A record of a sweet conversation

Maybe it will seem more special and sweet to me than anyone else, but I wanted to just write it down anyway.

The kids were quietly playing together and Danielle turned into a puppy dog again. Nathan decided to feed her as usual, so came into the lounge to find the Triominoes (triangle shapes just like our own dog's biscuits). He couldn't find them, and I heard him mutter under his breath to his dog "hmmm, can't find them, you'll have to have vegetables" while opening up the Harvest Time board game and offering her the boxful of vegetable cards for her to munch on.

I can't even really sum up what I found so amusing about it all, but it had me laughing anyway.

The Heidi Lunch

Finally!

All week Nathan has been talking about this lunch but we've been waiting for grocery shopping day to get what we needed.

So while the speech language therapist was here with Danielle this morning, I made some gluten free bread and once she'd left we went down to the supermarket. We stocked up on goat's milk, bought some cream to make our butter and a new block of cheese. Although Nathan would have been happy enough with the store bought butter, *I* really wanted to give it a go making it lol. So we sat down to our lunch of goat's milk in little bowls, spread our freshly made butter and bits of cheese on fresh bread.




This afternoon I introduced Nathan to a lego.com game where he had to rearrange the lego blocks so the robot could get through to empty the trashcan. Once he's finished playing that I noticed him get out some old newspaper and spread it over the ground. He wanted me to be a robot and move a sheet of paper in and out for him to leap over, score points and move up a level lol.

A chilly but cool day

Yesterday we just hung out at home and inside since it was a chilly day. The kids had some music on down in Danielle's bedroom and I spotted Nathan in the hallway like this a wee while later (had retrieved Simon's guitar from our wardrobe).

But by the afternoon the kids were itching to get out for some fresh air and exercise.

We were browsing around the garden and I spotted a few neglected scarlett runner beans dried on the vine, so pulled them off and the kids had fun cracking them open and saving the seeds. Although most of them are really small, we'll save them for a having a go at growing new plants from them in Spring.

We then went down for a walk/ride to the playground for 1/2hr.

Danielle collected a bunch of leaves and stones on the way home. She sat up at the table and was getting frustrated trying to make her leaf stand up on the rock, so I asked if she'd like a little pot of soil instead. Once she'd "planted" it she sang a a little song we sing around here when we plant something "grow little plant, grow".

Yesterday we had playcentre in the morning and in the afternoon we hung out at home...the kids played with the magnetix (Nathan made a little a-frame house with chimney and I heard him reenacting a story of Heidi with grandmamma and Clara coming to visit). Danielle then put on a CD in her player down in her room while I was pottering around sorting out the laundry - so we all danced and tidied together for a while.

I restarted reading Farmer Boy to Nathan at bedtime - we're about 3/4 of the way through and he's just started to take a keen interest in it. We had a quick recap of the story so far and he reminded me about how they had to pour water over the frozen corn seedlings to save them before the sun came up (that wee fact fascinated me - might come in handy this year since I lost some seedlings last year due to frost - if only I would get my butt out of bed on such a cold dark day lol).

Today we had a slow start in the morning, then went down to the garden to feed and let the chickens out. Our cheeky little fantail came to visit and was flitting around near us constantly cheeping. We popped our arms out and had a few close landings. We then tried holding out a branch for it, but it was just teasing us and jumping around.

The kids came inside and put together a few jigsaw puzzles. Nathan brought me a book on rabbits to look at together that I'd got from the library last week at his request, before heading out to meet with our unschooling group.

We made a homemade pizza for dinner and they both asked to go to bed at 7pm!

Saturday saw the kids and I visiting a friend with her little baby (and the kids got to sit in their classic racing car) before we headed off for a friends birthday party.

Sunday we woke up to the rain and have spent a few very low key days mostly around home.

Despite the rain, Simon took the kids out in the bike trailer to the video shop to pick out a new DVD.

