Friday Reading Day. Well...listening, it's a Ted.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html


Thanks, Carina for the above.
I wish these showed up nicely with a picture like they do on Facebook.

Field Trip Thursday Cancelled on account of Preference for Pajamas

     That would be the headline for today.   Since September, we've tried to go out on location somewhere, mostly with just the 5 of us, to anywhere that interests us on Thursday afternoons.  We've gone to St. Jacobs after a conversation about the Amish, we've gone to pick plastic off of Van Wagner's beach after watching one of those depressing documentaries about the ocean gyres, we've gone to Dundurn castle with the free library pass and other places that strike our fancy that week.  I got into watching Downton Abbey shortly after our Dundurn trip and when Anneke got out of bed for one thousand glasses of water she'd say  " Are you watching Lady MacNab again?!"   (The lady of the house at Dundurn )  Anyway, today was yet another cold day and 4 out of 5 of us had our pajamas on all day. 
     The morning started with 3 kids in my bed learning what 7 and 5 are along with Pippi Longstocking who went to school so she could get Christmas vacation like the other village children.  This is our 3rd go-round with this book.  So much fun.  I have fond memories of my older sister reading it to me in my bed when I was little.  The school chapter was double funny, in our current state of Villa Villekula-like education, with Pippi lamenting a tormented future for all those children who wouldn't have the answer if someone should stop them on the street and demand the capital of Portugal, and would have to write a letter directly to Lisbon to ask the answer.  We just need to get ourselves a suitcase full of gold coins and become cannibal kings and queens. 
     After breakfast two more kids finished their math books and Tobin worked on a pluttification drill game on the computer.   When piano and French were done we sat around the campfire (vent) and I challenged the kids to write 100 good things that they would count as gifts of grace in a journal.  I explained a bit of the backstory behind Ann Voskamp's battle with anxiety and depression and how being awake to gratefulness transformed her outlook on life.  Their interest was piqued.  This family is not immune to anxiety and I'm praying that this exercise could have lifelong benefits in building a habit of thanksgiving, every day.   PLUS, it gets them writing complete sentences that actually mean something.   They only have to come up with at least three a day but they have to get to the target of 100.  So far we've got snow on pine trees, backyard rinks, people to play with, Wednesday hikes...
    Then we made bombs.  Lots and lots of bombs.  The boys figured out how to do those exploding popsicle stick triangles by watching "Rob's World" on Youtube.  Rob is a physics student who does tutorials for little boyish, tricky things that actually abide by physical laws.  We learned the concepts of potential energy and kinetic energy.   All by accident.   I was delighted and the kids tolerated my bringing up those terms in every conversation very well.  I think it's duly branded into their memories by now.   So while we read many chapters of "Ruby Holler"  on the couches, the boys stockpiled weapons.  
     After supper we watched The Nature of Things about leatherback turtles and we remedied the fact that the kids didn't know who David Suzuki is.  And now I'm done for the day and I'm going to watch Chuck with Ed. 

Just Brimming...

     I've not been blogging the last couple of days.  Oh no, I've become that blogger that apologizes for depriving their millions of daily followers of access to their random, mundane thinkings and doings.  Blogging can be so presumptuous.  Any person under the sun could have something worthwhile to say when they stop and reflect at the end of a day so why should I expect others to read about the highlights of my rather ordinary days.  Oh, but I do love it.  It has kept me so mindful of valuing the gifts that happen even during the worst, horrible, moody days full of screeching and spills.  I feel that it is no accident that our women's group at church is currently reading "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp which is all about seeking out the ordinary gifts of grace that everyone receives from a good God even in the midst of banality, ugliness and even tragedy.  In the end, the gifts, such as a smile from a child who has just finished a 30 minute stint of maniacal wailing, are less significant than the open-handed posture of the mother who is ready to seek out and receive grace in all things. 
     It is Wednesday.  There have been 5 days since my last post.  Too many gifts to explain, in depth, over the weekend, up until now but here are a few:

• Tobin learned to change a headlight with Dad.
• Lots of skating on the backyard rink, even in frigid temperatures.
• Girls coming in from outside brimming with ideas for their very important to do list for the day.  They must play babies, do a craft, play "Old Granny"  (this game is new and it involves sneaking into the kitchen to steal from the sugar bowl before the Old One (Mom) raps them on the knuckles.)   "Let's get started, Ruby, or we won't get these things done!"
• Kids crouching on the stairs to listen to Mom and 5 friends speak broken French at a monthly meeting we've begun just to practice something we have made and effort to learn and enjoy.
• Isaac brimming with pride after he took the responsibility of putting the girls to bed while Mom was downstairs with her French Friends and Dad was out.  Ruby:  "I love Isaac!  He brushed our teeth, tucked us under the blankets and read us the story about potatoes with an Irish accent!".
• The warm smell of baking bread on Sundays when Anneke and Daddy make a loaf from scratch every week.
• Tobin asking for prayer for the Morelli family every evening.
• Cries of "Another chapter!"  when we snuggle under blankets on the couches and read aloud.
• Anneke copying out her library books because she wants to teach herself to write.
• Tobin finishing his math book and the others will be done by tomorrow.
• Tobin found studs in the wall and leveled a book shelf that he and Dad mounted beside his bed to put his reading books on.
• Isaac saying that he calls his marshmallow snowman "Nude Descending a Staircase" because he reads Calvin and Hobbes.  I showed him the Marcel Duchamp version and he laughed.  He will remember that art lesson because it is attached to a moment in his play.
• Tobin got a paying job shoveling someone's snow from the flyers he sent out.
• The boys writing "hamburger paragraphs" ...more on this later...
• Ruby, ever and always immersed in little worlds where the big spoon is the mom to the little spoon and the entire living room floor is needed to house the spoon family.

   Ach, there's so many.   So ordinary.  So wonderful and we don't feel busy in the accomplishment of them.  Now, if anyone has their finger poised on the last digit of the number for Children's Services, you should know that I do see a need for regular instruction for writing and math.  In September, we will return to using a sequential program of instruction in these areas.  Many unschooling families testify that kids will naturally learn what they need to learn in these areas if given support and encouragement and I don't doubt them.  Maybe it's the fear talking, but I see definite deficiencies in my kids' ability to write with confidence.  I must also add that I have seen that gap close as the kids get older and are more ready to tackle this arduous task with the confidence they have gained by reading more fluently and just being generally more mature and aware of the necessity of being able to express oneself  in writing.  But it is still painful to watch my boys struggle with basic sentence and paragraph structure at the ripe old ages of 9 and 12.  But we are both learning the meta-lessons of reducing these mountains to speedbumps by taking baby steps, baby steps, baby steps.  If you have encouragement to share in this regard, as a homeschooler or someone who sends their kids to school,  please share. 
    Another meta-lesson has been learned with our biting hamster.  Anneke's idyllic notions of having a pet that would enjoy being grabbed, squeezed and made to say hello to the cat have been quashed as "Tia" has begun using her teeth to communicate.   "I want to get rid of her" was said through tears as we snuggled it out on the couch.  But instead of giving up on the project the moment it went in a direction she was not happy with, we decided that maybe we should change our approach to the little creature, one thousandth our size and see if we can't make our commitment to her work in a way that both enjoy.  And it worked.  Anneke is slow and quiet and respectful to her hamster and the rodent returns her gentle efforts with causing less bloody fingers.  When things look hopeless and disappointing, maybe it can get better if we pause and problem solve to improve the situation.   She said as much, in her own words, to her brothers.
   And now there are two families coming to do an art lesson on visual problem solving a la Da Vinci.  We're going to read a story about Da Vinci and then work with a pile of materials to solve visual problems to invent a prosthetic for flying creatures with dysfunctional wings.   Hope it works out as well as I hope it will. 

Some Friday Reading.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/give-childhood-back-to-children-if-we-want-our-offspring-to-have-happy-productive-and-moral-lives-we-must-allow-more-time-for-play-not-less-are-you-listening-gove-9054433.html

