed, destroy your attempt and mutter about how it wouldn't have worked anyway. Oooooooooooooooooh the lecture was boiling and festering just behind my clenched teeth. Here's what I managed not to spit at him: "Well, with that attitude you'll never get anywhere! How are you ever going to get a job if you quit before you really try? You'll end up sitting on my couch until you're forty playing video games and getting chips all between the couch cushions. And another thing...." It's the fear that makes us crazy. Fear that your kids won't succeed and you'd better do something about that right here and right now. But if you give into the crazy you're more likely to bring about the thing you feared in the first place. By the grace of God, today, instead of making him a condemning speech, I made him a sandwich. The pressure that he felt, thinking that I expected architectural genius in his hamster bridge-building project subsided and we all returned to our heads after lunch and sat down to play with the building materials. We had watched a Bill Nye youtube on strong shapes used in bridge building and we experimented with a few and the little rodent made it safely across the pass.
Tobin spent a part of the rest of the afternoon writing up and printing a flyer he wants to distribute in the hood to promote his snowshoveling/dog-walking services. He's trying to save up dough to replace the ipod that I may or may not have lost 3 weeks ago. A real life math problem that didn't make his eyes roll was figuring out the cost per page to print the flyers at home vs. at a copy store. He appreciates sensible problems that could actually save him real money. He also spent time researching information on the net about hamster care and social behavior . He thinks he wants one of his own. We spent a little minute learning how to search online and order library books on hamsters too.
I feel like I learned more than the kids today. I want to direct their energy toward ideas that might take their play and work one step further to open their eyes to new possibilities. But you've got to do this without being super lame or putting pressure on them to perform brilliantly when all they want to do is putz around. Die hard unschoolers will defend to the death the educational benefits of a kid watching videos all day while eating Doritos. I think the sweet spot of freedom and inspiration in education lies a little to the left of that scenario. It's a delicate balance.
Wednesday, 8 January 2014
Day 3
Really, if you're reading this, a lot of it is for myself to keep my own records. I feel kinda sheepish writing a list of good things that happened in our household for others to read. The purpose of it all is to prove to myself that there is beauty in the mayhem, that the screaming and pestering and messes are not the sum-total of our day's worth. Maybe you don't believe me. I don't ,when I read those blogs with titles like "Any Mess can be Beautiful!", and then the picture is a photographer quality shot of organic, homemade, spelt, gluten-free breadcrumbs on a vintage plate with little birds on it. Does anyone want to see the squashed raisins stuck with cat fur and blonde hairs under my table? They've been there a long time. It never seems like the right moment to go and get a bread tag to scrape the ick off. Maybe it's not a raisin at all.
*Shudder*. Anyways, it's only been three days but already I'm grooving on highlighting the lovely moments and actually writing them down which everyone always says you should do but rarely do you get around to it because you think if it's so special you're bound to remember. But you don't. And just the act of compiling a list almost makes you in a more present state throughout the day to make sure those moments happen. Maybe it sounds contrived but it's more like seizing the opportunities that naturally pop up when you're noticing. I hope to practice noticing more and more.
Today is Wednesday. Usually that is our hike day with our usual group of stalwarts, many of whom have been hiking every single Wednesday in every kind of weather and around the turning of the season for about 6 or 7 years now. Only twice in 7 years have I thought it would have been better to stay at home at the end one of these hikes. Once it was a spring mud season and when I had finally gotten my infant wrapped onto me the toddler fell headlong into a mud puddle and wailed while I tried to keep her moving for at least a little while for the sake of the older boys. The other was when I was trudging through knee deep snow while pregnant, with a 2 year old strapped to my back and a livid four year old being dragged behind my up a steep hill and down the other side. The other 298 or so hikes have been great. Today, however, we chose to go to the RBG greenhouse because it's still very, very cold. The kids tried to get the koi fish to bite their fingers and we learned how to make a jade plant flower. Success.
One little story from in the van which I found gratifying: Isaac was explaining to Anneke the difference between fiction and non-fiction, which he learned on TV. "Harry Potter is definitely fiction, right Mom?" Then Anneke: "So that story about that brown man that got out of jail and saved the world is non-fiction, right Mom?" We read the kid's version of Nelson Mandela's biography after his death and it seems she was suitably struck by it. Fist pump.