Later on, as we sat down to dinner, Nathan wanted to light the candles and turn out the lights. He quickly decided he wanted the light on again when he couldn't see his meal, gosh, ya wouldn't want to eat that bit of vegetable you might not see eh?? LOL

More rain today and the kids have been busy...

After the usual morning TV, Danielle found some craft supplies in one of the drawers and sat down cutting and pasting for a while.

Nathan wanted to write a thank you note for his friend for inviting us to her party. So he had me write out the message and he copied it out. He then popped it into an envelope ready for posting tomorrow.

I finished reading Heidi this morning and Nathan has decided he'd like to try drinking some goat's milk. And it needs to be drunk in a little bowl like Heidi. We thought it would also be neat to make it a real Alm meal like Heidi as described in the book. So on Friday when we do our grocery shopping, we'll buy some goat's milk, also get some cream to try making our own butter, make a loaf of bread and eat it with cheese (not sure that we'd be able to source hard goats cheese though!?). I found Heidi such a lovely book to read - Nathan didn't appear all that enthused throughout, but definitely wanted to read and find out more. It introduced quite a few new concepts and words to him - some of which were tricky to explain, and others he grasped as soon as I reworded them or gave an analogy that related to his life.

After talking about making our own butter, Nathan asked if we could make some honey. So although he knows that bees collect pollen to make honey, he still wondered if we could do that - so we jumped on YouTube for a while to see some bee keepers tending to their bee hives and collecting honeycomb and honey.

We decided we'd have soup for dinner tonight and Nathan suggested I make a Cabbage and Potato soup. Um mmmmmm, well, I've never made that combination before (and didn't sound all that nice lol), but I did have the ingredients required, and google threw up quite a few recipes that just look like my usual leek and potato or spinach and potato soups. So he went off to write me out a reminder. (Interesting how he's drawn some lines on his paper to write between). The end result wasn't too bad and he scoffed it down.

Last night I read a library book on the solar system to Nathan and he really wanted to make his own model of one. He decided that last week's cat-made-from-vege-box could now be transformed. So he set to painting the inside of the box and attached a picture of the sun and a few planets (his solar system only needs 3 planets).


The kids jumped on the computer for a little while this afternoon (Nathan was showing Danielle how to play Starfall and they then loaded up one of his games) until we had an older friend come over for a visit, it's really neat to see the kids all playing well together and having a great time. Before finding our unschooling friends, we hadn't really had the opportunity to play with older kids before, so the group's been a very welcome addition to our daily lives.

(Do you know how many times I googled/researched just to write this post (checking recipes, grammar, to confirm my "knowledge")? Who says we need to be teachers to facilitate our kids learning? I certainly know that *I* am learning right alongside my kids and it's great!)

Just ticking along

We've had a real "home based" week this week. Largely driven by the need to save on fuel use, but also without the need or desire to leave either.

We had friends over to visit on Monday, Tuesday we went to Playcentre in the morning, Wednesday we hosted our unschooling group, Thursday was spent by ourselves with the fire going all day, and today we had a full day out - we'd been storing up a few errands and things to do while out to reduce our car use. The day started with Danielle's SLT session, then after an early lunch we headed down to the library to exchange books, wandered across the road to the mall to buy a few books for a friends birthday tomorrow, met with friends at the inside playground while us two mums were able to talk self-sufficiency, community and sharing workload and skills. After saying goodbye to them we headed to the organic shop, next door to the toyshop for a play, over to the big red shed and home in time for making dinner. It's funny - an 'ordinary' day out has actually become a bit of a highlight for the week. We made sure there were no time constraints and just stayed for as little or as long a time as we wanted and didn't get home till after 4pm.

A few days back Nathan found a few CD Rom reading/math games I'd bought but hadn't yet shown to him. So we sat down and had a play - this evening he jumped on here again while I was cooking dinner and worked his way around the games he could do, and asked for assistance for others.

