She’s Here!

I’d been staring at her photo online all week. On Friday morning with much excitement I left home at 8 am for a 3-hour trip to Snoqualmie, Washington to go and meet “Rainy” and bring her home. Just 10 km from the border I decided to get something to eat, and while pulling a U-turn near a construction site I ran over a sharp curb and ripped a hole in my right front tire. Determined not to let anything get in my way, I called up 24 Hour Roadside Assistance and within 30 minutes a tow truck had come to put on my spare tire. Unfortunately, both the driver and my owner’s manual strongly advised against travelling on the Freeway for hours with the spare on. Okay, next challenge: find a tire. Thank goodness for my iPhone!

I located a few tire places around me but when I began calling around I learned that my tire is not a common model and eventually I learned that the nearest one to me was currently sitting in a warehouse in Edmonton. Feeling more frustrated now I debated what to do and finally decided that since I was so close to the border I might as well cross and see if anyone in WA had my tire. While waiting in line at the border I found a guy in Marysville – on my way – who would have my tire in one hour. Perfect. Things were looking up. Meanwhile, I had to go to the bathroom and was thinking of the rest stop that memory told me was right on the other side of the crossing.

As I passed through I was randomly selected by the computer for an inspection. Pull over there, ma’am. Take this paper inside, ma’am. Oh, long lineup. Okay, I’ll just go pee before I get in line. Uh…there are no washrooms and then I saw the big sign that said “No cell phones, No PDAs, No Washroom”. Apparently Canadians not only need to show passports now but they can’t be trusted to go pee lest they try to flush their stash of pot down the toilet (BC is full of hippie liberals, ya know). Fun.

It ended up okay. Everybody was nice to me – prob’ly trying to make up for the joy of being randomly selected for a half-hour delay – and eventually, when they were convinced I wasn’t a terrorist, they escorted me to a locked washroom. See, American’s are nice!

Finally, I was on the I-5 heading South and trying hard to stay under the 80 kph speed limit that my spare tire carries. That’s about 50 mph and I was on a freeway with a 70 mph speed limit. Thank god the Americans know how to build highways – with four full lanes of traffic in each direction I was easy to pass. And pass me they did – semi trailers, trucks pulling huge campers, and little old ladies. When the road got a bit rough I worried with every bump. But finally I made it to Marysville and in less than 30 minutes I was on my way with a new tire.

I finally arrived at the Three Rivers Rescue around 2:30 – about three hours later than I’d planned. And there I got my first full look at Rain. She is absolutely gorgeous, the most beautiful markings I’ve ever seen. She’s also a total suck and a love-bunny! We took her outside and did the paperwork for the adoption. Kim filled me in on her background and gave me some tips on what to expect as she settles in. Then she was introduced to her new crate in the car and we headed North to Banfield where she had an appointment for a rabies shot (needed to cross the border). She handled the crate just fine, was very nervous (but still adorable) at the vet, and despite hitting lots of traffic the ride home was uneventful. We did make a couple pit stops but she didn’t drink, eat, or eliminate – still too nervous at all the new happenings.

We finally got home just before 9 pm – almost 13 hours after I left! But the kids adored her on sight, she was fantastic with them, and even Husband seemed smitten. She’s a timid girl and quite submissive but in the 36 hours she’s been here she has opened up a bit. She is eating, drinking, eliminating and was positively bouncy on our walk this morning. She is learning to play fetch (either that or just deciding it’s okay here) and I’m planning on taking her for a run tomorrow. She is great on a leash and much fun to walk with.

The kids fight over who gets to walk her, are still trying desperately to lure her outside to play (she’ll come if I’m there but still too timid to go with just them), and have told me they are so glad we have a dog. I’m so very happy, loving the excuse to go for early morning walks, when the air is cool and humid and the forest is filled with birdsong. I couldn’t be happier with her, and I think she’s pretty happy too.

Summer Classes and Looking Ahead

The “school year” has ended for Daughter – her homelearning program wrapped up, we spent the last of our learning funds (got a spiffy new microscope, Spore, and a whack of books), and I completed the Annual Review report. The final submission by her Learning Consultant detailed her successes in reading, science, and even physical confidence (learning to skate was huge for her). 