The rest of the day was a play date with their bestest friends which gave me fight-free time to set up my new sewing room in the attic. And. And. On the way to our meeting point to swap the kids back, Anneke became the proud owner of her very own dwarf hamster. She now speaks with authority on all things hamster-related to her less informed siblings and she requested prayer for "the poor and those without hamsters" at dinner time. Long may she live. The hamster, I mean.
Really, if you're reading this, a lot of it is for myself to keep my own records. I feel kinda sheepish writing a list of good things that happened in our household for others to read. The purpose of it all is to prove to myself that there is beauty in the mayhem, that the screaming and pestering and messes are not the sum-total of our day's worth. Maybe you don't believe me. I don't ,when I read those blogs with titles like "Any Mess can be Beautiful!", and then the picture is a photographer quality shot of organic, homemade, spelt, gluten-free breadcrumbs on a vintage plate with little birds on it. Does anyone want to see the squashed raisins stuck with cat fur and blonde hairs under my table? They've been there a long time. It never seems like the right moment to go and get a bread tag to scrape the ick off. Maybe it's not a raisin at all.
*Shudder*. Anyways, it's only been three days but already I'm grooving on highlighting the lovely moments and actually writing them down which everyone always says you should do but rarely do you get around to it because you think if it's so special you're bound to remember. But you don't. And just the act of compiling a list almost makes you in a more present state throughout the day to make sure those moments happen. Maybe it sounds contrived but it's more like seizing the opportunities that naturally pop up when you're noticing. I hope to practice noticing more and more.
Today is Wednesday. Usually that is our hike day with our usual group of stalwarts, many of whom have been hiking every single Wednesday in every kind of weather and around the turning of the season for about 6 or 7 years now. Only twice in 7 years have I thought it would have been better to stay at home at the end one of these hikes. Once it was a spring mud season and when I had finally gotten my infant wrapped onto me the toddler fell headlong into a mud puddle and wailed while I tried to keep her moving for at least a little while for the sake of the older boys. The other was when I was trudging through knee deep snow while pregnant, with a 2 year old strapped to my back and a livid four year old being dragged behind my up a steep hill and down the other side. The other 298 or so hikes have been great. Today, however, we chose to go to the RBG greenhouse because it's still very, very cold. The kids tried to get the koi fish to bite their fingers and we learned how to make a jade plant flower. Success.
One little story from in the van which I found gratifying: Isaac was explaining to Anneke the difference between fiction and non-fiction, which he learned on TV. "Harry Potter is definitely fiction, right Mom?" Then Anneke: "So that story about that brown man that got out of jail and saved the world is non-fiction, right Mom?" We read the kid's version of Nelson Mandela's biography after his death and it seems she was suitably struck by it. Fist pump.
The rest of the day was a play date with their bestest friends which gave me fight-free time to set up my new sewing room in the attic. And. And. On the way to our meeting point to swap the kids back, Anneke became the proud owner of her very own dwarf hamster. She now speaks with authority on all things hamster-related to her less informed siblings and she requested prayer for "the poor and those without hamsters" at dinner time. Long may she live. The hamster, I mean.
Tuesday, 7 January 2014
January 7: Day 2
Today was crazy cold at our house as it was across the country. -39 with the windchill in the morning. Our house has its own windchill factor, having been built before insulation was a thing. I decided to make muffins for breakfast, thinking that there was no rush to get XYZ done before a certain time and the oven would warm up the house. Also, there was no cereal in the cupboard and only that new veggie bread that smells exactly like hay when it is being toasted. I never, never, never make muffins for breakfast and after I had used almost every dish in my house, even the Slap Chop, I remembered why I don't like to be ambitious in the kitchen first thing in the morning. But as my baker-girl whacked away at the walnuts I thought I'd seize the teachable moment to share the interesting fact I had heard somewhere about how a lot of foods resemble the organs that they benefit. When the muffins were in the oven ,we consulted that respected online medical journal--Woman's Day--and found great comparison pictures of a sliced carrot and a retina, a whole walnut and a brain, clams and testicles etc. The boys even learned proper terms for their nuts and all agreed that saying that clams resemble testicles is a stretch of the imagination.
