More Regular Everyday Stuff

Today we had a nice, slow afternoon swinging in the hammock. We started reading the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia series, and looked at bugs and birds and clouds and leaves and trees.

Here are some recent pictures:

Riley excited about playing Zathura


Seth cleaning the guinea home


Matt and the kids in the front yard during a rain storm, checking the tent for leaks.


Riley, Maya, and Seth making dinner

Seth and Maya making things with Play-Doh

Enjoying the Slip and Slide

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And the new and exciting stuff: We reserved our hotel in Toledo, OH and bought tickets to Monster Jam for Friday, July 27 for an early birthday gift for Seth. He absolutely loves monster trucks and can usually be found playing with his toy ones, watching videos about them, or pretending he is one. He talks about Bigfoot, the original monster truck "built by Bob Chandler in the 1970's" (yes, we read every monster truck book in the kids' section at the library one evening, and several of them many more times at home) and is quickly figuring out who drives his favorite trucks.

Anyway, we were originally going to camp, but our tent that Matt and the kids were checking in the above picture does leak some in the rain; and we don't have good weather proofing gear for camping; and Matt found out he has enough points (from his last job where he travelled a lot more) for us to get a free night at a hotel. If the weather ends up being nice, we'll spend Saturday at a beach on Lake Erie.

I have to quit now -- Maya has been waiting and waiting to get on Club Penguin!!!!!!!!!

Unschooling: Vacation-Style Learning

Since it's summer and schools are out on break, this question, "Do you take summers off?" finds its place among the homeschool FAQs my kids and I hear. Seems like a simple question, but because people equate learning with school and all its trappings and because we don't "do school," it really isn't.

My first thought is that the truest answer is "no." We don't stop learning after we've clocked 180 6-hour days or because it's June. We aren't burnt out and in need of a break from learning because learning is not a chore when it's driven by imagination, curiosity, delight, interest, or passion sparked from real life experiences -- both the regular everyday stuff and the new and exciting stuff.

However, the question about taking summers off probably really means something more like, "do you take summers off from school work?" The answer to that is a huge "yes!" We have also taken off for the Fall, Winter, and Spring ever since we took Riley out of preschool about 3 1/2 years ago.

I suppose the most honest answer would be to say, "Well, the way we learn actually looks more like a really great summer vacation than like school." Even though the person asking is probably just making conversation, it's always fun to take any opportunity to sew a few unschooling seeds.


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In the spirit of vacation-style learning, here are a few of our vacation pictures from Ft. Walton Beach, Florida. This was Seth's first trip to the ocean. Riley was 2 last time he saw the ocean and Maya was not even 1. Everything was new for them: the ocean, the bay, the beach, the dunes, the dolphins, the birds, the fish, the boats, the hermit crabs, the palm trees...

This morning we headed out early (for us) for our neighboring county's parks department program, Wild Wednesdays. Different groups that work with animals come to the park each week to talk about what they do and to show the animals. We've gone several times this summer; and we met our friends, Kelly, Jonathan, and Rebecca again this week for an equestrian-themed program by Farmer Joan.






Later, Maya and I were reading a book about animal babies that had a diagram of an unfertilized chicken egg. She decided she wanted to go crack some eggs open and "check out the parts," and we invited Riley and Seth to join us.


After we were finished with the eggs, cleanup led to water/bubbles play for Maya and Seth while Riley played his current favorite game, Guitar Hero.

3rd Generation Friends

My friend, Shelley, just returned home to California after visiting here in KY for a few weeks. We got to see Shelley, her Mom, Jane, and her little girl, Maddie, earlier this week when we met up at the Georgetown skatepark. We had a blast playing with, holding, and feeding Maddie. The last time we saw her she was just a couple of months old. My kids know Maddie because two generations ago my Mom and Shelley's Mom met at work (I think that's where they met -- Shelley or Jane can correct me if I'm wrong) and became good friends. They introduced Shelley and me to each other when we were in, I think, second grade; and we've been good friends ever since. How cool!

Late Spring

Here's another catch-up blog post with some pictures from late Spring before our Florida vacation. I'll do a vacation post soon, but Riley posted about our trip on his blog already.

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Our map with postcards from an unschoolers' postcard swap group we belong to

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This is a picture of the pond we started a several weeks ago. This makes me sad to look at. It is now overrun with algae, and I'm working on getting it back in balance. I feel like a goldfish slum lord!

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Riley -- excited about his tae kwon do red belt

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Maya stringing beads in her hair and on necklaces

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Riley and Maya trading and organizing Pokemon cards. This is a big interest at our house right now. The Friday morning before we left on vacation we set up a Pokemon/Yugioh park day with friends from our homeschool groups and had a blast. We're getting together again this Friday.

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Here is a 6 year old who *loves*and has available salty snacks, candy, ice cream, and McDonald's chicken nuggets and has free choice about what, when, and how much to eat and has some basic knowledge of nutrition freely and happily choosing to snack on a tub of plain organic mixed lettuces.

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A sweet moment: Riley had been playing outside on his scooter when he heard the garbage truck coming. He came in to get Seth, lover of big trucks, to come outside and watch together.

Everyday living and learning

Here are some of the twists and turns our lives (and learning) have taken over the last week:

Yugioh dueling/trading, Pokemon trading, organizing Pokemon card collection, listening to and singing the songs on our new Amy Steinberg CD (everyone should have the awesome experience of hearing their children belting out the words of her song Exactly), making and sculpting with homemade play dough, meeting new friends (including an unschooling family -- yay!), playing with old friends, watching the road crew/trucks resurface our street, Club Penguin, receiving postcards from unschoolers in other states and countries, Runescape, Webkinz, reading and looking at lots of picture books, drawing 8-point stars, drawing pictures of friends and family and trucks, solving for "x," squares and square roots, UNO, Karaoke Revolution on Playstation, tae kwon do, a new (to us) skatepark, a new (to us) playground, reading a flow chart, the Indianapolis Children's Museum, Letterboxing, learning to use a compass, tent caterpillars, Bhutan, the midnight premiere of Spiderman 3 (for Matt and Riley), and a matinee of Meet the Robinsons in 3D (for all of us).

Snapshots

At home:

Maya on the keyboard ; Seth watching the road crew

Around town:

Our first letterbox

From our trip to the Children's Museum of Indianapolis:

Sculpting a plastic version of Dale Chihuly's Fireworks of Glass

Building an ancient Egyptian town

Mayasaur nurturing her nest; Sethasaur on the prowl

More dinosaur play

In the Art Room

Peaking beneath the surface of the pond

Sethy was a race car driver...