And while she accomplished much this year, what she didn’t do was any formal classes. She did take half a term at the local Arts Academy where she completed a study of Matisse and produced a frame-worthy reproduction of Matisse’s Goldfish. But after that she didn’t want to go back and we haven’t done any classes since. For whatever reason she seemed to need a break and so I respected that. But now I’m thinking it’s time for her to get back in the water, so to speak. She’s learning so much and it would greatly enhance her learning to be able to share it with others (besides me and her not-always-interested younger brother).

Now summer is here and the local University is offering summer camp courses. Daughter agreed to sign up for two of them: one is a creative arts class where they will be making crafts using natural objects (stone, wood, etc). The other is a science course focusing on Natural History. Each course is five days long, 3 hours each day. I think it will be a good step back into the group-learning setting as it’s for a short time only, focussed study on her favorite topics, and I’m assuming her fellow students will be equally enthusiastic about the subject matter.

I’m hoping that, if she enjoys the experience, she’ll be willing to try some new courses of study come the Fall. Unfortunately there isn’t much close by for her, so I’ll have to stretch myself to see what I can find. Either that or get used to driving across town once a week!

I have, however, taken on a new role as one of the executives of our local Homelearners Chapter of the BC Young Naturalists Club. We joined up last year and enjoyed the outings but didn’t make it to many due to some administrative issues. So this year I plan to go to many more of them (and hopefully Son will be mature enough to tag along without being a disruption). 

Finally, my boy finished his last day of preschool today (it was a farewell party). I will post soon with a review of the experience, but I’m also excited for him. This Fall he’ll definitely be doing some Martial Arts and any other physical things we can find for him (I’m thinking of a dance class as he loves to move his body around!). In the meantime we’re going to enjoy the Summer with lots of outdoor time, camping, gardening, and trips to the beach!

Adding to the Family

I grew up always having a dog or dogs in the family. I love dogs. When I was in University and living with a long-term boyfriend we adopted a lovely dog. We trained her well and she was a joy to take everywhere. When we broke up he kept her, as per our original agreement, and I moved to the US for a while to pursue my career.

Husband and I often talked about having a dog one day, but with babies and toddlers life was far too busy to even consider it. Lately, however, the pace of life has slowed down a great deal and I’ve been yearning to bring a dog into our lives. I had a good discussion with our landlords about how I would care for and train the dog and eventually they were convinced that I would be responsible, so they said yes. Our yard is huge but not fully fenced so my first task was to come up with a plan for some inexpensive, non-permanent fencing options. After much research I settled on wire square mesh fencing with metal posts that can sink readily into lawn and soil. I’ve ordered the materials and they will arrive in a few days – so soon I’ll be indulging my inner landscaper and putting up about 60 feet of fencing.

I’ve also been perusing dog adoption sites – I’m a mongrel fan – but haven’t found what I’m looking for yet. There is one dog that I found today that I am keeping my eye on, but I have promised myself not to move on anything until the fence is built. I hope to have that done by the end of next week – if she’s still available and our visit goes well, I may have a new dog to show you!

Husband is a bit leery of the idea, but after much discussion has agreed to let me go ahead with this. I will be taking on all the responsibilities – this will be “my” dog. I am very much looking forward to taking her running with me, hiking, and on walks to the local park to join the other neighbourhood dog owners. I’m very excited and will keep you posted on how it all goes!

Walking the Walk: camping season

The premise behind my blog title is that by having kids who don’t go to school, and parents who work independently from home, we are not subject to the usual weekly schedules of most folks. We don’t have to crowd all the “fun stuff” into weekends and statutory holidays, we don’t need to wake up early, there is no “morning rush” in our house…it brings a great deal of freedom. Most enjoyable is the freedom to seize a day of great weather by making outdoor plans on the spur of the moment.

Last year DH was working outside the home for most of the summer, and we took only a handful of camping trips. This year we have a trailer and were eager to get out and use it as much as possible during the season. And so I am pleased to report we have already gone out twice and plan many more excursions. We are now “walking the walk” when it comes to Summer Fun.

The first outing was over the Victoria Day long weekend – but we left early Thursday afternoon and encountered little traffic. We drove about 8 hours North where MIL runs a small campground/RV park. It was a great chance to test-drive the trailer while having a fully functional house to stay in should things go awry. We discovered that our water heater had not survived the winter, for example. The kids had a ball there, basically had free run of the place and managed to stay out of trouble.

