Book links

I'm needing a place to "store" a list of books on discovery based learning, so I'm putting them here. They're good books - the first two more than the third, but that one kind of rounds out the view, so to speak. Very useful for anyone trying to understand how young children, in particular, go about learning "the 3Rs" without any kind of instruction.

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http://www.amazon.com/Much-More-Than-ABCs-Reading/dp/0935989900/ref=pd_sim_b_5/104-6979436-9097530?ie=UTF8&qid=1179152811&sr=1-1

Much More Than the ABC's: The Early Stages of Reading and Writing (Paperback) by Judith Schickendanz
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http://www.amazon.com/Literacy-Through-Play-Gretchen-Owocki/dp/0325001278/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-6979436-9097530?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179152811&sr=1-1

Literacy Through Play (Paperback) by Gretchen Owocki
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http://www.amazon.com/More-Than-Counting-Activities-Kindergarten/dp/1884834035/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-6979436-9097530?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1179154065&sr=1-1

More Than Counting: Whole Math Activities for Preschool and Kindergarten (Paperback) by Sally Moomaw (Author), Brenda Hieronymus (Author)
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If I find more I'll add them later - if anyone reading this would like to suggest others, I'd appreciate that, too. I seem to get used as a resource.... that's what I get for being such a know-it-all, I suppose.

essay by Morgan

What not to do at a stoplight
By Morgan

Feeding your kittens and cat
Drinking water
Dreaming that you’re karate chopping the tv
Lighting candles
Getting the mail
Calling your friends

After you have sucked the marrow from the bones of life

be sure to lick your lips.

Postcards!

I've joined a postcard swapping group. Even worse, I've been sucked in to moderate it. I'm kidding about the "worse" part. Its not that much of a hassle, just approving new members, but that makes number four. Six months ago I was quivering in my boots at the thought of moderating one group, now I'm the yahoo groups madame or something. Anyway, since this is an international group, some of the folks on the list seem to think Dismal, TN is an exotic location - and who can blame them? Its scenic, and the denizens have strange customs.... So I decided to make my own cards from digital photos. Took me a week to find the right paper, but I'm off, sending cards to places as close as the Carolinas and as far away as New Zealand. That gave the lady in our local post office a thrill, too, looking up rates to far off lands. It occurred to me that some of my charming relatives would like some postcards, too, so if you're charming and I have your address, look for a postcard. I'm posting a few here, while I'm at it.

Happy Bday George

Sunday was George's birthday. We had a fun, mellow day.

There's a new coffee house in one of the local towns - Watertown. George and Shiloh have been playing there on Saturday nights, and then going over to a friend's house to jam afterwards. Fun stuff. We took Mo to the coffee house a few weeks back and to the jam session a week ago, with sort of mixed results. She's a little too high-energy for those kinds of environments and I'm too tired by that time of day to be very interactive with her. So its been sort of fun but sort of stressfull. Friday night George took her to a party where she was happy to play with a little plastic guitar for awhile, but then started arguing with the band about the set-list. Not so much fun, so George brought her home and she and I had an okay evening.

Friday night was essentially the start of George's bday festivities. He went to the party (up at Pumpkin Hollow) and stayed good and late. Saturday night he went to the coffee house in Watertown and stayed out late. Mo and I jumped on the trampoline, captured frogs and watched the stars come out and Ray played on the computer, so we all had a great time. Sunday Mir and Shiloh came over for a lunchtime pizza party.

After lunch we (all except Ray) hiked up to the pond. The algae and water plants I tossed in several years ago have taken over, so Mir and I chatted about ways to pretty up the area. He wants to plant some lotuses and some annuals along the banks. Mo and I want to mow around the pond and bring our tent up there. She's been wild to go camping, and I still prefer my camp to include men in high heeled shoes and tiaras. I like the idea of having a place to hang out up at the pond, though. Its really pretty up there already, pond scum notwithstanding, with a nice view of the holler. On clear days you can see the top of Short Mountain, which always makes me smile. Last year I was stressed out all summer and didn't get up to the pond at all, but this year I'm hoping to be more motivated in that regard. If Mir's going to work on the pond, that will help me have reasons to get up there.

