unschooling: ohio historical society indoor session

Posted in it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

darla,

i’m going to begin this post with a pun. brace yourself.

i can really see myself in that vintage airstream.

oh gosh that’s good. you’re probably embarrassed now that you’re reading that.

but as a matter of fact i can see myself in that vintage bathing suit too. and in that vanity. wait, that’s you. i can see you in that vanity. but i can also see myself and envision a life buzzing about the sweet 50s modular home we toured at the ohio historical society last week. why was i born into the wrong decade?

i guess it’s because i was born when i was so i could birth you at the time you were born and everything is right as it should be. but i’ve never felt very attached to this time period. i’m nostalgic for things i never even experienced. this is weird. don’t be this way when you grow up.

anyway, i want you to know how much i enjoyed this day with you. there was so much to take in at the historical society. i loved watching you check out the 1950s home. i loved the somewhat disturbingly detailed scenario you were making up about it being your house as we went through. it’s pretty rad the entire exhibit was so interactive. at least i think it was…maybe we weren’t supposed to touch things, play with toys and put on clothes…but we did. i wonder if you’ll remember this day. can you stop whatever hover activity you’re doing right now as you read this and come tell me if you remember this day? thanks.

this is just half of the day. we spent the afternoon outside and i’ll post that for you separately. and one last thing, since a future you is reading this, i hope you will have good news for me that i somehow managed to acquire that bathing suit and airstream from the past. i’m assuming there’s time travel. actually, this blog is a portal.

13Aug2013

unschooling: the audubon center

Posted in it's cool to school by ElaineMarie

darla,

one of the things i struggle with the most with unschooling is feeling the self-imposed pressure to see that you squeeze every ounce of information from the great resources we have available for free in our world. i often have to stop myself and ask is she enjoying this right now? if she’s enjoying it then she is learning. if she’s not then she is reciting information to pacify me.

this was my struggle when we returned to the audubon center last week. our last trip here was on a monday when the center is not open. i actually love breaking this park up into an indoor/outdoor experience. there is just too much to experience to fit it all in on one day. but you had been asking to return on a day when the center was open ever since so that’s what we did.

you seemed to breeze past all the things i wanted you to explore at first. i could feel myself switching into control mode and i had to take a deep breath and let it go. you really wanted to play dress up in the animal outfits. me thinks those outfits are the whole reason you’ve been asking to come back. once i reminded myself that you are learning by playing i was able to incorporate some substantial information into our play. eventually you became curious and wanted to put a little more effort into fact-finding. we spent a few good hours there playing, looking at exhibits and lunching while reading books about caterpillars and butterflies in the bird-watching library.

i will have to remember that sometimes you’re going to be locked in and intent on information intake like when we went to blacklick and sometimes you’re just going to want to put on a bird costume and run around. both are valid and important. sometimes you’re going to want to read a book and sometimes you will want to veg in front of a movie. both are valid and important.

i want this to be fun for you. i want you to know that the whole world is yours to learn from. it’s there for the taking. i know i need to put the work into myself to remove the expectations i have so that this can be fun for both of us. let’s have an adventure together. let’s let it last all our days.

ps. plus when i let you do what you want it often looks like this

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.

3Jul2013

unschooling: cherry picking

Posted in daily moment, it's cool to school, kiddie-do by ElaineMarie

we had cherry trees growing up. i used to sit in them for hours and eat sun-ripened tart cherries by the handful. i jumped on the chance to take darla cherry picking this week. if the trees hadn’t belonged to someone else I would have let her climb on up so i could look back on myself as a kid because i’ve somehow figured out a way to reincarnate myself before i’m even dead.

we compared the difference between picking cherries and strawberries and just had nice conversations about the orchards. darla was more interested in meeting new people so i let her do her thing, reminding myself that it’s important she learn from others. it’s always fun to sit back and listen to her discussions with other kids and grown-ups. it’s a built-in assessment opportunity.

and who can pass up the opportunity to have fresh cherries for 4th of july? hello cherry cobbler. darla requested we make some cherry jam b/c our strawberry jam is flying out of the fridge and into our mouths at an amazing pace. i’m also thinking of trying to dry some using the car window method.

one thing is for sure, we’re hooked on these food field trips. i can’t wait for black raspberries!

thanks for checking in on our latest unschooling efforts.

1Jul2013

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.

29May2013

summer sun adventurez

Posted in familyness, kiddie-do by ElaineMarie

am i correct that memorial day weekend is the kick-off to summer? it is in my brainz. since we spent today at the pool i’m going to go with yes.

warm weather means a lot of activity, right? i’ve made it a habit in the summers to make a list of adventure destinations for darla and i for the mornings when i know we need to get out and about but i’m drawing a blank. i’m planning lots and lots of outdoor exploration.

i’m a big believer in filling my child’s life with experiences. i just want the summer time to be about adventure and exploration, loose bedtimes, walking barefoot and watching out for bumblebees. i want firefly catching and wading in the creek up to our knees. i want pies and watermelon smiles. and i want music and dancing and sleeping outside to watch the meteor showers. i want trips and camping and staying up late to tell spooky stories which darla will insist upon.

does that sound good?

well, this is the beginning of my list. i hope to add some new destinations because i know novelty was always a big learning opportunity for me. i feel like there’s a lot of this big state we haven’t discovered yet.

any fun suggestions for outdoor stuff out there???

23May2013

daily moment

Posted in daily moment, kiddie-do by ElaineMarie

concentrate on this painting. say it with me: concentrate on this painting.

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.

momjeanz

Tag Archives: unschool

unschooling: ohio historical society indoor session

unschooling: the audubon center

unschooling: mythological creatures park

unschooling: cherry picking

Unschooling: photography project

unschooling: strawberry picking

unschooling: butter making

summer sun adventurez

daily moment

growing thingz