First clear day

On Sunday we had our first clear day in I don't know how long.  I can't remember the last time I saw a sky that blue, but we spent almost every minute of it outside soaking up the sunshine.  It was such a welcome change that the kids immediately lost their shoes and socks.  At one point I discovered Moonshine hanging from a tree in only a t-shirt and shorts, while Sunburst announced that it felt like January in Arizona.

Einstein and I made the best of it by getting to some much needed yardwork-- the final layer of autumn leaves that we never quite got around to and cutting back everything that had died in the icy winter.  It wasn't long before the kids climbed down from the trees to help us, and then everyone went back to playing.

Kitty Bill was delighted that the pond in our garden had thawed so he could sail his wooden boat.  To his delight there was something moving in the pond. (Click to make them larger.)

In all fairness, Einstein discovered them first and later scooped out a few eggs to show the kids.  The green stuff is duckweed.  The kids each thumbed through the field guide and independently decided that our pond friends are called common frogs.

Later, we sat around burning stuff with magnifying glasses, because... isn't that what everyone does? Who knows when our next clear day will come again.

Long, toxic day

I had hoped to blog a pile of backlogged stuff today. I had also hoped to teach today. None of those things came to fruition. Today we woke to the banging of pipes before our house filled up with smoke and I had to load the kids, rats, and birds into the car and leave. We didn't actually go anywhere, just down the road a bit. Where can you go with a car full of caged pets? Nowhere, really... well, maybe Petsmart. But no, not in Switzerland.

My house was pretty toxic for hours. The workers claimed to be cleaning the boiler or something to that effect in an apologetic broken mixture of English, French, and German. All I know is that it was awful, and so we sat around in the car reading and knitting. It was cold and overcast, so when the sun finally came out the kids ran around and visited the horses. I made trips back to the house to open windows and turn on fans and forage quickly for snacks. I ended up with an insane headache in the process, but by three o'clock the air and smell had cleared enough for us to bring the pets back inside and have lunch. And by then I was too exhausted to do anything.

I had such fun lessons planned for the day... but this is the kind of curve ball that life throws sometimes. Homeschooling is never separate from life. Imagine the kinds of things kids can learn from strange situations like this. Had they been in school, they would have missed the whole thing.

Instead, they learned about the dangers of smoke inhalation, engaged in a discussion about carbon monoxide, and while we've never talked about fire drills, they got to experience one without all the bells and whistles. (Note to self: check batteries in smoke alarms.) And what a surprise that my children can actually put their shoes on and get outside quickly. Some days have left me wondering about that, but now I really know it's possible.

While we were parked down the road the kids watched a horse being trained. They deepened their friendship with the woman who works with horses. Now that their German has improved she appears to be friendlier with them (and me, too). She met the rats and gave us a free outdoor cage for them, and then invited the kids to help groom the horses. Finally befriending this woman, after trying for one year, was a very big deal.

Our local homeschooling friend showed up around 2pm (there is only one other homeschooling family in our state), and she brought me an essential oil mix that I could drink for my fierce headache. I have never actually imbibed essential oils before, so that was pretty strange but also wonderful. I'm looking forward to buying some at the store next time I go to town.

We also learned the German word for parakeet - Wellensittich - and the German word for carbon monoxide detector - Kohlenmonoxid Detektor. We made a cursory search for one awhile back, but we've never been able to find them in the stores here like you can in the US. Now that I know what it's called... maybe that will help, because I think we really shouldn't go another day without one, especially since the oil boiler lives under our daughter's bedroom. And today we learned just how paper thin our floors and walls really are.

Long, toxic day. Thank goodness for unschooling. We learned so much.

Recipe for trouble

2 rats + me = asthma

Sadly, it's true. It has turned out that my seriously bad Spring allergies this year are not actually Spring related. These sweet little rats are causing me all sorts of grief. We're at the point where any contact with the rats (or being in proximity to anything/anyone who has touched a rat) sends me into fits of coughing and wheezing.

This was not what any of us had bargained for.