Mo had a fabulous time playing in the mud at the pond and I found myself wishing I'd brought the camera. Next time. For now, I've included a few random pix from this winter in this post which I've been intending to post for ages. I forgot to rotate the pic of the bass, but its still a nice image. George has built a couple basses this winter - one twelve string, pix of which have been making the rounds of 12string bass message boards. That's kind of fun.

Great Big Aaaaaaaahhhhhhh

I have my favorite room back!

A few years ago, George built a glorious porch on the back of the house for my b-day. Its one of those marvelous "gifts that keeps on giving" - every spring, and sometimes off and on in the winter, I get to open up my house and have one more room. And what a great room! Its 8'x20' - bigger than my living room - and until last fall the couch lived out there, plus a big slab "coffee table" and some end tables and oddball chairs. I tacked up some masonite along one side for Mo to use as an easel and strung clothesline to dry her artwork above it. Weather permitting, its our "messy project" space, and my lounging around space. Its outside, but sheltered and off the ground. I love it love it loveit!

Sitting on my porch, which is on the back of the house, I can look up through bare branches to my hill-tops in the winter. In the summer the leaves keep it shady and cool. Its on the morning side of the house, so on hot Tennessee evenings we can hang out there and eat dinner and watch the fireflies. There's a good view of the run-off creek and a tiny cleared patch I call the back yard, where I've planted asparagus and daylilies and coneflowers and various annuals.

The porch was full of junk until today.

This was one of the complications of Rayan moving into our very small house. As an every-other-weekend kid he didn't use any of the storage space in his room, so we filled it up with all the kinds of things people "normally" put in attics. The sudden change left us kind of at a loss, so we piled the stuff on the porch, which is reasonably sheltered, until we figured out a better solution.

Over the winter we've been sorting and discarding and consolidating that stuff and the heap formerly known as the dining-room table. We don't have a dining room, but we have my mother's table - a dainty cherry thing with those swoopy cabriolet legs. Heaping it with stuff wasn't optimal, but it kept Mo from climbing on it, along with providing storage. Our new family member meant we needed more "family" space, though, so we dug out the table (moved some of that stuff to the porch). We quickly discovered we didn't like eating at the table, so it went out to the barn and the couch moved in to the suddenly expanded living room. That was a good thing for the winter. Its nice having a larger living room, and we don't miss the heap...er table.

But its spring, gosh darnit! and I wanted my room back. I wanted to lounge on the back porch drinking coffee and watching the birds. It finally occurred to me that we have a whole pile of grey industrial shelving from Smithville's one coffee-shop closing (George knew the owners and got to loot - we got an old organ, lots of shelves and assorted guitar bits). With a little nudging on my part George agreed that the side porch would be a good place to put some shelves, magically creating the storage space we so desperately need. Tada! Last night and this morning he hung shelves and then he and I moved boxes and....stuff. He's on his fourth dump run, now, and I'm taking a break from my cleaning and arranging.

Once the stuff was gone, and everything swept, the lack of couch weighed heavily on me. Where would I lounge to drink coffee? I remembered the leftover lumber from my garden-fencing project. Aha! I foraged up some concrete blocks and cobbled together a rough-n-ready bench. It works. Its wider than my behind - the one significant dimension - so I can sprawl or lounge or curl up, as I choose. Phew. I tested it with a bowl of soup and Morgan cavorted around blowing bubbles and trying to catch them in her mouth.

As far as I'm concerned this is the official first of spring. Forget daffodils - the darn things start coming up in February! Moving out into my favorite room is It! I hearby declare it Spring in Dismal, TN.

much ado and other stuff

Rayan has had a girlfriend since last summer - a vaguely "gothic" girl named Ciara (pronounced Sierra) who's mother dislikes and distrusts him. I haven't spoken to her yet, although George has. I get the impression she wouldn't like or trust any guy her 14 year old daughter brought home, but Rayan's too much of a "bad boy" to ever win her over.