They played on Grandma’s trampoline:

They went fishing off the pier:

They rode a deck-boat across the lake to the local pizza place and ate dinner on the way back:

It was a very relaxing weekend and I proved myself to be quite handy when it came to fixing things on the trailer (there wasn’t much – patched a couple water lines that had been damaged over winter – but I’m still proud). [And are we noticing a theme here about winterizing? (or not, as the case turned out to be) Warning: when your DH says "my buddy says I don't need to do anything", continue to shove RV Owner's Handbook in his face until he says otherwise].

We had only been back 48 hours when the weather forecast predicted the next day to be a spectacular one. DH wanted to finish a project he was working on but me and the kids were free. I took the truck, the trailer, and the kiddos and headed about 1.5 hours outside of town to a lovely lakefront campground. DH joined us the next day and we left on Saturday, well before the end-of-weekend rush.

So this past week I felt like we were truly taking advantage of our lifestyle – able to head out on a trip on short notice, as the weather brings promise of a good time. I’m not concerned about beating the rush to book a campground site for the three or four big long weekends – we’ll simply go during the week. I have to say that having a trailer also makes it so much easier to pack for such trips: I just need to toss some clothes in a couple hampers, the kids throw some toy bins in the trailer, a quick stop at the grocery store (before or on the way) and we’re off!

Is this the Good Life or what?

We had another wonderful day out in nature with our friends today. They live in the beautiful Fraser Valley, a region of farmland and woodsy areas with a backdrop of gorgeous snow-capped mountains. First we went inside to see the chicks (who are looking a whole lot like full-grown chickens!) and to have some lunch (the chicks are awaiting slightly warmer temps to be moved to their new coop). Then we headed down the road, where the kids often stopped to look at dandilions and other interesting things:

I even got my horsey fix by petting some of the neighbours’ lovely critters who watched us curiously from the fenceline. We saw lambs, free-roaming chickens, and peacocks as well.

We got to the creek and the kids started right away collecting Caddisfly larvae. These interesting little critters stick bits of sand and rock around themselves to form a protective shell. There were hundreds of them and the kids began to gather quite a collection:

They then played with rocks and sticks, built dams, explored under logs and rocks, and generally had a wonderful time for over 2 hours before we convinced them reluctantly to head home.

It is truly wonderful to just sit and be present while children while they explore. Their curiosity and interest is beautiful to witness, not to mention their creativity. The time passed by without incident, without boredom, without resistance…the other mama and myself commented “Over 2 hours here, they aren’t done yet, and not a Toy in sight!”.

Where does your soul recharge?

I’ve been going through some pretty intense personal stuff over the last few weeks (just when I wrote a post about being happy with the here and now…!), which is why I’ve been away from blogging. This matter has been using up pretty much all of my emotional energy, and lots fell by the wayside. Kids were on “the emergency plan” – you know the one: you wake up with the world’s worst head cold (or some other issue that prevents you from being any sort of engaged or effective parent) and decide that the kids will be watching movies all day, eating hot dogs and anything else they can stick in the microwave themselves, you will bring the potato chips out of your husband’s secret stash at some point during the day and offer it to the children for a few moments of peace, and you will try to stay alert enough to ensure nobody gets injured. Yeah, it’s been kind of like that.

Well, over the last few days things have settled down for me and I’ve felt like getting back in the game. There has been lots of “down on the floor” time with the kids, lots of answering “yes” to their “mama, can you play with me?” calls, and of course planning to get out in the world again. So this past Friday we had a playdate with a relatively new family we are becoming friends with, and it was fantastic. Not only did the kids have a great time but it was the boost my soul really needed.

We went for a hike in a local park. It’s actually a huge park connected to a conservation reserve, with a suspension bridge and an Ecology Centre with many interactive displays for the kids. A typical day there starts with a hike – we walked the kilometre or so to the local waterfall/deep pools area where there is a small rocky beach. The kids had a great time exploring the forest streams…

…climbing on the rocks…

…throwing stones into the crystal-clear green water…

…listening to the river…

…and many other fun things. Me and the other mama relaxed, chatted, and ate our picnic. She’s a nice person and the fact that her kids and mine get along so well is always a plus.

