Unschooling: photography project

Posted in it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

we did a pretty simple unschooling photography project last week. it involved hopping on the bike, handing the girl my very old digital camera that has kinda become hers, and asking her to take pictures of anything she sees that she finds interesting on our ride.

anyone want to take a guess at how many pictures she took of my butt? almost as many as she took of her fingers.

we ended up down at the gardens and she took some pics of vegetables as we wandered around identifying plants.

it was simple and fun and we were learning all along. she snapped pics of some arborists working on trees in the neighborhood so we talked about their job. she summed up their job like this to me “arborists are humans that take care of trees and cut off their branches when they get sick.” so i think some concrete ideas were planted. {pun! tree pun!}

we discussed photography and of course the gardens. i rewarded her with some ol’ fashioned playground time for being such a good pupil.

simple, fun and on her level.

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.

24Jun2013

unschooling: butter making

Posted in it's cool to school, Run Da House by ElaineMarie

if you read this blog regularly {which you should} you know that i talk about butter a lot. go ahead and type butter into that search box and just see what pops up. anyway, when i saw this simple butter making activity on five little homesteaders the other day i was like “e’rybody got time for that” and giddily went about buying heavy cream and it’s the first thing darla and i did together when she got back to our home. i really enjoyed making this with her and we used basically the same method again a few days later to make fresh whipped cream for our strawberry pickins. i don’t need to give you any instructions because you can just click on that link. actually, here are my instructions on how to make butter: CLICK ON THAT LINK.

the kitchen is one of our main unschooling areas. i’ve been moving towards making food stuffs from scratch and it’s been an important learning arena for all of us. i think it important to understand where are food comes from and how it is made.

i’d also like to note that we were also able to use the buttermilk to make biscuits and added a bit to our soup. it’s like a turn of the century kitchen up in there. i mean the century before this one. if i meant 2000 there would be a dusty bread machine in some corner. there’s not. just dusty corners.

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.

11Jun2013

Unschooling: The Grocery Store

Posted in it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

i‘m not going to lie to you, 10 minutes before these photos i was trying to negotiate my daughter into going to the playroom at the grocery store because, yeah obvious, but when you’re child answers “mom, i hate to say it but i don’t like kids’ activities” it’s hard to keep pushing. {or is it?}

so i tried one old tactic – bribing her to stay in the cart with a sucker – and then a new one: turning the trip into an unschooling exercise. so this is not anything new. groceries and markets have long been places of learning and exploration for little ones. i’m not tooting my horn about that, i’m simply here to tell you it worked. she stayed by me, she helped and she only asked for about 50 additional items which is a sharp decrease from her normal 200.

background info: darla will tell me to go eff myself if i try to encourage her to do something because it will make her a “good girl” but she’ll be right there if i am framing it as a need for a helper. {i’m thankful she’s given me these insights into how she would like to be raised along the way.} as my helper today she read all the PLU numbers to me while i wrote them on our reusable containers in the bulk section. she helped me locate items, dish them out into containers and we discussed how much each thing would cost per pound. in general we took a more in-depth look at our food items, discussing how they smelled and looked and felt. this directly resulted in us purchasing some peaches that darla rubbed against her face. can you blame her? cause, gawd, peaches feel so good!

i think her favorite learning point was the ginger root bin. she had picked out some crystalized ginger in the bulk section earlier, so it was a nice dot-connector to find and examine it in the raw.

i’m thankful for these new unschooling outlooks to outings. this plan might just keep me more calm + collected.

praying that i keep up the practice.

6Jun2013

unschooling field trip: park of roses

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

this is a series where i’m going to try to document our unschooling field trips for the summer, in which i will get lazy halfway through and fail at the documentation. sounds good.

we packed a lunch today and headed to the park of roses here in columbus. we take an annual trip up there to see the beauty in bloom. we spent a whopping 4 hours browsing the blooms and various growing things. the thing that suits me so well with unschooling is that with minimal planning darla and i filled 4 hours of our day with outdoor learning and guess what, at the end of it she took a nap. bam! that’s my kind of education.

we of course learned about roses and took time to smell the different kinds and examine their differences. i love to take her places where she can explore and be in charge of what we learn next. the most fortuitous learning discovery was the herb garden which provided plenty of horticultural information. after examining some of the herbs darla has requested we grow chamomile and chives so we’ll be researching those together tomorrow.

we brought along her nature journal and drew pics of our favorite roses. then she decided we were in a pyramid and the drawings would be gifts for the mummies. sure. fine. wherever her imagination wants to take it is good.

the day was relaxed and fun and i really feel we learned a good deal. and the thing is, we learned it together. and that’s what i keep coming back to with this unschooling thing. maybe i can do this after all.

we shall see.