In the past she has placed restrictions on when and how much they could talk on the phone which has, predictably, led to Ciara calling after her parents are asleep. Not really an issue for us. One of the glorious advantages of homeschooling is we don't have to fuss over going to bed at a reasonable hour. Our schedule is pretty fluid.

She also doesn't like them to spend much time together, and only under her direct supervision. Charming. I've offered to talk to her - to Rayan - but he's under the impression that she's impossible to reason with, and George pretty much agrees. I don't know how much of that is baggage and how much is accurate, but so far I've stayed out of things at Ray's request. I've talked to Ciara over the phone a couple times when Rayan's been asleep or in the shower and she's pretty invested in coercion, which makes me think her mom could be every bit as difficult as Ray and George think - tell Rayan he better call me or I'll break up with him - that sort of thing.

Okay, so this is going to sound like a tangent but it ties in - what tangled webs these mortals spin! (is that the line?) George has been fretting over the fact that we have yet to mail in the registration form for FS@H due to our lack of funds. I've had good news from Jackie on that regard, but I'm not worried in general. No-one is breathing down our necks, and the boy's happy and not in jail, which is more than the school would be able to say if they had him. George is worried though - specifically he's been worried that Ciara's mom would "make trouble for us".

Back to the main plot... apparantly, Ciara's mom has been asking her what Rayan does now that he's not in school - the usual sorts of questions and hoo-haa from people who know nothing at all about homeschool. Ciara passed the question along to Ray, who commented that it wasn't any of her mom's business. As far as I know he only said that to Ciara, but its possible he said it directly to her mom. Less than 100% tactful, if he did, but I've said worse. And really, he's right - it isn't any of her business! But she's used to the public school idea that comparing two people's learning is not only appropriate but normal and good, especially when those people are under 18. I guess you can tell what I think about that. Its probably a good thing I haven't talked to her. I don't have any idea how to say that tactfully :(

So the long and short of it is that Ciara's not allowed to speak to Rayan until he appologises to her mom. George is relieved. I guess there will be more midnight phone calls for awhile. Eventually I suspect he'll appologise - I also suspect Ciara will threaten to break up with him if he doesn't. That's within the pattern she's set already.

It wouldn't break my heart if he finally decided she's not worth the headache, but that's probably contingent on him making some friends in non-school environments. He's met a couple homeschoolers at the skatepark, but has sort of lost touch in between winter and getting the flu (I was right about that! he got really really sick for a few days and is still recovering, to some extent). It will take a while to build those relationships, anyway.

He's also met a few hs'ers online -gotta love Runescape. Its too bad we can't get World of Warcraft, though. There's a "guild" of over fifty unschoolers last I heard. Boy oh boy would I love for him to meet some other kids whose parents think staying up all night playing computer games is cool - not to mention some of those parents. But our dial-up is way too slow. I guess there are a few WoW players who have dial-up, but a "good" connection speed for us is (brace yourself) 49Kbps. No shit. DSL is a ways away out here in the hollers. Bummer.

I'm hoping to bring him to the Live and Learn Conference http://www.LiveandLearnConference.org in Sept and/or get him to Not-Back-to-School camp so he can meet some home/unschooling teens in a fun environment. I don't see Ray as wanting to spend the rest of his life in TN, much less Dismal, so in addition to making friends, I'd love to help him find reasons to travel, and making friends all across the US sounds like the sort of thing that would appeal to him. I suppose I should talk to him about that LOL! He's been trying out being a night-owl (or maybe a vampire) so I haven't seen as much of him as I'd like. I told him I've missed him, but I'm trying to be cool about that - I sooooo don't want him to feel pressured to change his schedule.

pooping toy

Bwaaahhahahahhahaha! OMG, now I've seen it all! Barbie, yes that's right BARBIE has a new dog that poops! I saw this just this morning on the lousy tv we have upstairs, so I'm sure I missed details. I can't decide if I'm totally appalled or if I want one. Mo wants one - a pooping toy? Cool! I do think its nice that someone finally figured out that little girls are as fond of poo and farts as boys. Mine sure is.