There were many restorative things about that day. Being with adult friends is great, especially new ones. She recently suffered some family losses and I did many years ago – we didn’t talk too much about that but it reminded me to put things in perspective when Life gets challenging. It is also great to see children excited, curious, and exploring the way they should be. In the forest there is nothing they can’t touch, throw, break, take apart, step on, jump off, etc…its their natural environment, for sure. These kids are homelearners like us, in fact the older boy and Daughter share the same Learning Consultant. He has a keen interest in the natural sciences as well and it was just delightful to see them in their element. The mama and I definitely agreed that its days like this that make you feel so fortunate to be a homelearner.

But on top of all that, being in the forest is what really renews my soul. When my spirit needs a lift, all I have to do is get out in the woods and I feel recharged again. I am not a religious person at all, but when I am out in the forest it is the closest thing to a spiritual experience for me. My soul literally feels lifted, my mind clears and my mood improves tremendously. A long time ago, a group of us mamas had a chat online about which was better: city life or country life. One of them said that it really depended on where your soul found its energy. Like after a long day where do you need to go – to your quiet place in the country? Or back to civilization? I really liked that way of asking the question. For me, the answer is definitely the forest.

The forest, happy children, great company, beautiful weather…what more could anybody want?

Loving the Here and Now

Like many people, I suppose, I strive to “live in the moment” more. It seems I’ve spent my entire adult life looking ahead to the next step of my journey and not savouring where I am at the time.

The most recent shift in my life came 1.5 years ago when we moved from our urban 2-bedroom apartment to a suburban house with a yard. I was so excited about the move; while I loved our old neighbourhood, the apartment faced North and got little daylight. Now light streams in from all sides, all day. We also have a huge wrap-around deck. In the summer months it extends our living area to the outside. There is a huge yard with a play structure and plenty of room for me to grow vegetables.

But it’s not “ours”. We are renters. For many years now I have desperately wanted to own a home. It wasn’t long after moving to this house that I began to sour on it, seeing how much I wanted to change and couldn’t. For the past year or two I have been focussed on The Next Step in our lives, purchasing a home. We’ve saved up, the market is dropping, all was going according to plan, and I could think of almost nothing else.

Then Husband got laid off. He couldn’t find work, so he started his own business working from home. He’s not making the money he used to (not yet, anyways) but wow, is it ever wonderful having both of us at home (now that we’ve got a schedule for ourselves, that is!). I realized a little while ago that I didn’t want to him to work out of the home anymore, that I was willing to forgo a higher income to maintain our wonderful lifestyle.

And with that acceptance, an amazing transformation happened that really surprised me. I began to fall in love with the Now.

Between training for a 10km race and geocaching with Daughter I’ve been discovering many new trails and green spaces in our area lately. We essentially live on the side of a heavily forested mountain. Neighbourhoods are connected by paved walking trails that wind through small sections of forest and cross ravines where fish still spawn.  There are dozens of hiking trails. Nearby is a massive Conservation Reserve where a wide, paved service road runs 11 km through a spectacular alpine valley to a region of Old Growth forest. Here are just a few photos, all taken nearby:

So while I dislike the manicured lawn aesthetic of our suburban residential street, in minutes I can immerse myself in the kind of soul-lifting natural beauty that brings me closest to a spiritual experience. I have heard the great horned owl calling, mornings are filled with birdsong from chickadees and warblers and sparrows. The staccato sound of Pileated Woodpeckers and Northern Flickers is like a musical drumbeat. And the other day while running through a wooded area I passed underneath a Black-Eyed Junco, sitting on a low-hanging branch singing his heart out. How lucky am I?

As for the house, my perspective on being a renter has mysteriously “righted” itself again. Instead of seeing the things I want to change, lately I see a whole lot of money I don’t need to spend, and headaches I don’t need to take on. Life feels simple, and free. And I’m grateful for the Now.

Observing them in their natural state

One of the many wonderful things about unschooling is that it presents one with a unique opportunity to observe how children learn naturally. Since most children are put into school at around age 5 or 6 (at the latest), most people do not have the opportunity to watch what happens when you let kids take charge of their learning and lead the way. It’s a fascinating study because what one observes often flies in the face of conventional wisdom regarding children and learning.

