weekending

Posted in advantageous adventures, familyness, i dig music by ElaineMarie

this says weekending but it’s really just our friday night down at the commons for nick tolford & co. i’m telling you all, keep an eye on this band. we have seen them a couple of times this summer and they are so fun. mr. tolford’s tunes are a rumpus for my rump.

doesn’t this outing look like a good time? IT WAS! i fall more and more in love with the commons each time we go there. maybe because it’s another place where darla’s craziness doesn’t have to be contained as much. she can chase dogs and run around to her heart’s content. the set up makes it very easy for us to enjoy tunes with her. and who doesn’t love carousel rides and jeni’s push pops?

and i get to admire the large groups of friends that gather there and try to come up with strategies to make them all my friends…or clients. i see a lot of pregnant ladies down there and i’m still working up the courage to walk up and hand out a card. i’ve only done it a few times. do you think that would be received well? i’m thinking i need to have a conversation with a long-time doula about their experience with this approach. i generally like to let couples/mommas find me but maybe having a little more courage would do me a world of good.

something to think about.

so what about the rest of our weekend? we had a rainy saturday morning getting stuff done around the house, attended a friend’s birthday where darla stayed up way too late but it was all worth it because we got to watch her rap battle with a 35 grown male, a sunday pancake breakfast, a bit of work, enjoying the beautiful weather and extra books at bedtime.

i love you weekend.

25Jul2013

unschooling: wind and solar energy

Posted in advantageous adventures, it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

more unschooling from last week. yay!!! it started out as a venture to a local farm for BLACK RASPBERRIES. YES THIS IS IN CAPS AND READS LIKE I AM SHOUTING AND IT’S BECAUSE I’M SHOUTING. I LOVE LOVE LOVE BLACK RASPBERRIES. THEY ARE MY CHILDHOOD ENCAPSULATED IN FOOD FORM.

let’s move on just as we moved on to glacier metro park. we enjoyed an absolutely delicious lunch of peaches, black raspberries and blueberries then wandered around until we discovered the wind & solar energy station. the park has interactive tools darla had an enthusiasm explosion over. this was one of those outings where i was spewing information and what darla took out of it was “the sun is hot and the breeze is mother nature’s breath.” not quite what i was saying but i’ll take it.

and then something happened that made me think maybe she does listen to me every once in a while…

while she was cranking the turbine she started talking about how her energy is a renewable energy source!!!

she gets it. she has learned from this lifestyle of riding bikes, and walking, and using your own energy to accomplish something that humans have a vast resource of energy available and it is ourselves.

and this has me thinking:

we have millions of americans in gyms because our society is so sedentary now that we can’t keep weight off our bodies. we also have an energy crisis. how, HOW!?, has no one yet invented a gym where members get on machines and create an energy source instead of getting on machines that use energy. like a reverse treadmill. i’ve seen it at festivals: get on this bike and charge your phone sort of thing. can someone invent a gym that does that?

should i be typing this here? i mean i don’t even have a copyright on this website yet. who do i talk to about this?

i’m sure it has something to do with working out who “owns” the energy and how to disperse it blah blah blah but i used to be at the gym and just feel so bad about all the electricity being used up for people to “work out” when the answer might be as simple as riding your bike or walking to your destinations.

i better stop now before this post turns into rant status but in conclusion, i think she and i are both learning as we move through this together and that’s all that matters.

*yes, i realize she doesn’t have her top on. no, i do not care. she’s 4 and black raspberry stains do not come out, people. if your child says “i’m hot can i take my shirt off” while she’s eating black raspberries you say yes.

24Jul2013

unschooling: nature walk

Posted in advantageous adventures, it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

you know what i love about unschooling? everything! but one of the facets that suits my personality is that it can be a spur-of-the-moment idea. it can be a moment where you decide to pull the car over to take a walk in that park you’ve been meaning to for years.

unschooling last week included a trip to the smith nature park. this was a great, small little bit of woodland nestled into suburbia. we spent about 30 minutes here walking trails and creek gazing. it’s small enough to let darla be trail leader and big enough to make her feel like she’s a real hot-shot while doing so.

here’s darla’s summary of surroundings for her nature journal that day:

green plants. black trees. red trash. different kinds of rocks. it’s cool and hyperllenic. that means freshwater. is bacteria a parasite?

hyperllenic does not mean freshwater. it’s a word she made up. at least i think. hold on. yep, she made it up.

picture summary:

1. self-explanatory

2. here’s me trying to revisit the concept of trees adding rings as they grow and examining this cross-section with her but instead she’s interested in these little balls she found which i think might have been some kind of pest repellent. sometimes this is just about me hearing myself talk, i think.