Each kid has about 20 pages to go to finish the first of two math books that make up our regular Jump Math program and I decided I would like them to finish it (I paid for those babies!) before we leave all workbooks behind for the year. I'll be glad when they're done. If the kids were reliably quick and efficient in finishing their two pages I would probably keep it up all year but they are not and too much daylight is burned in prodding the pokey ones. Especially if you are also trying to wash a mountain of breakfast dishes during the kids' freshest brain hours. When math was done we sat in a semi-circle, facing the heat register and brainstormed 6 different ways of gathering information about a subject that interests us. So now we have 3 lists to keep adding to as we go: talents, interests, and research methods. Tomorrow we'll compile a list of different possibilities for presenting the info we gather. I don't know want to be too methodical about how we go about pursuing a subject but it seemed to me that these 4 lists would be a good base for how to go about learning independently.
Besides piano practice and Rosetta Stone French , that was all the formal lessons we had today. (Ya can't learn a language without daily practice and I'm a certified French teacher so they are stuck, stuck, stuck with it. They like Rosetta Stone , though, even if they say they don't.)
Here is how the rest of the day rolled out:
I'd have to say that I'm loving the pace, so far. I spend so much less time being frantic and irritable. Except maybe when I was ransacking the freezing cold garage for fishing line for the beading for a really long time. It's only been two days and we haven't really gone full swing yet, though. I'm loving the mindfulness of cultivating learning in the moment. Blogging helps with that. I hesitated with letting anyone know that I was blogging because I wasn't sure I felt like dealing with opinions, but the accountability factor is super helpful. Here's hoping I can keep it up.
Today was crazy cold at our house as it was across the country. -39 with the windchill in the morning. Our house has its own windchill factor, having been built before insulation was a thing. I decided to make muffins for breakfast, thinking that there was no rush to get XYZ done before a certain time and the oven would warm up the house. Also, there was no cereal in the cupboard and only that new veggie bread that smells exactly like hay when it is being toasted. I never, never, never make muffins for breakfast and after I had used almost every dish in my house, even the Slap Chop, I remembered why I don't like to be ambitious in the kitchen first thing in the morning. But as my baker-girl whacked away at the walnuts I thought I'd seize the teachable moment to share the interesting fact I had heard somewhere about how a lot of foods resemble the organs that they benefit. When the muffins were in the oven ,we consulted that respected online medical journal--Woman's Day--and found great comparison pictures of a sliced carrot and a retina, a whole walnut and a brain, clams and testicles etc. The boys even learned proper terms for their nuts and all agreed that saying that clams resemble testicles is a stretch of the imagination.
Each kid has about 20 pages to go to finish the first of two math books that make up our regular Jump Math program and I decided I would like them to finish it (I paid for those babies!) before we leave all workbooks behind for the year. I'll be glad when they're done. If the kids were reliably quick and efficient in finishing their two pages I would probably keep it up all year but they are not and too much daylight is burned in prodding the pokey ones. Especially if you are also trying to wash a mountain of breakfast dishes during the kids' freshest brain hours. When math was done we sat in a semi-circle, facing the heat register and brainstormed 6 different ways of gathering information about a subject that interests us. So now we have 3 lists to keep adding to as we go: talents, interests, and research methods. Tomorrow we'll compile a list of different possibilities for presenting the info we gather. I don't know want to be too methodical about how we go about pursuing a subject but it seemed to me that these 4 lists would be a good base for how to go about learning independently.
Besides piano practice and Rosetta Stone French , that was all the formal lessons we had today. (Ya can't learn a language without daily practice and I'm a certified French teacher so they are stuck, stuck, stuck with it. They like Rosetta Stone , though, even if they say they don't.)
Here is how the rest of the day rolled out:
- Anneke decided an interest that she wanted to develop was making crafts, so we used a craft book she got for Christmas to learn daisy chain seed bead patterns She caught on quick and loved the intricate pattern she was able to bead all by herself. A conversation about native women beadwork and wampum belts came up and we got out our First Nations non-fiction books and learned to use an index to find out more about wampum. One page talked aobut how wampum is no longer used partially because kids forgot their own customs as a result of being snatched and brought to residential schools. Anneke became indignant and used her hands-on-hips-snotty girl voice to say that white people shouldn't have done that. They should have just left those kids to learn their own things. You said it , girlfriend!
- Isaac read Harry Potter #6 on his bed for quite a while.
- Tobin helped Ruby build a lego zoo using generic lego as well as online instruction for mixing boxed sets. (Really, any excuse to consult an electronic will do with the boy.)
- We read another chapter of The Railway Children. Isaac is not an aural learner and has never really liked being read to. He remarked, "Those kids save people too much".