Okay, okay, I'm calm, now. I'm getting ready to do some cooking - or rather, I'm in the middle of doing some cooking, this is just the "procrastination" stage ;) I did something new and different for me the other day - okay, if you know me and you're reading this put your coffee cup down and swallow what's in your mouth, alright? don't say I didn't warn you - I bought meat at the grocery store. Told ya. I'm not going to eat it, though. Its for George and Rayan.

Here's the story: George has been eating meat for a couple years (?) but mostly fishy things and easy to prepare stuff. He doesn't really know much about meat, how to buy or cook it, etc. We had been buying lots of coldcuts and meaty soups for him and Rayan, but the soups, especially, are pretty costly. Anyway, we're surrounded by enthusiastic deer hunters, so we ended up with a bunch of venison this winter. George didn't know what to do with it, but I looked in my favorite cookbook (the plaid one, of course!) and found a recipe for beef-vegetable soup. It turned out to be a great way to economize, and the guys both love it. Now we're out of venison, though, so I took my courage in hand, waited for the higher-the-hair ladies to move away from the meat counter in the store and spent a merry few minutes looking at sale prices and determining best value, blah, blah, blah. Morgan was slightly interested, but more in punching the packages than their contents.

On that note, we bought her a punching bag. Its one of those things that stands about kid-height with a weight in the base so when she hits it, it pops back up. Fun. She's just head-over-heels in love with Sandy Cheeks on Spongebob, so she's been whacking and kicking a Lot. After far too many "nos" and "stop its" I went out and got a punching bag. She picked one with a picture of Scooby Doo on it but made a drawing of the big bad fairy from Fairly Odd Parents and taped it on the other side. Lots of tv-inspired fun going on around here.

A few years ago, that would have been an issue for me. I was pretty heavily saturated with anti-tv sentiment, including the notion that art, stories and games inspired by tv shows was somehow "less" than the same inspired by, um... books, fables and classical art. Duh. Now, I really love the way Mo mixes and matches characters and ideas from different shows - and mixes them happily with stuff from "books fables and classical art" as well. The other day she was making a "Fairy Magic Playset" based on one of our computer games. She decided there was no reason not to have a Playset for something that isn't Disney or Barbie or some other major franchise. If it didn't exist, well then, she'd make her own. You go, girl.

Mo art

Here are a few of Mo's drawings from this winter. She's been making lots of books, which are a little tricky to scan, but I've included one of her comic-strip type things. Sometimes these are lists or "plans" for what she wants to do or someone else, usually me! to do. Others are short stories or scenes. The pale aqua drawing with her name on it is one of her maps (just in case y'all want to come visit). There's also a drawing of a beach and, of course, Spongebob and Patrick.

I've had the flu

Icky yucky yuck.
I hate being sick.
Now I'm slowly getting back to myself and I'm stiff and sore all over just from being in bed so much. Bleh. On the up side, its sort of revitalizing my yoga practice.

I stopped teaching yoga more than six months ago, and for awhile I just didn't do any at all. I had gotten pretty burned out and had lost my enthusiasm for my own practice. A couple months ago I started have the urge to do the occasional yoga pose, remembering that I used to like this stuff, not just do it "because its good for me". Getting sick seems to have really kick-started my interest again. I like the asanas. I like the way they feel and the way *I* feel doing them. Pretty sad to think that teaching made me lose sight of that for awhile.

In the mean time, I'm still stiff and sore and coughing. Yuk. Mo and George have both been sick too. Rayan hasn't *seemed* to get it, but he has gone through a phase of sleeping 15hrs a day, and I think he was fighting it off. Must be nice.

On a completely differnt note, I have a bunch of Mo-art that I want to scan in and upload, if only I can get the scanner to work! If not, I may try to take pix of some of it. She's making lots of books and comic-strip type things, and making everything she can think of out of paper. One day she went through an entire brand-new stack of computer paper and started another and I sort of flipped out - you wouldn't believe the mess in the living room. It looked like a blizzard! So I stole the rest of the paper and hid it. George teased me mercilessly until I relented and gave it back.

I have a new "mantra" for myself: unschooling is messy and inconvenient.

Snow!