It's still cold and raining, putting a hiatus on most of our outdoor lesson plans... so our focus has now shifted to allergy containment. Sunburst is pretty upset about the whole thing, as you can imagine. This morning we went around the breakfast table making a list of possible ideas for ways to remedy the rat-allergy situation. One of the kids suggested a solar-powered venting fan. Kitty Bill thought a hermetically-sealed, outdoor, rock cage might do the trick.

While not feasible ideas, they sure are interesting... which makes for a whole new range of homeschooling questions. How could one build a solar-powered venting fan? What's the range of temperature change from one area of a room to another, or one floor of the house to another? And what is an allergic reaction anyway? Is it fair to hermetically seal a rat's cage? And do they make plastic bubbles for people like mom?

The question-making is tireless. Can the same be said for my ability to breathe? Stay tuned.

Summer math

Sunburst announced a math problem at breakfast this morning. She needed to know what one year divided by 7 was. She started counting it out with her Organic Rice Crispies and she discovered many things, but not the answer to her query.

It turns out what she really wanted to know was when her newest little friend, Bart, would be turning one. In horse years.

Another fine unschooling moment.

Unschool Zoo

This week two things became vastly apparent:

1. Unschooling is a force to be reckoned with.
2. Animals are curious, amazing creatures.

Freedom and the cat
Our cat Holstein is an Unschooler. He's determined to teach himself things.

Our week began with Holstein, that crazy cat of ours, getting in trouble with yet another neighbor for preying on birds in her yard. It's not his fault entirely, it was that terrible hailstorm in Texas that whacked dozens of birds out of the trees as well as the siding off our house, and helped Holstein remember his true catlike nature and develop a taste for critters. Hailstorms are sometimes called an "Act of God," and with this in mind, perhaps there is a greater plan at work on the cat? I keep waiting for it, but in the meantime we decided to bring him inside the house after a brief deworming period locked up in the laundry room.

On Holstein's first night in captivity, he escaped, or rather he was sprung by a band of raccoons. They broke into the laundry room again, completely busting the lock off the cat door, and letting Holstein out in the process. He promptly returned the next morning, and we locked him up again, fixing the cat door and remembering to pull the storm door shut tight.

A main key to unleashing the amazing power of Unschooling is exposure to the possibilities. If you pay attention well enough, you'll begin to see possibilities everywhere.

The following morning I was prepared to let him inside the house, but he was nowhere to be found. The lock on the cat door was now open and yet the storm door was still shut tight. The food dish was full, so we had not had a raccoon visitation. Very curious. Later in the day, after Holstein had returned for a snack, I locked him up again.

There is an old saying that holds, "We are each teacher and student." In this case, Holstein had been learning lock-picking from the raccoons. As soon as I left the room he unlocked the cat door, squeezed himself out between the two doors and somehow, God only knows, managed to climb up the storm door, reach the handle, and fling himself towards freedom. Our cat can open doors! He wants to be free!
Insectivores and what they eatBetween our readings of The Far Side of the Loch and my niece's blog of life in France, Sunburst has been very interested in the idea of hedgehogs as pets. She looked them up in our Encyclopedia of Mammals and read for awhile. There are several different types of hedgehogs, they have wild skeletal systems that enable them to fold up, and they don't live anywhere close to us, either in North or South America. She desperately wants one for a pet, but unless we get a job overseas, she's out of luck. However, they are in the order Insectivora, and thus, are related to shrews.

We do have shrews here. So many shrews, in fact, that the same neighbor who was irked about our cat Holstein, said she would prefer it if he caught only the shrews and left the birds alone. Obviously the cat isn't willing to sign a treaty or anything, but it did peak a curiosity in shrews. We don't want our cat to harm any living creature, really, but what makes a shrew's life less worthy than a bird's to our neighbor? They both serve the greater good by eating insects, don't they? We read until we found a possible point of contention.

Refection.