3. woods wedgie!! had. to. include.

4. is a pic of my feet is to show you all how idyllic and serene my life is. i’m just sitting next to creeks all the time gazing prolifically at my thrifted grannie shoes while darla yells requests to get in the creek and fish out trash at me. such a lush, verdant life i lead here by this creek.

in seriousness, our unschooling has provided a lot of peace and serenity in my life and i believe in darla’s. i feel spending time exploring the great wild world is so important. i hope she will remember these days all her life. i hope this will be a foundation for her to have a connection to the earth and find a way to live in harmony with her surroundings. the saying goes: children can’t learn to respect nature if they don’t spend any time in it.

thanks for checking in on our unschooling today.

ps. the ua parks department has this nifty little handout on the web for printing. this would have been a nice resource had i researched before and not stopped in on a whim. next time, i guess.

23Jul2013

unschooling: Scioto Audubon Park & Sanctuary

Posted in advantageous adventures, it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

this is my kind of classroom.

one of our unschooling field trips from last week was an old favorite, the scioto audubon park. we picked up this fantastic book at the library a few weeks back. the book highlights nature happenings per month. july’s page discusses animal and plant life at freshwater sources and my mind went immediately to the scioto audubon park. this park boast a river view, freshwater ponds as well as wetlands. we formed a plan of comparing page to real life and that’s what we did. i brought the book along with darla’s nature journal. we did a collaborative drawing of the river and darla chose to draw a turtle for herself. here’s her entry as she dictated to me:

it looks like dirty water that turtles swim in. it looks like they love the water. spiders live here, too. they make interesting webs and catch flies and i don’t like it one bit. the end. by darla. write my name.

15Jul2013

is this day camp?

Posted in advantageous adventures, it's cool to school, Kiddie Hangouts by ElaineMarie

no. no it’s not. well, it was for someone else’s kids. we just swooped in after the camp kids went to lunch and played all up in that shizz.

i promise this looks more peaceful and idyllic than it was. there were various gradients of dirt play with darla leading the pack in no shoes and worm wrangling. there were various gradients of child breakdowns with darla being the leader in that category, also.

but i got to hang out with two babies i saw borned of this world and i already mentioned that it turned out pretty in pictures. as long as my life looks good then i’m not really to hung up on the rest…

i just want to pause and mention how happy i am with the free-wheeling, unschool summer we’ve been having. even though the day was somewhat of an emotional failure i still walked away feeling accomplished, secure in the thought that my girl had learned and enjoyed and i really had a good time in the midst of the choas of 6 children. i just want to extend summer for all the days and explore our world. this city has an amazing parks system and i’ve got my sights set on experiencing some new places with my girl.

can it be summer camp forever???

13Jul2013

unschooling: mythological creatures park

Posted in advantageous adventures, it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

if you follow this blog religiously, like you all do, then you know that we { read that as I } have a soft spot for the mythological creatures fountain near the santa maria. it has some official name but i don’t know it. we packed a picnic lunch and spent some time reading, relaxing and building houses for ants.

first, i must tell you: i made the most bomb ass peanut butter sandwiches. they were fresh honey roasted peanut butter with some of our fresh strawberry preserves. i took that picture to commemorate it here forever.

darla ran around the park for a while, then ate and ignored me while I was all crazy and trying to read books to her. she was too busy making “creations” of paper dolls and building houses for ants. i eventually scrapped the books and helped her build her ant homes. it was a smart move to flow where her natural interests were at the moment. i showed her how to make a cube and we had a nice discussion about that. we spent some time looking at the santa maria, talking about boats and portugal and chistopher columbus.

i’ll always remember this unschooling outing as it was the last we’ll have on RuJu. we also learned a valuable lesson about bike thievery while downtown. this is one of those moments that i wish this blog was famous and some bike company would swoop in with a sponsorship opportunity and give me a new one…but no. we’ll get it worked out somehow on our own.

but really that bike sponsorship thing would be handy. can someone work on that?

anyway, thanks for checking in on our unschooling adventures.