It snowed thursday night - something on the order of an inch, which is high excitement here in TN. I worked for Barb (Morningside) on friday. leaving George to play in the snow with Morgan, which turned out to be a really good thing. Apparantly, Mo woke up and saw snow and immediately concieved the idea to make a snowboard. George was happy to help out - he went right out and found a board that was pretty bowed and cut a length of it. At Mo's direction, he rounded one end and set some screws in it for "foot straps". She's been watching a lot of Go, Diego, Go! and seems to have made some mental notes on the subject of snowboards - she definately had very specific ideas on the subject. Well unfortunately, an inch of snow and a piece of raw wood don't make the best combination for snowboarding, so George added a tow-rope. Mo was thrilled none-the-less.

Here she is in her snow-gear, all ready for the cold!

Once she'd had enough "snowboarding" George obliged her with a snowball fight and then went inside for home made snowcones. I'm posting this on friday and have spent over an hour making still more snowcones. I've mixed some foodcoloring with sugar to make sprinkles for them. Its been fun - except for the part where she decided I needed snow shoved down the back of my shirt - wonder where she got that idea....

parallel play

I was thinking about "parallel play" this morning and remembered a related article, called "Leaning on a Truck":

http://sandradodd.com/truck

This morning I was making "fried pies" - that's down home Southern cooking, if you haven't heard of them. I learned about them from my Ex (VJ), whose Granny was the epitome of Southern grandmothers. You know... when in doubt: add lard, and all that. She did have some great recipes, though (although I omit the lard, personally). Anyhow, fried pies are basically apple turnovers, but deep fried instead of baked. They're really yummy. George got a Southern Living cookbook a few years back for signing up for a Lowes card or some such thing, and there's a good recipe in there.

This is my second time making them, so I was modifying the recipe, as I am wont to do, and Mo came in and announced that she, too had a recipe to try. Oh, great, I thought, just what I need. The kitchen is a mess, I'm deep frying and Mo wants to play mad scientist. Fortunately George was floating around the house being bored so I enlisted him to keep Mo out of my way. Mostly he sat by the woodstove and helped open things, but that was enough for her to make two different kinds of goop, one (theoretically) drinkable, while I fried and fried and fried.

Anyway, what I ended up thinking about was that Mo does a lot of her learning from other people in this sort of parallel, leaning-on-a-truck style. She wanted to be in the kitchen in part because I was in the kitchen. She didn't want to watch me or help me, but she did want to be where I was, doing (essentially) what I was doing - but all her own thing. Interesting.

now we're cooking with rayan

Here's a link over to the other blog about Rayan learning to cook:

http://www2.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=6506289165008555690&postID=378567176047584290

Which includes some brief musings on the value of computer games. We've been playing this really fun quest type game for the PC, called Zanzarah - I bought it thinking Mo would like it. Fairies and elves and all that stuff. Turns out its a little too difficult for her to maneuver the character, there's a weird combination of mouse and arrow keys required that took even me and Ray awhile to figure out. So he and I have been playing it and having a good time. Predictably, he's better at it, but now and then I do something in a different sequence or catch a fairy he doesn't have yet. Fun stuff.

I ordered World of Warcraft, but so far we haven't been able to play it. Our computer has a "social disease" at the moment :( and we don't have the funds to get it taken care of, so its running too slowly to play something quite so elaborate. WoW is and online role playing game - more elves and trolls an' all, but since its online you get to communicate with other players all over the world. Rayan just loves that sort of thing so I thought it would be right up his alley - and some of the fabulous unschoolers I've been hangin' with online have set up a "guild" on WoW, and it would be soooooo cool if Ray could meet some of these folks. Anyway, I'm working on options, but some of those involve asking the neighbors if he can use their computer, so I'm flaking out. Bad mommy! No cake! Sunfrog is coming over this weekend to watch football, though, so I'm going to try to bring it up then.

Another thing I've been considering, wrt games, is getting one of those game systems that plug into the tv - Ray thinks maybe Game Cube, since that's what he had before. That has the advantage of freeing up the computer somewhat, but it doesn't have the social feature on online gaming.