Yes, unfortunately our book even had a picture. Apparently shrews do quite a bit of rectum-licking to absorb lost nutrients. Never in my wildest homeschooling dreams did I forsee a discussion about rectum-licking, anal tissues, and creamy anal secretions. Digestion and absorption, yes, but not in regards to the great world of nutrients contained in feces. Mmmmm-mmmm.
Pigs: to rot or not?
"What exactly is pepperoni?" We were snacking on leftover pizza slathered in artichoke hearts and pineapple, no pepperoni in sight, when Sunburst threw this question on the table. The simple reply of "spicy sausage" did nothing for her. From pepperoni she branched out to other pork products-- ham, bacon, hot dogs, pig ears at the pet store.

We talked about preservatives, since in this country all those things are kept from rotting by either drying, as for pig ears, or the application of chemicals, mainly sodium nitrate. My kids are fascinated by the idea that as a child I couldn't eat most meat products because of an allergy to sodium nitrate. I get wicked migraines from it, and it shouldn't be a surprise to my parents that I find it easier to avoid these migraines by being vegan.

This conversation took us into a lengthy discussion on fresh vs. cured, animal husbandry, history, shipping, commodities, and consumer choices. Is there such a thing as asking too many questions? Sometimes I wonder.

Playing with vomit
Yesterday Sunburst carried out her latest McGuffey Reader and asked if we could play "school." She taught herself to read using the beginner book of this series written in the 1870's, Primer Reader, and has, of her own volition, managed to work through the First Reader and almost to the end of the Second Reader. She can read anything at this point, but she's bound and determined to get through the entire set. There are seven in all.

Playing "school" with these Readers means that she wants to play school as it were in the 1880's. Go ahead, I told her, and she began her recitation of the particular lesson, remembering to read it slowly and enunciate. The story was about an owl that some children had taken from its roost during the day, when owls are nearly blind, and included a host of interesting owl observations ending with an owl's ability to eat an animal whole, digest the fleshy bits, and regurgitate a compact ball of fur and bones. I'll give these readers one thing, they never fail to peak a child's interest.

Our 1880's school concluded on that note, and Sunburst compelled me to tell her everything I knew about owl pellets and my experience with them. She was enthralled with the idea that she could dissect one, too. My public school education didn't broach this subject until Grade 9 when my interest in the natural habits of animals had been usurped by my interest in the natural habits of boys. It took me about two seconds to conclude that wiring a child for scientific inquiry is probably easier before the onset of puberty, and I headed to the computer to search out information on ordering owl pellets.

I found them HERE. On a different site we read all the interesting information on pellets, learned that other birds make them too, and could hardly contain our excitement when we discovered the virtual pellet dissection opportunity. We spent quite a bit of time checking out every clickable thing on the site, and from THIS page you can look inside the pellets of different birds and see what was for dinner, including a fact-filled question and answer segment to help you hone your scientific mind.

* * *

I'm learning to expect the unexpected when it comes to homeschooling and really just go with the flow of interest and see where it takes us. In this, Sunburst isn't any different from our door-opening cat. She wants to be free. Free to ask questions. Free to partake in new experiences, new adventures-- and free to learn. Free to have fun with learning.

Amen to that.

From Aesops to Zappa

Today we headed over to Einstein's office to pick up some paperwork before we headed over to have a little stroll at a nearby pond. While we were there, admiring the piles on his desk, Sunburst noticed our copy of Aesop's Fables Coloring Album by Brad Foster. It's an old book with exquisite celtic-like drawings, and rather than let the kids go to town on the book, he had taken it to work to make xeroxes for them to color.

In the past Sunburst hasn't noticed the text that accompanied each drawing, but today she picked right up on it. I diverted her attention from the book several times, having only gotten halfway through my reading of The Fables of Aesop, in preparation for her Grade 2 lessons. I wasn't even sure how I was going to present these fables yet, but my lack of preparation is no match for Sunburst's curiosity. While I was taking four-year-old Moonshine to the bathroom, Sunburst had pulled the book back out and started a discourse with Einstein on at least two of the stories.

I was a bit miffed, though whether it was at my own lack of forsight and preparation or something else entirely, I don't know. But I'm entirely open to suggestions from beyond, and once I got over being miffed, I realized that maybe, just maybe this is my universal kick in the pants to go ahead with these fables now-- one of those 'Start where you are' type of messages.