We're almost all the way through Heidi. Both kids have helped cook dinner most nights.

The kids have spent quite a few mornings out on the deck in the sandpit while it is sunny as well as down on the trampoline. The lego has been having quite a bit of use by Nathan, and Danielle has been right into her baby doll again.

I've noticed Nathan using a few more complex words in his conversations with me which brings a little internal smile to my face as he tries it out multiple times to see how it sounds reworded.

Danielle sat on my lap this evening while I was checking emails and wanted to have a play on the keyboard, so she tapped around in Word for a while experimenting.

A few new experiences

On Friday we met up halfway with a friend who has moved into the city. We started off at a cafe and then headed to the nearby museum that we hadn't been to before, so we took our time and wandered around there for a while (Nathan excitedly pointed out an old yoke like one that Almanzo had put on his calves in Farmer Boy) before heading off to browse some shops while the kids got to just hang together and catch up.

After saying goodbye to them, I took the kids to the hospital to visit their great-nana. We found her in the patient lounge where some of the rehabilitation patients were going to be making pikelets as a part of their therapy. It was quite a new experience for the kids to see people with a range of physical abilities in one room and Nathan would have loved to help out with the measuring and mixing!

The car conversations returned to Mount Everest and then Nathan started asking about direction (he's been interested in playing a treasure hunt game on his PC geography game) and I pointed out N, E, W, S which were the directions he was used to. He then pointed in between two directions and said "but what is that direction then?". Well, that was SW lol.

We spent Saturday at home and pottered around until some friends came to visit.

Today Simon was home, so we just hung out here in the morning, after lunch we bundled onto the bikes and took the kids for a ride in the bike trailer down to the shopping centre.

The kids spent the afternoon hanging out down in the garden, digging their hole bigger, and Danielle helped me repot some seedlings.

The day started off with our weekly visit from the speech language therapist for Danielle (who is making great strides ahead). She loves the games that she gets to play and I notice almost immediately the progress that we've made. Having had glue ear for so long, it was like she just needs encouragement to converse rather than not being able to do it.

It seems that Thursday's are needing to be renamed "vege-box-craft-day". I can barely get the box unpacked before it's been whipped away and transformed. Today it turned into a cat (I love it's tail all cut out of the box and shells for eyes).

The kids watched a few dvd's and videos over the course of the today - the weather was bleak and a little chilly.

After lunch between rain showers we let the chickens out and hung out in the garden for a while. Nathan has a rope permanently around one of the tree branches that seems to always have something different attached to it. I am still required to help with getting his knots to stay tied, but he gives them a good go first.

Danielle discovered a few dandelion flowers in the grass and went around picking them all.


Nathan wanted me to sword fight with him this afternoon - when I was getting right into it he decided he might need his shield that Simon had made him for his birthday lol.

Nathan had me in absolute stitches this evening - it probably wasn't even that funny - it was the contrast of what I was "hearing" and what he was "doing" that just had me laughing. I could hear him in the dining room struggling and getting annoyed about something not working out for him. So called out if he'd like some help which he did. He was partly wrapped up in a blanket and asked me to wrap it around him properly. "Sure. What are you dressing up as?" I'm trying to be a big sausage. LMAO. I'm sure it's not that funny, but oh well, it appealed to my whacky self at that time. I think it was the way he told me in a serious and determined way.

While helping me prepare the veges for our roast dinner, Nathan asked me what a Tom Cat was (one of their Hans Christian Andersen videos had a Tom Cat on it). So to explain that I felt I needed to also explain what a Tom Cat was not (which then lead to questions about how they neuter the cat and does it hurt etc).

Why the doubt thing...again?!

The day started off lovely, sunny and really cold so we all went outside and the kids got involved in playing in the back yard. They spent a while collecting "firewood" and making a campfire while I was able to be on the front porch folding and hanging up washing. I then joined them and suggested I set up a teepee (made from bamboo) in the sun and they ate morning tea.