Okay, so what's with the games, you may ask? When did Mer drink the kool-aid? George blames "the unschoolers" warping my mind with stories of all the valuble things their kids have learned while playing computer games. Could be. Playing the simpler, treasure-hunt style games with Morgan also helped. I found myself wanting more complicated games, but not really finding them until now. This was the perfect game to suck me in big-time! It has the light entertainment value of the trashy fantasy novels I love, and its complex enought that it takes a long time, and some planning and problem solving, to get through it. Its even (in a way) educational, but don't tell Rayan I said so. I'd rather he just enjoyed it.

Quilt pix et al

Here's the latest thing I'm working on - one of them, anyway. This is a background for a "tortoise and hare" quilt. I'm doing a sort of series that I'm calling (at least in my head) "myths, fables and fairy tales" inspired by the owl and pussycat thing. I really need a set of quilts that show off what I can do now - its like building a portfolio all over again, so its kind of frustrating, from that perspective.

I need to work on updating my website, too. A friend of mine offered to do it, but she's since become very busy and flaked out on me so I'm thinking of just doing my own. After fussing around with the blog thing some I feel better able to handle that - but if anyone wants to suggest a good template or whatever, I'm open to suggestion.

Mo science

Here's Morgan having a grand old time with her new "chemistry" set. Most of the "experiments" involved polymers that expanded in some fashion with the addition of water, some quickly, some slowly. The results looked like snow, jello, and less describable goos.

There was also an intriguing sand that had been treated with a water resistant coating. Rayan was interested in that one, and commented that it reminded him of the way water doesn't seem to "stick" to leaves. He probably learned more science wandering in and out of the kitchen that morning than he has all year in school.

Once we'd gone through the basic mixtures, Morgan wanted to explore some on her own. We had some of everything left over, so she had a good time making mixes of mixes and squishing everything together with her fingers. The last pic shows her trying to mold the resultant goo into shapes with an old block-sorter toy. That didn't work so well, but maybe she'd like to try it again with the new clay.

The Farm School at Home

Since we are in the process of getting registered with the Farm I thought I'd post some information about homeschooling in TN in general and The Farm in particular. TN has three different ways to register as a homeschooler. The first is with the local education agency and is really the simplest. Its free if you do it on time, and there's a minimum of requirements - attendance records, not exactly a stretch. That's been the plan for Mo, but there are complications with Rayan - those being that George has no high-school diploma, and he and I aren't married, so I'm not a "legal" guardian.

Option 2 is an "umbrella school" where basically a church provides the curriculum and we would follow it. Not for us, for obvious reasons. There are no Unitarian umbrella schools in TN, about the only "acceptable" option for us.

Option 3 is a variation on the umbrella school idea, where we would sign up with a "Private Church Related School" as a "satellite campus" - basically the school agrees to "hire" us as teachers and we become part of a private school. There are two of these that don't regulate what kind of curriculum we use, one requires a statement of Faith, the other a statement of Ethics, and we would, under other circumstances, go with that for conveniece. But now we don't have to!

The Farm in Summertown has been recognized by the state of TN as a bona-fide church related (option 3) school:

TheFarm School is operated by The Church of the Farm Religious Community andaccredited by the National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools(http://www.ncacs.org).

and has set up a satellite campus program. No statement of anything, just send money. Very American of them, but don't tell them I said so ;) We were a little concerned when we saw the first-draft registration form, since it asked about the education of the parents and all that stuff we were trying to get away from! I contacted the person who is handling the satellite campus stuff and she assured me that they would sort it all out in the name of providing support for alternative families and, oh, what was the expression she used, something about alternative education, or maybe anti-authoritarian education....whatever. What happened was the board realized they wanted to do less paperwork and dropped all the educational and marital requirements for "parents" and are re-doing the form. As I said, Very American - just send money!

Anyway, here's their high-fallutin' mission statement an' all:

Vision & Mission

We envision a world where all people live in peace and harmony with each other and our planet. We are committed to helping our students become leaders towards a peaceful, just and ecologically sustainable world. We seek to help our students manifest a peaceful and harmonious world.