With Aesop's in tow, we pressed on towards the pond which was enveloped in a huge cloud of mist. On such a hot day as this, I assumed it was just moisture in the air, excessive evaporation off the pond. As we neared it, a gassy fog stopped us in our tracks. The air hung thick with chlorine. At least I'm assuming it was chlorine, as there were no warning signs posted. It was noxious and frightening how it just loomed in the air like that, and we beat a hasty retreat away from the pond.

In our retreat, we stumbled into an art museum. It was open and air-conditioned. Small kids in an art museum is kind of an oxymoron, and as far as morons go, well, I've played that bit before. Can anyone say organ recital? In a museum you're also supposed to be quiet and not touch anything. Surely this endeavor was not for the faint of heart. Bravely, we pushed open the doors and dragged our wilting bodies inside. It was cool and colorful and surprisingly, we all had a great time.

We managed to meander through two galleries. The first was full of ancient horse art, and the second was a mixed bag that spanned early jewelry, carvings and gospel paintings all the way through Dadaism and more modern creations. It was interesting to me to see what the kids picked up on.

Sunburst looked at everything and had more questions than we could answer. Really, some of the paintings took us places I wouldn't have elected for us to go yet. "Who is that man covered in blood and why are they beating him with big sticks?" "What's happening in this picture?" Was asked about a painting of two women in front of a bed with the headless body of a man prostrate on the bed behind them. Veins and blood were spewing from his neck. It was lovely, and very, very old. "What's going on there?" Was asked about a huge painting of St. Christopher bearing the Christ child on his back... yes. Another lesson I was planning on presenting this Fall. Curious thing, that. And I have to wonder if there is a message in this for me.

Why am I waiting for Fall? Be here. Be here now. Teach this? Teach this... now?

Moonshine had her own kinds of questions. "Who's the mommy in this picture?" "Is that a boy or a girl?" "Was Jesus a girl?" and "Is that lipstick?"

Perhaps the most amusing question of the exhibit was when we discovered the found art of Marcel Duchamp, including a "What's that?" aimed at his most famous and controversial piece, entitled The Fountain-- a men's urinal turned on its side, signed R. Mutt, 1917.




We saw a real, live Picasso painting.



and even a painting by Diego Rivera. So many lovely, lovely ways of looking at the world and making sense of it. We should really do this more often.

At the end of our tour, I asked the girls what their favorite pieces were. I thought it would be interesting to chronicle their tastes as they grow, and glean some more insight into who they are. Sunburst had two favorites: a 14th century French sculpture of a King's Head and a display of Slinkies wrapped in red yarn, Floor Slinky: Thirty-two Elements by Claire Z. 1971. When asked to expound on her reasons for choosing them, she said things like "pretty, cool, and weird." I tend to agree.




Moonshine liked the old jewelry best. Of course.




We rounded out our adventure with dinner at an artsy food joint. The walls were filled with random found toy art arrangements and a Frank Zappa room. The girls each noticed different Frank paintings* that were Picasso-like.



From A-Z, Aesops to Frank Zappa, all in one day!

After dunking our souls in all this artistic expression, it seems only right that we should drag out our paints and canvases and DO SOMETHING. It's time to breathe out.


*Frank Zappa paintings by Joel Washington.

Be sure to check out Your Daily Art -- an artful blog. Goes well with vitamins.

World Cup Geography

Our lives have recently become ruled by the World Cup soccer tournament. Einstein has been watching them faithfully at a local restaurant and keeping our family apprised of all newsworthy goals, wins, and red cards. I no longer ask him about meetings for the day ahead, instead I ask, "Who's playing tomorrow?"

Sunburst has been really interested in all this soccer talk. One day he took her along to watch one of the games, Portugal vs. Netherlands, and she came back with her eyes alight with the wonder of learning something new. After bringing me up to date on all the scoring, she and Einstein went out back and kicked a soccer ball around.