We had let the chickens out and the cheeky things had wandered up the top again to be where the action was (ie the kids) and plonked themselves in a nearby compost heap and began to have a dust bath. We literally sat in the warm sun and watched them do that for a good half hour until they were done. It was funny watching them flap and stretch and roll around and on top of each other, preening and kicking each other and we had a little laugh how it was kind of like watching Nathan and Danielle needling each other at times. Nathan was amused at seeing Moon (the black one) lying on her side and stretch her leg out and leave it there for a few seconds (and so was I!).

We then talked about how they were happy chickens and free range and this moved onto me discussing how some chickens live their whole life in a cage without being able to scratch around or eat yummy bugs. When he asked why, I touched on how the chicken farms want to make lots of money and to do that they need to have lots of chickens and the way to do that was to have them all squished together in small spaces, and equally how people buy the chickens and that keeps the cycle going. A tricky topic!

Nathan told me a story yesterday morning how if he were Heidi in the big house, that he would get himself a motorbike (with a seat on the side for Danielle) and would race away out of there. This is what I find fascinating about reading some of these books - he doesn't appear to be too interested while we are reading it, but randomly several days later a conversation starts up about something we've read.

The rest of the day included meeting up with our unschooling group, heading off to the emergency doctor to get Danielle's arm checked out as she fell off the trampoline (not broken, but most likely a dislocated elbow which reset itself), both kids then fell asleep on the couch at 4pm till dinner time (yikes!), we tidied the house and read some books.

So, we made it to the end of the day and the doubt started to kick in. Was I too relaxed in my approach? Was I really cut out for this unschooling thing? Did we "teach as regularly and as well" as a state school as per the ministry's rules?

Simon wasn't going to be home till late, and the kids wanted to lie in front of the fire in the dark again in their jammies and with their pillows. All was quiet as we lay there and the kids were just dozing.

Nathan then had his hands in the air and was watching the shadows and I noticed him holding up one finger on each hand, then two on each hand, three etc. I then just mentioned that 2 x 1 = 2, 2 x 2 = 4, 2 x 3 = 6 etc and he was right into chanting that out for a few minutes as he used his fingers as a visual guide. When Nathan was holding up his fingers Danielle joined in quietly - I turned to her and she had her hand up and counted out 1-4 on one hand. Nathan then got a burst of energy (not surprising considering the late nap) and wanted to write out all the numbers. So off he went to find a spot of light and worked on that for a few minutes. Then he wanted me to write out a story that he told (so I was told a story about a rabbit and a monster). He then found a dice and wanted to roll it back and forwards and "call" the number. Danielle joined in the game and always called a 4 lol. Nathan found another dice to roll, so we started adding the numbers together.

So, as usual, I seem to be justifying a good day against a slightly doubtful day as to whether he covers the 3 R's. Very frustrating for me, considering how many questions I field and answer in a day there is certainly plenty of learning going on!

This afternoon Danielle was playing with her baby doll and came to me to help her put her hat on. I asked whether her baby might like a woolly hat (she gave me a sun bonnet) only her baby didn't have one, so should I crochet her one? She thought that would be a good idea.

So off to google - we love google. Get out the crochet supplies.

The kids wanted to have their own hooks and wool, and Nathan wanted me to show him how to do it. So he and I worked together doing chain stitch - it got to about 20cm before he decided to pop it away (but really wanted me to keep it for him to work on another time).


An hour and a half later amongst feeding the chickens and cooking dinner and we had a thrown together hat (wasn't following the pattern, just got the gist of getting started - hence the large holes and the not-the-best stitch and it looks more like a crocheted retro motorcycle helmet lol than a warm woolly hat!). But she's pretty happy with it.

Danielle's had some lovely imaginative play going on lately that I've really noticed it - she's branching out from her usual putting baby to bed, closing curtains, saying "shhhhhh", and closing the door. She told me this evening that her baby was sick and that she needed to take her to the doctor to get her ears checked (as she does for her glue ear lol). Being the natural medicine mama that I am I suggested that maybe her bubba would like a homeopathic remedy lol, but no, she was off to the doctor.