Educational Philosophy

At The Farm School students learn as they apply basic skills and content to real-world problems with a focus on peace, equality and sustainability. We use responsive curriculum to connect what our students learn to their and our community's needs, interests, experiences and values.

The Farm School @ Home services

The Farm School is a community school and homeschool resource center. We are very excited to be able to offer an alternative for homeschool families that, for whatever reason, are not comfortable registering with their Local Educational Agency (LEA) or with a denominational Church Related School(CRS). We require no statement of faith and are not interested in mandating curriculum or any other decisions. We believe in responsive education matched to the needs, interests and experiences of individual children. And we believe that the adults best able to negotiate curriculum with children are the adults spending time with those children on a daily basis.

It looks like this

Here's a pic of Rayan carving - he added in the lettering. Lots of fun. I have set up a separate blog just for him, but I still think of this as the "family blog", so it needed a shot of Rayan doing his new thing.

Things are going well, for the most part. He's cheerful and friendly and offers to help out.... I'm hoping that as long as we can keep following his lead in terms of interests, etc, that will continue, too. I'm encouraged, in that regard, by my reading on the unschooling forums - lots of stories of teens who aren't angry and rebellious. What a concept!

First days of deschooling

Monday went famously well - it can't all be this good! Rayan was thrilled to be home, slept in, hung out, ate some chocolate-chip muffins I'd made - he's missed a lot of my baked breakfasts since he was having to leave so early. I found this big box that we'd been saving to make a playhouse with Morgan, and offered to let him spray-paint it, if he wanted. Well, he was just over the moon! Emptied his can of black paint in minutes, so after lunch we made a run to the store for more. He's still so shocked when I tell him I'll pay for things (buget willing). We also picked up some poster board for stencils.

Once we got back he added some red and blue details to the box - must get a pic of this for y'all - and then decided it was time to paint his skateboard. That's what he wanted stencils for. I'm used to making stencils for quilt stuff, so I showed him how I do it and how I use the copier to make things different sizes. What do they teach in these schools? I helped him cut the stencils and tape them to the board. Loads of fun.

It was so exciting to see him motivated - he's usually so passive. It gave me a great big surge of hope. He really can do things when he wants to - its just that school has left him wanting to do so little. He kept talking about all sorts of other things he could paint - clothes, the old fridge in the barn. He wants to paint the fence around the garden, but I think I'd like to see a design for that first. With the fence, the garden felt like an extra room to the house this year, so I'm leary of having it spray-painted just yet.

One of the things that made Monday work out so smoothly was Morgan. She watched movies in bed all morning and then got really involved in a project of her own as soon as we got home from the store, so I could give Rayan all the attention he needed. He's still pretty needy and uncertain in alot of ways. Morgan's much more autonomous.

Tuesday she came downstairs pretty early, so I had to do more "juggling" of kid needs and energy. Tricky stuff - the differences in the two kids make it easy to sort of overlook her, and I don't want to do that, for sure. At the same time, I don't want Rayan to feel like he's the "second best" kid, since he's the "step". Good thing I've been practicing juggling all summer.

Wednesday I worked at Barb's so George got to take the kids to the park and hang out with the homeschoolers. Everyone had fun - and Rayan learned to carve! That's a skateboarding term, folks! Its when you go around the sides of the bowl - okay, darnit, I'm going to have to figure out how to make hyperlinks so y'all can read about it in wikipedia or something, I'm not defining all these words for y'all!

I've set up another blog just for stuff about Rayan - mostly to provide some kind of documentation for his mom at this point, but if she mellows out, maybe it will even be interesting. We'll see about that.

Up to date at last!

Sorry for the string of copied posts from the message boards, folks! It's just been too overwhelming to try to keep track of things in more than one place at a time.

Good news! Amy said we could go ahead and homeschool and she would "step back from that". She did offer transportation to the Y, etc. So today (Monday) was our first official day of homeschooling. There are still some paperwork details to take care of - The Farm has its homeschool program set up, but haven't got their forms sorted out yet (dang hippies!). Jacki, who's coordinating the middle TN area says not to worry, we can always back-date the darn things. So that's fine.

Today was fabulous all 'round. I have a kind of long description of it, hand written, but I'm too tired, I'll post it tomorrow.