Order Rodentia

     It's fairly safe to say that we are full swing into a unit study on the order (or is it class, phylum, family?) Rodentia.   Tobin is now the proud owner of two gerbils.   Welcome, Cooper and Ralph.   A total of three rodents in the house.  And  the traps are set for their cousins, the field mice who may wander in from the cold.   It is actually fascinating to note how much like a fat little pom pom the hamster is compared with the jack rabbit-like leanness of the gerbils.  We observed and listed anatomical reasons for this difference in agility.  Science is all about observation, right?
     Tobin lead us to the gerbil dealer's house by way of a good old fashioned map of Oakville.  He looked up the street on the index, found the coordinates, circled the location and legally sat in the front seat and navigated our way first to Oakville's museum and from there to our friend "Barrie" the gerbil man.  With Black History month coming up and Oakville being a bit of a jaunt to fetch vermin to bring into your home, we decided to make a field trip out of the afternoon and visit the multi-media exhibit about the underground railroad that they have on display at the old estate museum.   I can tell that the stories of injustice and slavery hit home for Isaac because he brought up some abolitionist arguments when asked to do the dishes after supper.   He said that I was a slave catcher and he had to run and get further from the border to be safe from a life of work with no pay.  He should wait until the weather gets above -20 degrees.  I read about a prisoner that escaped this week but turned back to the warmth of his cell when he got a little chilly in his prison issue pants.
     Barrie, the gerbil farmer is not your typical middle aged Oakville resident.  His house looks like he built it himself with his brother named Limpy back in Gr. 8.  It's on a ravine so if you look away from the street and plug your ears it feels like you're at a backwoods cabin in Virginia.  But you're not.  You're in Oakville.  Ed has built houses 5 blocks away whose owners flew to Egypt to select the marble for their bathroom vanity.  Barrie could walk to the downtown strip of boutiques to find 75 dollar tee shirts with nautical themes and khaki trousers to match.  But his gerbils seem healthy and well cared for and mine and Tobin's life is more interesting for having visited his curious little patch of land.   At the rate we're going with collecting animals, we're well on our way to being eccentrics ourselves. 
      Skating and read-aloud after supper and the end of another beautiful day of learning together. 
    

Wednesday, Wednesday.

Math.  Skating.  Friends over. Lunch.  Meeting with director of Partners Worldwide.  Skating. "Adventure Time" Is it OK for four year olds?  Well, that depends on their birth order.  Supper.  Reading aloud.  More skating.  Playing cards. Bed. 

My Village Arrived Today.

     If every day were like today I'd never complain about anything again.  It was just so lovely and rambling  and unrushed and yet productive.   And nobody fought.   And I had enough sleep to enjoy it all.
   I rose before the children like a good mother should.  O.K. it was 8:35 and the phone woke me up.  But while the children slept, I threw buckets of water on our skating rink which froze instantly in the crazy -19 temperatures.  Ed had cleared a 15x30 foot rectangle in the backyard the last time it snowed and we've been slowly building up the ice hoping to have our first ever, successful skating rink to keep the kids outside and active in the winter.  Well, it worked.  These freezing temperatures are handy for that at least.  In the afternoon, the boys shot pucks around and practiced their turns and manouevres while the girls actually learned to skate.  Well, Ruby spent most of the time shuffling on her hands and knees pretending to be a Zamboni.
     When I came in from flooding,  Anneke had a magic trick to show me that Tobin had taught her with a kit he got for Christmas.   With a lot more practice she could be a carny doing the shell game trick.  After breakfast, I had to drop off the van at the Fix-it shop and the kids mostly got their math and piano done in my absence.   Then, while the boys went upstairs to read, I cuddled up with the girls and read the Railway Children.  Tobin heard me reading and ran down the stairs to listen.  He has always loved listening to stories.  Any stories.  Baby books and difficult literature alike.  I think he really knows the difference between shlock and great writing.  If only that would translate into good writing from himself...Someday I'm going to spring for someone else to teach him to write.  It's too painful.
     Somehow, Tobin and I struck up a convo about how everything in the world is made up of endless combinations of a limited number of elements.  He was duly amazed.  And he really liked the idea of making models of molecules with marshmallows and toothpicks.  He really likes marshmallows.   He made an H40 molecule and we googled whether that was a thing or not.  Apparently it is marketed as the ultimate anti-oxidant drink and Tobin is keen to flush some free radicals so we might go find some someday.  And Isaac made a very nice snowman in a canopy bed with marshmallows which he ate in his hot chocolate after skating.
     After seeing Chris Hadfield sing the national anthem on Hockey night in Canada, the boys were stoked to see his videos in space about brushing your teeth, eating a sandwich and sleeping in zero gravity.   We can rule out the space program for Tobin as he is unwilling to swallow his own toothpaste froth in the name of science. 
     Just before supper we had some more time for reading together because all my dreams since ever becoming a parent came to fruition with one telephone call.  The elderly woman from down the street that I had visited yesterday called my house and said these words:   "Alicia, you need a break.  Now, I was down at Costco this morning and I picked up a meal for you and I'm going to give you a recipe for some excellent tomato chowder which is easy to make that you can have along with it."    You know how they say that it takes a village to raise a child?  Well, my village arrived.   How many times have I dreamed of someone validating the hard work that a parent does mostly alone behind closed doors and then offering a small token of help!   It was so simple but it was HUGE!   I sent some kids to go pick the food up from her door, not because I couldn't do it myself, but I wanted the kids to be the recipients of such a simple, kind gesture.  And the woman told Isaac he should be wearing his mittens.  That's what I said!    So sweet to have a 90 year old woman down the street making sure my son's hands are warm. 












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