The Fire Station!

With playcentre today we went for a walk down the road to visit the local firestation.

Nathan was right into it and got right up close and volunteered answers when asked questions.

A few days back late in the afternoon I was wondering what the kids were up to outside and why things were so quiet. So I peeked out the front door and saw this. They were standing quietly looking out the gate.

I asked them what they were up to and Nathan replied "it was cold, so if we snuggle close together we will stay warmer". I sense another expansion of the Mount Everest discussion when we talked of hypothermia/or if he got stuck out in the cold and cuddling to stay warm. It was freezing out there and they probably were really warm like that!

The drew a picture each for their great-nana who is in hospital. Danielle's been keen for the past few days using our new crafting supplies.


For a part of the afternoon, Danielle has been making "letters". She's been folding and pasting a piece of paper in half and "writes" on it, then posting them in the slot under our nature table. It's so neat to see her come up with her own ideas completely independent of what Nathan is doing.

Today the kids and I built a structure to grow some vine fruit on in Spring. Nathan was keen to help and gave the sawing a go (he's right into it at playcentre, but was a good opportunity to give it a go on a real-life item) - unfortunately, bamboo isn't the easiest to work with and also with it tending to move around a bit it made the job tricky. He then moved on to digging the holes and wanting to pull the cable ties tight. Once this is all built and the vines grown, the kids will be able to use it as a sun shade/hut/house etc if they want.



Nathan, who seems to did holes all over my front yard (where I'm trying to have a nice herb garden), was redirected to the corner of the yard to dig to his little hearts content.

Danielle discovered some planks I had put on some tree stumps (left over from collecting firewood) in the yard, then climbed the tree for the first time after a bit of struggling (and oh so proud!) since her legs were still a little short to get good leverage, then moved on to watch the chickens who kept wandering up into the upper yard and risked their lives with our dog who could see them and would have loved to get out of his enclosure to eat chicken for dinner (and made it almost to the road yesterday). Our barrier didn't work, so until I can figure something out (or they decide they don't need to investigate further than their own large yard) they will need to be supervised while out.

Yesterday we spent a bit of time with friends who had travelled down country to our town for work. So the kids got to play with their 3yr old friend and his baby brother - it was so cool seeing Danielle and their boy hit it off and race around the house getting silly and right into each other. It's not often that I see her with children her own age - they are either a year younger or a couple of years older, so it was interesting to see her engaging with another child who was at a similar developmental level. They will come back and visit us tomorrow morning which will be more fun.

Today, Simon took the kids on a bike ride to replace the DVD they had out. So I had a few hours to myself to potter around. I sat outside on the chilly sunny porch with a cup of tea and started reading a home ed book I had found at the library - I was really surprised to find quite a few books there (a few years back when I was first researching there was ONE book and was a school-at-home book). I was even more surprised to find one specifically about unschooling called How Children Learn at Home - so nothing about the title really indicates unschooling, but it is. I've been skimming a bit (I seem to have lost the ability/desire to sit and read a book cover to cover even if I'm into it - strange). Now I'm left wondering WHO in our town ordered it into the library and where are they?! LOL.

Book discussion

We played with some friends this morning and this afternoon was a relaxed one inside since it's been so cold and windy outside today.

We baked some muffins with both kids helping and read heaps of books in front of the fire. Nathan wanted to read his early readers again and although he was sometimes predicting the story/words incorrectly, if I asked him to relook he self corrected the next time around.

This evening we read more of Heidi and I stopped to reflect on the story a few times. The other night he mentioned while I was reading that Grandfather was in fact very kind to her (he seemed surprised, because the build up of the story made out he was a gruff old man) he was also able to talk about how Heidi wasn't happy at Clara's house because the people weren't kind to her.