Today the whole family loaded up and headed over to join Einstein for the second half of Brazil vs. Ghana. Einstein used to live in Ghana, so of course our family cheered them on. I was surprised how friendly the Ghanain team was... helping the other team's players up, rubbing their heads, hugging them, smiling. They lost the game, 0 to 3, but what sportsmanship!

All this talk of other countries and teams has ignited a curiousity in Sunburst. She wants to know more. Who are these people? What are they like? Where exactly is Portugal? I think by watching these games she was touched with a larger sense of humanity, and she longs to situate these places/people in her head and make connections.

We found a few thrift store finds tucked away in the closet that helped her along with that:

• Where in the World is Carmen SanDiego? - giant floor puzzle
• Maptitude, a world geography card game
• Usborne Children's Picture Atlas

The puzzle and the Usborne book were very similar-- lots of pictures of animals, major landmarks (mountains, rivers, temples,) and both were drawn in that same whimical style. The puzzle was actually a game where you have to search for different sites to uncover some crime (i.e. Mr. Crud stole Sugar Loaf Mountain and hid it in France.) That was less enjoyable than simply putting the puzzle together. But she got a basic sense of continents, oceans, and climate from it.

Maptitude, the card game, is labeled for 10 yrs and up. It's a mild game of world domination, each card bearing a different country. It teaches what countries border each other, area, population, and similar statistics. She learned that Russia and China rank pretty high in area and population, but she didn't learn anything about the people or the culture or what makes each place unique.

To fit that bill we picked out this kids' geography book:

• My Picture Atlas, by Roger Priddy

It divides up each country and gives a little synopis. Some countries have more detail than others, but Sunburst loved hearing what each country was famous for, what the major exports were, and how to say hello in the native language. We learned that Ghana grows a lot of cocoa, and you can speak in English there. Brazil, she was amused to read, is famous for winning the World Cup soccer tournament. They also grow coffee, cocoa, and speak Portugese: bohn DEE-ah.

Sunburst also looked up Spain, who lost to France today. She learned that Spain has two famous artists, Salvador Dali and Picasso. "Oh," she said, "I know Picasso." Some of her best friends are Mr. Picassohead experts and have emailed us their creations. Einstein pulled an art book off the shelf and showed her a few examples by Dali and Picasso.

She was off and running with new inspiration:

The first is copied from Picasso's Harlequin, 1915. The second is from Joan Miro's, Nocturne, 1935. Miro is also from Spain.

Somehow we've managed to bring this learning experience full circle again. I love it when that happens.

Summer begins

It feels a lot like summer over here. The dog days feel like they are upon us. The pools are open, the tomatoes are in full bloom, the mustard greens are bolting, and the eggplant leaves are covered in little black hoppers. Forget the delicate Spring flowers, they are beyond dead.

But what about this school thing? Are we ready to put our chalkboard and crayons away and call it quits? That's the talk on all the Waldorf message boards: how are you celebrating the end of the school year; or we have x,y,z to finish up; or should we even take a break at all?

To me this schooling thing doesn't have such a clear division. That's the unschooler in me. I know we're going to learn loads this summer, but as a mom who is offering that "school-like" experience to Sunburst, I get what they're saying. Do we go out with pomp and circumstance? Do we worry about marking off everything on our lists? How far and how long do we push the school envelope?

Surely there are things we haven't finished around here. We officially started our first grade lessons in November after welcoming a new baby into our lives, selling our house, and moving out of state. Those things took priority over "school" and Sunburst spent August and September teaching herself to read with McGuffey Readers and knitting up a storm.

Sometime in late October I purchased a first grade syllabus from Christopherus Homeschool to see what a first grade year entailed. It turned out to be a great resource. Although I didn't exactly follow the lesson examples, it did give me some insight as to what we might want to cover. According to the book I seem to have left out a whole section on fairytales and handwriting, learning word families, and another maths lesson. We started late, so inevitably we were bound to leave things out. Will she be damaged forever? Probably not.