8Jul2013

learning to bowl

Posted in advantageous adventures, familyness by ElaineMarie

we took darla bowling for the first time this past weekend. the first two pics are the difference between the beginning of the night and the end. there was a marked difference in her attitude by the conclusion of the night. it probably had something to do with the fact that she beat me in bowling. legitimately beat me in our second game. the turning point of the outing was when she got her shoes. can’t say i blame her. bowling shoes are oddly awesome.

so, i’m experiencing millions of rifts in the time continuum with my daughter. taking her bowling at 4.5 is exactly like taking me bowling at that age. my grandfather used to take me and i remember my actions being identical to that of darla’s: not caring about the bowling but doing a cartwheel after every turn and being more interested in the arcade games than the bowling. she even focused on the exact same arcade game that was my white whale during the bowling trips. i am speaking of the tantalizing coin push game that promises piles of money will be dropped into your had if your inserted coin falls in the right spot. yes.

i loved the outing even if I did lose to a 4yo. i’m not sweating it because i know she cheated and had my game rigged. i think she may have mob connections.

take a look at that last pic and tell me that’s not the face of a maniacal cheater.

26Jun2013

unschooling: strawberry picking

Posted in advantageous adventures, it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

last week darla and i went strawberry picking as one of our unschooling field trips. it was the first day of summer and let me tell you strawberry pickin’ is just about the best thing to do for the first day of summer. she and i spent a little less than an hour hauling in some sweetness and in that time we discussed attributes of the strawberry plant such as they seeds on the outside of the berry, the berries growing on the underneath side of the plant and the runners the plants send out. after that we discussed the principles of a market and how the price of things at a market or grocery store reflect the work of others to pick and transport. darla said “i prefer to pick them myself and do my own work because they taste so much better that way.” this means she gets it. this also means i let her eat berries in the field. oops.

the unschooling continued at home as we took on projects in the kitchen such as strawberry preserves, strawberry syrup from the discarded tops, strawberry cornbread muffins and fresh whipped cream for some snacking once we immediately brought them home.

you can check back in with us throughout the summer for more pickin’ field trips. I do believe July is when the black raspberries come in season and thems my favorite.

21Jun2013

daily moment

Posted in advantageous adventures, daily moment by ElaineMarie

we’re going to go with that sweet top picture as my daily moment since i didn’t actually snap any pics of darla barking like a seal and scaring a whole camp of handicapable children on their outing.

and those others are just thrown in there as if to say “weeeeee! this manmade beach is so fun. join us. c’mon!”

and it was fun. even if the beach was more the consistency of cat litter than sand. it’s ok. if i close my eyes, stay only on my towel and pretend the redneck yelling is really the sound of the waves IT’S JUST LIKE THE BEACH.

maybe like a mississippi beach.

20Jun2013

Impromptu Unschooling: Buck Creek State Park

Posted in advantageous adventures, it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

yesterday was a simple, fantastic day. it was a beautiful day for a drive. i love to be on the road. when i read Lolita i actually loved the thought of traveling the US and pulling off at all the brown signs, every roadside attraction. it seemed like such a great way to see the beauty of this country. the rest of the book…not so much.

so this summer i’ve made a promise to myself to see more of ohio in just that way. while driving home from Dayton we decided on the spur of the moment to investigate Buck Creek State Park and we found a beach! sure it’s a little man-made beach that we get here in the middle west but it served as a great unschooling opportunity.

we talked about rocks we found, counted boats, talked with other folks and even examined a dead fish washed up on the shore. i had to squash my conventional instincts of telling darla to get far away from it and not look but i reminded myself it was a teachable moment. we talked about what kind of fish it was and talked about having respect for deceased life.

darla befriended some older kids who were digging a castle and moat. some kids were digging and some were hauling water. i sat down with them and darla and pointed out the similarities between the sand structure and the man-made lake and then explained to them that the lake was made in almost the exact same way that they were constructing their castle moat. it was great to see how proud that made them of their work.

all in all it was a really great way to spend a perfect sunny day. we weren’t prepared for swimming so we’re headed to a closer lake today per darla’s request.

if you’re skeptically sitting there saying “it sounds like this unschooling stuff is just elaine taking her daughter places and then talking to her about it” then you got me. you’re exactly right. since this is the way my daughter has learned everything in her life thus far i don’t see any reason to change things up and make her memorize or take place in structured activities. maybe someday. but not today. and ummm not yesterday either.

momjeanz

Category Archives: advantageous adventures

weekending

unschooling: wind and solar energy

unschooling: nature walk

unschooling: Scioto Audubon Park & Sanctuary

is this day camp?

unschooling: mythological creatures park

learning to bowl

unschooling: strawberry picking

daily moment

Impromptu Unschooling: Buck Creek State Park