organizing and counting her change from her money bunny. this could be a picture of me from 25 years ago.
i’ve rebirthed myself.
i’ve discovered the secret to becoming immortal.
Tag Archives: unschooling
unschooling field trip: park of roses
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.
summer sun adventurez
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???
weekending: earthy
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.
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.
growing thingz
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.
MILESTONE MARKER: she spells poop
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.
^^^ the poop balloon ^^^
weekending
ahhhh yes. spring! we officially sprung forward around here so even though that equinox hasn’t made it official…it’s spring dangit. we made it outdoors for some activity this weekend. it was glorious.
after all my grumbling about not being able to take darla on a nature hike like a year ago at my parents’, i decided to go for it even though snow was still on the ground. because, why not? and i’m so glad we did. it was the perfect day for it. the skies were clear, sun bright, temps just warming up so we could sit and literally watch the snow melting off the trees into the creek:
we hiked over and examined rocks and the creek bed. we tossed sticks. rested on fallen logs and listened to the many birds. we guessed at animal tracks and got our boots muddy. we listened to the slow trickle of melting snow and the occasional plop of a big chunk as it fell into the creek. we basked in the greatness of my sycamores.
oh how i long for my indiana home.
donut chef
you might have guessed that we were obama people over here. we set off for a celebratory breakfast the morn of nov 7.
we’ve been reading a book that darla digs hard core called The Donut Chef this past week. she asked me what it meant when a donut is “glazed” and i was all “oh i will show you.” so we used nov 7 as an excuse to go get us some glaze at our favorite donut spot. seriously they are amazing. they have a breakfast sandwich on a donut and it’s phenom. phenom i tell ya.
just waiting for the day she says “mom, what’s a nutella crepe?”
local natives
i almost laugh when i look at these pics from our visit to the eiteljorg museum this past weekend while in indianapolis for my cousin’s wedding fest. you’d never tell by looking at them that we had a 3-year-old repeatedly telling us she wanted to “get out of here!” and throwing tantrums every 5 min. this is a visual example of how i have these expectations for how our excursions are going to go and then…someone has a breakdown.
it’s beyond my comprehension. i mean, i just don’t understand how someone could be upset in the presence of a tipi. i really don’t.
alas, the problem turned out to be a blood sugar one. it’s pretty nice to have a child that can tell you what is troubling her now. and i’ll tell you what. those tantrums were worth the half a beef taco i got to scarf down as a result. eiteljorg! them’s some tasty bites!
we lucked out because the museum was holding dia de los muertos (cousin and i agree this is the coolest holiday all year) activities for the day. we sat in on different dance troupes performing traditional dances from dia de los muertos celebrations throughout mexico. it was soooooo cool. darla even got up enough nerve to jump in and participate. imagine that.
so, even if we did deal with some slight attitude and darla’s unwillingness to participate in the family photo ( see below ) it was still a winner of a day. look….there was basket weaving! and babywearing! darla and i got to practice wrapping up a baby bundle for a cradleboard carrier. i wish i had thought to take a picture. i think i may just opt for a finely beaded baby carrier next time :)
and really, REALLY, any day that results in darla taking a little nappy-poo is golden in my book. she napped and had a grand time on the dance floor at cousin’s wedding. it was a good day.
a wonder wander
i much prefer a nice stroll in the woods over any other activity with my girl. after a picnic lunch at their pondside wildlife observation deck we took our apples and went for a walk in sodalis nature park.
i love the way her imagination has the freedom to expand when there are few parameters. we walked along the trail, singing various songs, clearing sticks off the trail and using the sticks to build various projects darla dreamed up. i loved watching her excitement as she found red leaves and exclaimed “i found the first leaf of autumn!” or when she found large rocks to climb and jump off.
i’m looking forward to a whole season of these nature walks.
momjeanz 