- Some sort of running through the house at top speed hide and seek game happened for a while.
- A friend posted that she had thrown boiling water up in the air outside so we gave it a go too. POOF! it vapourized and hardly any came back to the ground. Coolio. We then blew bubbles and watched them get frosty patterns before they shattered. Saw that once on You tube.
- Stories for Ruby and GEMS for Anneke, in the evening.
I'd have to say that I'm loving the pace, so far. I spend so much less time being frantic and irritable. Except maybe when I was ransacking the freezing cold garage for fishing line for the beading for a really long time. It's only been two days and we haven't really gone full swing yet, though. I'm loving the mindfulness of cultivating learning in the moment. Blogging helps with that. I hesitated with letting anyone know that I was blogging because I wasn't sure I felt like dealing with opinions, but the accountability factor is super helpful. Here's hoping I can keep it up.
Monday, 6 January 2014
2014: The Beginning of... the Rest of our Lives.
How did I know to write such a great segue post (below) almost two years ago? I've decided to return to blogging to chronicle our newest educational experiment which began today. After listening to a TED talk about unschooling last December, I got all excited about embracing the world of possibilities that opens up when you leave off workbook learning and take advantage of all the opportunities that home-learning offers.--All the wonderful stuff about developing talents, keeping wonder alive, cultivating the joy of learning and riding pink unicorns in a fairy land of our own overstimulated imagination. All the things that made me want to keep my kids at home in the first place that have ebbed away by the same degrees that we have added structured, prescriptive book learning. So after carefully considering for about a 5 minute period, I burst into the living room and pitched the idea to the children: "Let's ditch our school books and do stuff we want to do after Christmas!" They were very enthusiastic and needed surprisingly little convincing.
To be honest, our school life was going fine. The kids dutifully checked off their subjects with less gnashing and spitting than in previous years and probably even learned useful things from time to time. But I didn't make the fairly radical decision to keep my kids off the schoolbus (Oh that sexy yellow truck that gives moms hours on end alone to pee uninterrupted and do whatever else it is that women do without any little people incessantly tugging their sleeves asking for hamsters.) and have them spend all their hours and days and weeks with me in our house just for things to be fine. I missed the starry-eyed, younger, thinner, mother of toddlers that would tell other people all about what education would look like in our home. And it did look that way when my oldest was 4 and the rest of the kids were not born or were nappers. We read Farmer Boy and my son would look up at me with those big, round swimming pool eyes and say things like: "Can we dye cloth with roots and berries the way Almonzo's mother did?" And I would smile broadly, tweak his little nose and say, "Of course we can Honey." ...Fast forward 8 years and 4 non-napping children later. If my youngest, now 4 years old, would meet her sweet almond shaped eyes with mine and ask, "Mom can we make moccasins out of deerhide like Sam Gribley did?" My unhesitating response would be: "Are you even kidding me??? Ain't nobody got time for that!" And that is because we are busy doing important things that are no fun for anyone.
I will speak to the truth that some things that kids find completely uninspiring are absolutely necessary if only to teach them perseverance through drudgery another day. Now I want to get to our first day. We did very little today. Or did we? I decided to start slow and build into our new mode of self -directed learning. Here is an itemized list of what we learned today by intentionally pursuing curiosity:
I plan to make a list like this every evening just to reassure myself that every conversation counts and learning happens all the time, especially if we focus on a home culture that encourages curiosity about God's world and our place in it.. The last thing I hope to accomplish by this practice is to make any reader shrink in defeat thinking that THAT family must have their crap together to do all those lovely, wonderful things. Please, please be assured that I could make another list that involves pinching, pushing, yelling and wailing but I'm not going to itemize those in the same way unless the resolution of these things brought about some lesson that will be surely forgotten tomorrow.
I'm tired. So I'll finish up with the highlight of my day. My oldest, who has many talents, has not very much confidence. He got a little twitchy when he had to make a list of his gifts and still had a blank page after several minutes and gave me a weak smile when I looked in his direction. We had a great talk that he especially needed to hear about how you don't have to be the Olympic champion of a skill in order to consider it as something that you possess that can be used in this world. We then listed ways in which the Force was strong in him and later discovered how they dovetailed in many ways with his interests. For example, his "spidey-senses" or acute knack for noticing what others overlook would be very useful in birdwatching. His genuine smile when he realized this connection could power the lights in Times Square. (All those lights! Way to go Thomas Edison.)