First, there is the firmly entrenched cultural belief that children will not learn unless they are made to (thus, school). When you step outside this assumption and take a good look it, it seems absurd. Raise a child in a family that speaks three languages and that child will have mastered all three of them in about four years without having attended any classes nor having any formal instruction. All parents recall the point at which every valuable, breakable, or potentially dangerous item in the home had to be locked away due to the insatiable curiosity and drive of the newly mobile toddler. Almost as soon as they are able to ask questions, kids drive their parents nuts with them. Nobody seems to doubt the abilities of babies and toddlers to learn.

And yet, somewhere between preschool and school-age our attitude changes. Not coincidentally this is when children are routinely first brought into the school system. By the time kids are around 8 years old, we as a culture are quite certain that they hate learning and would, if left to their own devices, do just about anything to avoid it. We’re certain that a life without school would lead to endless hours of video games, delinquency, and disinterest in anything “useful”. We equate learning with school, and that’s where I think we make our mistake in assessing the motivation of children to learn.

In fact, learning is a biological imperative for young humans. Every unschooling parent has seen with their own eyes that the desire to learn, the insatiable curiosity of the toddler, is maintained even after a child reaches school age and well beyond. As a society, we seem to have forgotten that human culture has existed for millenia without schooling and somehow the kids learned all they needed to know without schedules, curricula, or being removed from daily life in their society.

Another thing unschooling parents observe is that the way children learn naturally doesn’t seem to fit very well with the school model of learning. In school the day is broken down into different subjects. An hour here, an hour there. When the bell rings the child must put down what they are doing, regardless of how interested they are in the subject, regardless of how close they are to grasping a fundamental concept and move on to the next, often completely unrelated, subject. Unschooled kids, on the other hand, seem to get obsessed with a certain subject, run it into the ground in a several-weeks-long foray that involves exploration with a variety of media (eg. drawing dinosaurs, watching dinosaur movies, reading dinosaur books, playing dinosaur role-playing games during imaginative play, listening to songs about dinosaurs, etc) only to suddenly drop it and move onto something else. Then later they pick up where they left off, often having mysteriously grasped concepts during the interval.

There is also a cultural belief that kids have to be taught what they need to know. Reading is a perfect example: witness the massive growth in reading-associated learning materials over the last decade or so (Hooked on Phonics, LeapPad, etc). But I’m going to present a crazy, radical idea: kids don’t need to be taught how to read any more than they need to be taught how to speak. Put them in an environment with people who read, materials for them to read, and they will read because they are genetically driven to obtain the skills necessary to function in their society.

In school it is unacceptable to be a 7 year old who is not able to read. Never mind that this child, if left to his own devices, will almost certainly become a competent reader who, at the age of 12, will be indistinguishable in his reading skills from children who learned to read at an earlier age. In addition, I posit that the late-reading child will go from “not reading at an acceptable level” to “reading at peer level or beyond” in less than half the time it took the other kids to make that shift. Because I suspect that the 7 year old probably has nearly all the neurological pieces of the puzzle required to read already gathered in his mind, and merely needs a final burst of motivation to put them all together – motivation that works best when it is intrinsic (driven by the child’s own desire) and not extrinsic (driven by grades and report cards).

What I’m finding is that observing children learn in their natural state reveals several reasons why schools are a sub-optimal environment for learning for most children. We will likely always need schools, since not all parents are able to unschool their children. It would be great if one day the lessons learned from unschooling could be applied to schools so that we as a society could harness the power of natural learning, instead of working against it.

Unschooling’s Secrets

The other evening one of my LLL coleaders came over with some materials for a video project we are working on. She used to be an elementary school teacher and I’ve gotten the feeling over the years that she thinks pretty highly of schooling (there are lots of homelearners in the LLL community here).

As we were sitting together, Daughter wandered in and asked if I would play “division cards” with her. She had bought a few sets of flash cards several months ago, totally of her own accord, and she has made up various games with them. I told her I was busy with my friend and that we’d play later, so she wandered off.

My coleader said “She actually wants to play with math? Wow, that’s wonderful!”. Her attitude seemed to be one of pleasant surprise mingled with disbelief. I had to laugh to myself. I guess she is so used to school culture that it hadn’t occurred to her how things might be different for unschooled kids.