I'm planning on putting the blog address "out there" more in the unschooling community, since they've all been letting me cry on their shoulders, as it were, and now seem to want to keep up with details.

Nov 30

Re: Blended families - adding a step child to your family
--- In AlwaysUnschooled@yahoogroups.com, "Melynda Laurent" wrote:
>> Has anyone added a step child who comes from a rigid, authoritarian
> home to their unschooing family? Or does anyone have any thoughts on
> how do do it?

Well, my stepson (13) started living with us...um its all a haze...three weeks ago? We're in the position of negotiating with mom about homeschooling *still*. Rayan's mom doesn't so much support him being here as "can't control him anymore" - so, yes, I guess you could say he's been in "an overly controlling family". We don't have the option of diving head-first into unschooling, but the current plan is to "take a break from school" the moment mom gives the go signal, and hopefully just stay on vacation. In the meantime we're trying to unschool everything but school, iykwim.

Since we already are unschooling Morgan, part of the way we're explaining things to Ray is to say "well, she gets to do it,why not you?" which seems to be blowing his mind a little, but he can totally see the logic there. We haven't sat him down and explained unschooling, though. We're just trying to say "Yes" as often as possible, and make the same kinds of friendly offers we do with Mo.

> I am wondering if we should
> throw him staight into the unschooling life style or should we keep
> him in school and let him norm to our family first?

We kind of thought that Ray being in school *might* make the transition easier. Now we're not so sure about that. Its not just that dealing with school is such a major hassle, its that Ray's not*here* so he's not really learning how our family really *is*. Last week was T'giving and before that he was suspended - so he was home for ten days straight. It was really great. Okay, sure, there were ups and downs, but with him here all day long it was sooooomuch easier for him to get a feel for the rhythem of the day. He started figuring out how to move in and out of Mo's very busy lifestyle. I started figuring out what he ate and how much and when to offer him things. We had some good conversations and I felt likeI was just starting to have some vague idea of what kinds of things he might be into. Then BLAMMO back to school again, and we never see him except when he's tired and PO'd.

How old is your dss? Does he want to stay in school or come homeright away? Does his mom support y'all's home/unschooling?
> he lives with his
> mom and step dad who do not even allow him to make his own toast

Expect to have to do a lot of offerring and reassuring as though for a much younger child: "do you want to get your own or would you rather I did it?" "would you like some help with that?" "Oh, yes,I'm happy to get that - you know you can get your own, if you want,too, you don't *have* to ask". I have to keep reminding myself that Ray doesn't necessarily have the skills Mo has (boiling water, using the microwave) and also that it may be overwhelming to expect him to learn those things right away.

Consider letting him have a "stash" of treats just for him - Ray really likes this, especially since he "gets" to keep it in his room (ooooooh aaaaaaah! food in the bedroom! next she'll say its okay to eat in front of the tv...) and/or doing some other nice, friendly,unschooly things to "welcome him to the family".Congratulations!

And later:

> having him with all the needs he will
> bring, beginning unschooling and a new baby seem really overwhelming
> and honestly, unfair to OUR family

One of the things I've been working on, personally, is thinking about Rayan as a member of my family. He's been a visitor for so long. This goes much deeper than remembering to make twice as much spaghetti or strew opportunities for an older, very different personality. I'm having to *learn* to think of my whole family differently - as Ray's family.

I can hear an earlier part of my process in your post - what's this going to do to *us*? I realized that Rayan moving in wasn't just a matter of giving him bedspace, I had to stop thinking of an Us that didn't include Him. That's hard. But its essential. If this *isn't* Rayan's family as much as Mo's then he is a second-class citizen in this house. He'll know that and it will create resentment.

OTOH, once I started working on thinking of Rayan as a part of "us",a big load of resentment fell away - on my part. He's not an interloper or a visitor. His wants and needs are just as much a part of my consideration as mine, Mo's, George's. I don't know how to *meet* them all, yet! but I can at least acknowledge, validate, and be open to possibilities.

> Thanks Meredith. You have some good insights into this.

I don't know how good they are, but they're fresh!