As much as I'd like to press on, as much as Sunburst would probably benefit from the lovely fairytales and handwriting practice, I don't see how we could do it all as a homeschooling family. If you follow a Waldorf curriculum there's just so much to pack into your day. If we kept school hours without interruption, maybe we could do it all, too. But I'm living in the real world, washing dishes and folding laundry and changing diapers. I'm fitting in lessons as I can, when Kitty Bill is napping or squeezing them in between snack time and dinner preparations. It's not easy, but it's fun.

If I really pushed myself, would it still be fun? If I scheduled every second of my day to try to find more time, would any of us enjoy ourselves? Hurry up and eat. Hurry up and learn. That's not my agenda at all.

Summer seems to be here. It's not holding back waiting for us to finish up our lessons. The warm days are calling us into the garden, out in the yard, onto the swings, and out on the lake. It's just as difficult for me to focus on lessons as it is for Sunburst. So we're done. We've begun scheduling our summer fun-- circus day camps and fiber arts lessons. We're going to have a blast.

And strangely enough, this week's entry for Ruldolf Steiner's Calendar of the Soul seems to validate our inability to focus intellectually and our need to move on:

  The senses' might grows strong
 United with the gods' creative work;
 It presses down my power of thinking
 Into a dreamlike dullness.
 When godly being
 Desires union with my soul,
 Must human thinking
 In quiet dream-life rest content.

English translation by Ruth and Hans Pusch

O' Pioneers?!

Another month, another homeschooling fair. This time the topic was history, and Sunburst was all fired up to present on her favorite obsession of all time: pioneers.

Sunburst lives and breathes Mary and Laura Ingalls. She has been taken in by the Little House books for more than half of her short life, and now that she's reading independently and fluently, each progressive book in the series accompanies her wherever she goes. Her life and interests have been shaped by these books, and really, that's not such a bad thing.

Two hours after we arrived home from our trip to Michigan, Sunburst was slated to present. She put on her pioneer girl costume, grabbed her knitting, spinning, and embroidery projects, gathered up her prized collection of McGuffey Readers, and headed out the door. She wasn't entirely prepared to speak about the subject in a fluid, flawless manner, she's only 7 afterall, but she did manage to say a few words, show off her handcrafts and give an impromptu spinning demonstration.

I love that this pioneer theme parallels Waldorf education and unschooling in many ways. It's real life work, connecting first to her heart and then expanding out through her hands into concrete, meaningful creations. And she's engaged, cognitively. She learned to read using the same type of books that Mary and Laura would have used, McGuffey readers from the late 1700's. It was her idea, her passion, and completely self-directed.

Homeschooling doesn't get any better than that.

Walking the line

As you know, we've been doing a lot of counting over at our house. I recently introduced the four mathematical processes, er math gnomes, ala Waldorf education-- just to give Sunburst a taste, an idea, a bigger picture of the beauty of counting. And it was a heap of fun.

But, having read a bit of John Holt and other folks, I didn't want to miss this grand opportunity to present a different and important view of the Big Picture of numberland: The Number Line.

In Schools For Thought, by John T. Bruer, it's suggested that if you show a child how to think about numbers as interrelated, or near each other, children develop a spacial relationship with them that helps them with quantitative calculations-- they count better and faster. And Holt suggested in Learning All the Time, that kids can learn to add and subtract easily using two rulers (or number lines.)

They're the same idea, really: See where the numbers are? They go up, and they go down. Infinitely. And the four processes? They just represent different ways of moving about on that line.

The kids foraged around and found their sidewalk chalk had survived the recent week of rain, and we set to work. I didn't have any grand plan, so I just numbered as far as I could on the back patio, spacing the numbers out by about a foot each. I wanted Sunburst to really see them as separate pieces within the whole.

I even threw some negative numbers in because this was the Big Picture, the whole picture, and numbers indeed go both ways. She knows this when Einstein borrows money for coffee and writes her little I.O.U.'s. Negative is what dad owes , or is it what you no longer have since dad has borrowed it? Real life applications.

Thus, the groundwork was established, and the games began.

We grabbed out our green and blue silks and set to work, taking turns being gnomes: Tally (addition) and Minus (subtraction.) Minus dropped things and gave things away and always kept going backwards. When he promised more than he had, he went negative. Tally just kept adding and adding and adding, well beyond the numbers I had constructed. "20" was off the patio and in the middle of a bush, and it was a crack up everytime Sunburst realized she had to go in the bush.