20May2013

weekending: earthy

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

pairing the birthy and earthy has been a bit of a theme for me lately so let’s go with this.

our earthy part of the weekend was fulfilled by spending lots of time outdoors since the weather was amazeballs.

below you can see darla partaking in what started out as a backyard nature journal, turned watercolor backyard nature journal turned standard darla practice of painting herself blue. she painted our potted cherry tomato, our garden hose and outer space. since one of those is technically not in our backyard, and one of them is not really nature we’re going to have to work on this concept. but whatever. she done good.

photo F1E5130D-7DF2-45E1-87CD-042BFCEFA62B-15650-0000103BB9597FAB_zps00796ac6.jpg

photo 2DA9EEA8-89D7-4774-872B-56F9D704E270-15650-0000103BCE0FDCD6_zpsd1c8dff0.jpg

we took what is normally a 15 minute walk up to the ice cream shop and it somehow managed to take us a full 2 hours roundtrip. see her face? i’m such a mean mom to make her go get ice cream with me. right after this she started asking to be carried but we’ve been phasing that out. so we made a deal that we could just take our time and take a look at whatever we wanted along the way. {when i say “we made a deal” it means that she decided to stop whenever she wanted and i decided to deal with it } it’s really one of my favorite things to do with her to just go out and find what we can find. i’m happy to take advantage of the opportunities life gives me to slow down and do things like this with her, especially when there is ice cream at the end.

see:

speaking of the nature influence: jeni’s chamomile ice cream. oh. mah. gawd. i paired it with cloverton and it was divine. simply devine. i might need it daily.

hope your weekend was swell. xoxo.

17May2013

growing thingz

Posted in it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

one of the things i think darla and i share in common is that we are experiential learners. the best way for me to learn is to try my hand at something and to then take note of all my mistakes and make plans for improvements in future endeavors. i wish i could be a better direction follower and researcher but my most concrete lessons are always the ones i’ve had to teach and learn myself.

i feel this has been the biggest purpose of our larger scale garden this year. we’re learning side-by-side, a bit of unschooling for both of us. i love the fact that the gardening and planting has been something that darla has had a great deal of involvement with this time around. everything from running items to the composter, planting, watering, helping me to make a natural insecticide and even talking to the plants when they were little sproutlets in our house. i’m happy to have the help while i can before she becomes to grown-up to find the tasks fun anymore.

momma daughter field trip!

we took a field trip down to the public garden plots our neighborhood rents out to take a tour of what other folks are doing. we came a couple of times last year to look but this time we were able to talk a little more in-depth about growing techniques because both she and i have more knowledge.

i am reminded by these activities that everything is a learning experience for her right now. i am really looking forward to this summer, to get back to some of these free-wheeling learning expeditions. i’m always amazed by how much she already knows how to do for herself and i’m reminded that this learning happens from life and not from books. i pray the universe helps me remember this when conventional wisdom starts making me think that i should be pushing her into structured school and learning.

16May2013

done with school

Posted in it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

today was darla’s last day at school. she’s excited and ready to groove. see, she’s doing a victory dance in that first photo. and i got my obligatory shot with the school sign which turned out marginally better {or worse depending on your sense of humor} than the first day of school shot.

i was surprised by an uprising of emotion. don’t get me wrong, i’m an emotional junkie but i was not feeling sentimental about the last day of school until i picked her up. it hit me at once that we were finished with her first year of school. then the kicker was the surprise binder her school provided with moments from the year that were previously unknown to us. they took cute pictures showing how much they’ve grown and gained. darla has officially grown 3 inches and gained 4 pounds since september.

i can’t believe how cliché i feel at moments like these but it struck me how fast the year has gone by. i was reminded how different life was when she started the year. is it going to feel like this every year? someone please tell me. i’ve always been a nostalgic person, dreading the passing of time and i’m going to need to do some emotional calisthenics to get through the next 12 years if so.

see you next fall, school dayz.

oh and yes, those are darla’s pajamas she insisted on wearing to school. that was not an argument i was going to fight on the last day. you win, honey.

24Mar2013

MILESTONE MARKER: she spells poop

Posted in it's cool to school, parenting apparently? by ElaineMarie

as a fan of child-directed learning i’d like to take a post to commemorate the first word my daughter learned to read and spell on her own:

POOP.

D is 4 and in school so we’ve entered the phase of life where poop and pee and booty are funny words. you know that phase that starts at 4 and lasts the whole rest of your life? poop is funny always.

well, even though i’m trying to keep it real and be all “poop is cool” mom to her i have come up with a game that we play that i’m hoping will keep the potty mouth a little toned down in public. while i’m not the best example of a modest mouth {get it?} i would still like to raise her with an example that will at least leave it up to her own choice if she wants to go all surly and sailor mouth later on.

so we have a string of words that she’s allowed to use at home, whenever she wants and at any amount if she thinks it’s funny but only at home. we laugh about it and make up names like “poop lamp”, “fart table” , “tooty poopy chair poop.” all of those were actually said by her during our last sesh. the other morning she said “poop balloon” and since we happen to have balloons all over our floor {because our house is a magical circusland all the time} i wrote it on there and quizzed her to see if she knew how to spell it. she sounded it out, i wrote it, she read it and memorized it and can now recite it at any time. so now her vocabulary is up to two words, one of them being her own name.

with one post i just proved my brilliance as a parent and my daughter’s precocious reading aptitude that will surely take her all the way to the halls of harvard.

because poop is the equalizer, folks.