This experience prompted me to make a short list of “secrets” about children and learning that one discovers with unschooling:

1) kids who have never been to school don’t distinguish between “learning” and just living their daily lives; reading a book about history is no different than playing a video game or colouring a picture – all are done because that’s what the child felt like doing at that moment in time

2) kids who have never been to school don’t get exposed to a culture where kids are rated according to scholastic acheivement; thus it never occurs to them to use labels such as “brain” or “jock”, etc. There is no sense of self-consciousness about being “smart” (thus my Daughter’s confusion at the slogan on her Brain Quest cards: “It’s OK to be Smart!”)

3) kids who have never been to school aren’t exposed to the idea that Math is “hard” or only for smart kids; they don’t distinguish between “fun stuff” (e.g. karate class) and “stuff you have to learn” (e.g. social studies or history)

4) kids can find any subject interesting and enjoyable when it is done on their own time, at their own pace, and at their own initiation

5) when you are exposed to unschooled children your whole attitude towards kids changes; our society views children as naturally lazy and unwilling to learn – most don’t believe that kids in a completely self-designed educational program would ever learn all they need to know; once you’ve witnessed unschooling you see children as endlessly curious, willing to work hard to reach self-established goals, and driven to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to participate wholly in society

It’s truly an amazing experience to see what children are capable of when they are allowed to learn naturally, the way they are designed to learn. This is one of the most wonderful aspects to unschooling, the feeling that you are witnessing processes that few people ever get to see.

Fun with Fractions

I haven’t been writing much about unschooling lately. Mostly it’s because I write a report each week for Daughter’s homelearner program. Also because this blog is partly for me; writing out thoughts and experiences helps me to process them. But  I really would like this blog to be a place someone can come to if they are interested in, or curious about, unschooling to see what it looks like In Real Life.

Here’s a recent experience: The other night Daughter asked if I would look at a library book with her. It was Fraction Action. She had already read it, and had this idea that we could draw out the examples of fractions given in the book.

I’m sorry this isn’t rotated correctly; I’m having import issues. We started with a circle I drew that Daughter then divided into halves. I wrote “1/2″ on one side and she wrote it on the other. She then drew examples of halves from the story: a sandwich cut in half (middle row, left) and (continuing from left to right) a glass half full of juice, a dish with half vanilla and half chocolate ice cream, then (going down to the third row) a garden plot with half vegetables and half flowers, a muffin cut in half, a piggy bank half full, and a framed image of a cow jumping over half a moon.

We then moved onto thirds, repeating the sequence. You can see a flower with three petals, a chocolate-chip cookie divided into three peices, a court jester’s hat with three “tassles”, a wallet with three folds (and a dollar bill edge along the top), and a beach towel with three stripes.

Finally, we did quarters. She again divided the circle I drew, and wrote the fractions. She drew (from the book) a hot dog cut into four peices, a dollar bill folded into fourths (here she drew 4 lines, an easy mistake; she laughed when I asked her to count the number of sections she made and she found she had five), a cracker broken into four pieces, a four-leafed clover, and a pie cut into four peices.

With each pictured I’d asked her “what is this section called” and she’d answer “a half; a third, a quarter”.

We then reviewed how to write fractions, as she didn’t remember from the last time we’d worked on this stuff and asked me to show her again. I drew a circle with six sections and made one of them shaded. I showed her that the top number of a fraction was the number of shaded bits, and the bottom number was the total number of bits. We then practiced with me drawing sectioned shapes, then moving on to flower petals, and dinosaurs. Of course she enjoyed the dinosaurs. An example question I gave her was “What is the fraction describing the plates on this Stegosaurus’ back?” (which I’d drawn with one dark and three light coloured plates) and she’d say “a fourth” and I’d write 1/4. Then she asked if  SHE could draw some puzzles for me:

First she asked me to write the fraction that represents the number of dinosaurs with babies and eggs. Next she asked me to do the number of fish with stripes or spots. Finally, the number of jellyfish that are alive (we both had a good laugh at that one; note the dead jellyfish on the bottom right!). When I was done she said she hadn’t realized that she’d done all the same fraction!

I’d like to point out that this was ALL HER IDEA. She guided the whole activity. To be honest, it was evening and I was tired and I really didn’t feel like it at first. But I’m glad I did, because it ended up being fun.