On the second day Sunburst couldn't wait to play again, so we grabbed our yellow silk, and pretended to be Myriad (multiplication.) We counted by twos, hopping. We counted by threes, fours, and fives. Understand, my number line only went to 18, so we were a bit limited, except that Sunburst really wanted to go back into the bush for 20. So we counted by tens... and she kept going--- through the bush, to the big tree, all the way around the yard, calling out the numbers by 10's... She finally leaped over the bean patch and yelled 100.

When Einstein came home she wanted to repeat the whole experience for him, number by number. When she told him she could count by fives, he challenged her. And she did it! We had only gone to 15 outside on our number line, but with that little bit she figured out the pattern and counted up to 95 by fives.

Then it rained again and our number line vanished. Sunburst took it upon herself to recreate it, happily announcing that she managed to fit the numbers up to 21 on the patio, clearly trumping my own attempt by 3. It has since rained again, and her counting has morphed into other realms, like jump rope rhymes:

Mother baked a chocolate cake.
How many eggs did it take?
1, 2, 3...

Making books

Sunburst is making another book. This one is called, "The Magic School Bus with Snakes."

She has been making books for about two years now, off and on, on a wide variety of subjects: storytime at the library, gymnastics class, birthday parties, Halloween... She goes through these heavy phases of book-making every few months, and yesterday she began again. She got out a pile of xerox paper, construction paper, and an assortment of colored pencils and spread them out all over Einstein's desk and set to work.

"Don't look, Mom." Ok, ok...

I found her a few minutes later sitting on the couch scanning the indices in several science and nature books. "Mom, it says that a ruhtuculah puhthen is the longest..." Huh?

"Reticulated python?" Yeah, that. Big ol' snake. Ginormous. Grows up to 33 feet long, she tells me, something like six bicycles end to end.

Whoa that's impressive, I say. Then she shows me her cover page with the snake bus. Apparently Joanna Cole and her illustrators haven't done this version yet. Cool idea, a snake bus. And she goes on to tell me all the interesting facts about snakes, and how if they were longer than 50 feet they would be too heavy to move themselves. Really.

This would be her first attempt at researching information for a book. So far, so good. She's already got the two most important pages finished: the cover page and the author notes.

"If you would like to learn about snakes, read the book."

Scotland, the brave

She's a brave wee lass to stand up in front of a crowd of folks and give a presentation.

It's painful to be the parent watching it though. Sunburst introduced herself, said, "I'm doing Scotland," and froze. Just for a minute. She stared at all the faces, turned around and stared at her display, and tried to sort out in her brain what she was supposed to do next. The crowd was very patient with her, and I watched her take a deep breath and ready herself. "This is a picture of Scotland that I watercolor painted. And there are lots of castles in Scotland..."

I almost didn't tell her about this international geography fair. I thought she might be too young for it, and I recall reading that with littles you should start geography with where you are, which makes perfect sense. You can own where you are, you can see it, smell it, feel it, and connect with it on a heart level. Formally, we haven't really done local geography. Shouldn't I get out a map of our current state and go from there?

We watch the wildlife outside our window. We see the different colored blossoms on the trees, and notice that the squirrels here are red and fat and fearless. We watch the birds and the bunnies and the deer. We walk and drive. We meet people and see things. We experience the change of seasons and stick our hands in the dirt. How can you live and breathe and not learn local geography?

So I let her jump right in. It helped that bits of Scotland are already familiar to her, that her dad plays bagpipes, and that haggis is utterly foul sounding. It helped that the Loch Ness Monster is a thing to wonder about. And it helped that we're reading Little House on the Highlands. and we have Scottish ancestry, too, just like Mary and Laura Ingalls. That pretty much sealed the deal. The heart connection was there.

And she had fun. The kids that presented were homeschoolers ages 3-16. Some of them whispered and others cracked jokes. It was a chance for homeschooling kids to come together and be a part of something bigger than themselves. And that, at least at our house, doesn't happen every day.