How did I know to write such a great segue post (below) almost two years ago? I've decided to return to blogging to chronicle our newest educational experiment which began today. After listening to a TED talk about unschooling last December, I got all excited about embracing the world of possibilities that opens up when you leave off workbook learning and take advantage of all the opportunities that home-learning offers.--All the wonderful stuff about developing talents, keeping wonder alive, cultivating the joy of learning and riding pink unicorns in a fairy land of our own overstimulated imagination. All the things that made me want to keep my kids at home in the first place that have ebbed away by the same degrees that we have added structured, prescriptive book learning. So after carefully considering for about a 5 minute period, I burst into the living room and pitched the idea to the children: "Let's ditch our school books and do stuff we want to do after Christmas!" They were very enthusiastic and needed surprisingly little convincing.
To be honest, our school life was going fine. The kids dutifully checked off their subjects with less gnashing and spitting than in previous years and probably even learned useful things from time to time. But I didn't make the fairly radical decision to keep my kids off the schoolbus (Oh that sexy yellow truck that gives moms hours on end alone to pee uninterrupted and do whatever else it is that women do without any little people incessantly tugging their sleeves asking for hamsters.) and have them spend all their hours and days and weeks with me in our house just for things to be fine. I missed the starry-eyed, younger, thinner, mother of toddlers that would tell other people all about what education would look like in our home. And it did look that way when my oldest was 4 and the rest of the kids were not born or were nappers. We read Farmer Boy and my son would look up at me with those big, round swimming pool eyes and say things like: "Can we dye cloth with roots and berries the way Almonzo's mother did?" And I would smile broadly, tweak his little nose and say, "Of course we can Honey." ...Fast forward 8 years and 4 non-napping children later. If my youngest, now 4 years old, would meet her sweet almond shaped eyes with mine and ask, "Mom can we make moccasins out of deerhide like Sam Gribley did?" My unhesitating response would be: "Are you even kidding me??? Ain't nobody got time for that!" And that is because we are busy doing important things that are no fun for anyone.
I will speak to the truth that some things that kids find completely uninspiring are absolutely necessary if only to teach them perseverance through drudgery another day. Now I want to get to our first day. We did very little today. Or did we? I decided to start slow and build into our new mode of self -directed learning. Here is an itemized list of what we learned today by intentionally pursuing curiosity:
- Googled why gigabyte cards only come in double numbers. ie. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 GB
- Wrote a list of what we think our God-given talents are.
- Wrote a list of our interests
- Rocket science. Isaac made several prototypes of a rocket he saw at Indigo last week. This led to a discussion about how Thomas Edison made about a billion light bulbs before he made on that worked.
- Tobin researched the pros and cons of Android vs. Apple
- Anneke baked cookies.
- We read a chapter of The Railway Children. (Yay! More time for reading together.)
- Ruby got several stories. (Yay! The poor neglected youngest got some attention.)
- Anneke made a puzzle and then flipped it over and wrote the numbers 1-100 on the pieces.
- All the kids played ministicks.
- The boys slid all the way on icy sidewalks to piano lessons.
- We read a story at the supper table about the battle between the Armenians and the Persians and had a discussion about how we can love people who believe in different things than we do.
I plan to make a list like this every evening just to reassure myself that every conversation counts and learning happens all the time, especially if we focus on a home culture that encourages curiosity about God's world and our place in it.. The last thing I hope to accomplish by this practice is to make any reader shrink in defeat thinking that THAT family must have their crap together to do all those lovely, wonderful things. Please, please be assured that I could make another list that involves pinching, pushing, yelling and wailing but I'm not going to itemize those in the same way unless the resolution of these things brought about some lesson that will be surely forgotten tomorrow.
I'm tired. So I'll finish up with the highlight of my day. My oldest, who has many talents, has not very much confidence. He got a little twitchy when he had to make a list of his gifts and still had a blank page after several minutes and gave me a weak smile when I looked in his direction. We had a great talk that he especially needed to hear about how you don't have to be the Olympic champion of a skill in order to consider it as something that you possess that can be used in this world. We then listed ways in which the Force was strong in him and later discovered how they dovetailed in many ways with his interests. For example, his "spidey-senses" or acute knack for noticing what others overlook would be very useful in birdwatching. His genuine smile when he realized this connection could power the lights in Times Square. (All those lights! Way to go Thomas Edison.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)