When it was over she turned and said to me, "Mom, I think they really liked my shortbread cookies."

Tapadh leat

Today Sunburst worked on her Scotland project. She has been speaking in Scots Gaelic (apparently different than Irish Gaelic) for three days now. Not complete sentences, mind you. Assuredly not anywhere near the correct pronunciation, (I wouldn't even have a clue about that,) but in bits and pieces here and there as she can work it in, opening the book each time and requesting things like lite (porridge) and uisge (water.)

We talked through the planning stages of her display board, and she had me writing out a rough list of words/phrases she might want to recopy to include on it. She sat across the couch from me thumbing through a book on the Loch Ness Monster while I held the other book open and stared at those Gaelic words long and hard trying to spell them right ...uan, uisge, Ciamar a tha thu?

Thinking I was done, I closed the book and started to walk away, "Oh wait, tapad leet!" She yells at me. What? I looked at her blankly trying to interpret. "Thank you, tapad leet." Huh? "Write that one down too." Oh! I opened the book back up and there it was, on the bottom of the page, Tapadh leat. I hadn't heard that one before.

How on earth did she remember that?

Nothing gets past these kids. They remember every story, every promise, every everything. It's easy to see in the girls, as they come up with some new thing to amaze us with everyday (like knitting blind-folded!) The jury has been out on Kitty Bill, though. I mean, we weren't sure if we would be blessed with another sound mind. It's risky business, this gene pool lottery. But it looks like he's a clever one too. He's already watching to see what he can get away with, and as soon as we turn our heads --Zoooom! He's gone after some item of contraband, and he knows it, because he keeps looking over his shoulder to see if he's getting caught. At seven months! These kids can already outwit us, and they're not even close to being teenagers yet.

We are so screwed.

Just a bit whacked

Something happened in blog world. I inadvertently whacked my blog into, well, nonexistence. Everything is gone. I know, I know. I’ve got the word “Novice” spray-painted on my forehead lest I forget. But that’s what we’re doing here… learning about learning. I’m an easy candidate for that.

This week we’re unschooling. It’s a week filled with doctor’s appointments and an unhappy teething baby. All official and constructed learning is off until further notice. Some days/weeks/months are like that, and we’re just rolling with the punches to see what opportunities reveal themselves. It seems necessary and important to give the universe a clear whack at our lives from time to time (and I don’t mean tornados, if any higher source is listening. –Just wanted to clarify.)

Whack #1 –seems to be the International Fair hosted by our local homeschooling community. It’s happening next week. I’m sure they gave us more notice than that, but I’m equally sure that I wasn’t paying attention. Sunburst had so much fun presenting at the Science Fair in February that she’s fired up enough to do it again. She has chosen Scotland, which is dear to all our hearts, and it doesn’t hurt that her Dad plays bagpipes. She has already informed him that he will be her musical sidekick. So later today we’re heading off to the library to check out a pile of books.

Whack #2 –gardening. We got hog wild this last weekend and put in a modest container garden. It’s laughable compared to our 200 sq.ft. veggie-paradise we constructed in Texas, but hopefully it will do. Boy do I miss that garden! And that big house! (sigh) But I must forge ahead and not let myself get too caught up in what had been. We’re here in the Midwest now, and renting at that, so instead of digging and building and all of that, I’m going with containers. The container experiment! I hope it works. Last night it stormed (again,) and today everything is a sopping wet mess. I may have to whack bigger drainage holes if this keeps up. I really don’t have much experience with growing food in pots, so all advice is welcome.

The girls are terribly excited that we’re gardening again. I suspect it makes them feel settled and whole, but I could be projecting here. It definitely has that effect on me. It’s a transient life we’ve signed up for, as we’re only here on a two-year research grant, and then we’ll be moving on again until we land the tenure-track job. It’s a double-edged sword. This way we get to travel and have new experiences, but I think we could all do with a little more stability. Plus, it really sucks to leave your friends behind. That’s the clincher. By the end of it though we should have many, many friends…