I find the discussions and comments that come up from reading books really cool and such an amazing way to introduce so many different ideas, concepts, history and interests that are quite different to the everyday things that we are exposed to. Some books I feel deserve more discussion, but I know that his age and understanding isn't quite there yet for a lot of the more complex writings that we come across but hope to revisit those again someday.

Introducing new things without attachment

I struggled to come up with a title that really reflects what I am blogging about here and I think the entire post is just random thoughts - they link in my mind, but not sure they are conveyed the way that I intend!

This post was prompted by a question my mother asked me last week. My elderly grandmother gave Nathan a gift for his birthday and she was asking my mum whether he has been playing with it. In actual fact he hadn't been, but it made me realise that while we can choose what we deem to be the ideal gift for others, that we can't get hung up on whether they do actually use it. And in so many ways this is true too for our unschooling philosophy - I may introduce books, ideas, and occasionally activities - but it's totally up to the kids on what they do and what they don't and I don't concern myself about their desire to run with any of them.

I know I gave up years ago wondering why the kids didn't play with a gift I'd (or someone else) gotten them when I'd spent ages deciding it would be what they really wanted and would be really useful.

I still try and purchase mindfully, but don't think further than that, I just pop it where the rest of their things are and leave it be. I know at some stage the item *will* actually be played with (well everything has so far).

I also find it interesting when we've received something which is ahead of the kids developmental level or their interest just doesn't lie in that area at the time and then noticing the moment that their interest is peaked. I've been noticing this with Danielle recently and her getting out games that Nathan received when he was younger. It's been such a natural progression for her without prompting to see what suddenly grabs her attention.

Today she very puposefully got out the Junior Scrabble which hasn't been out for many months and sat down with it wanting to match the letters up. So I sat with her and read out the letter as she picked it up and she found a spot for it. She hadn't yet shown any interest in wanting to know what letters are (aside from knowing O and writes A repeatedly), so will be interesting to see whether this goes anywhere.

Later on the kids started a game where they got dressed up to go out and were going shopping. They had money and were wanting to puchase things. I'd asked my mum to get Danielle a cash register and NZ play money for her birthday (I'm sure we could have used the real deal but I don't really use cash a lot) - so that was over 2mths ago, and has only occasionally been played with, but this was the first time they were interested in it in a money/purchasing sense.

In the past few days we've visited our unschooling friends, had a friend to play, went on a short train ride this morning with our playcentre friends, had an ice block and jumped back on, been to the library...

We've discussed...

~The moon, the sun and the earth and the role each plays
~Last week at the supermarket he wondered why there were so many lights on. We discussed why that might be (no windows) and wondered what it would be like in there with no lights on.
~Nathan made his first insect identification the other day. He received an insect book from us for his birthday and a friend got him a bug catcher with microscope. He found a dead insect on the floor, so we set about IDing it using the guide inside the cover of the book. He was quick to spot the beetle we had.
~And so much more I can't even recall what!

Creations...

~Nathan made a "supermarket" out of this weeks vegetable delivery box after the discussion last week. Then wanted it to have lights, so I suggested he get his torch out and see if he could make that work somehow. So he made a hole in the roof, attached the torch in the hole (with my help) and played with that for a while.
~Many drawings
~We got some more crafting supplies, so they've been busy playing with all sorts of new things that we haven't had before

We're currently reading...

~Farmer Boy
~Heidi
~Various Enid Blyton short books
~A few early readers

Nathan and Danielle's current games together are...

~Still carrying on with the pet dog theme, leading the dog around, feeding it, patting it, making a bed
~Trampoline play
~Riding their bikes/running bike
~Throwing the beach ball to each other
~Hut building with the couch cushions

Other activities...

~Jigsaw puzzles
~Opened up a new card game that Nathan got for his birthday called Set which is quite a cool game and he's got the swing of the basic version.
~DVDs
~PC geography game (he wanted to watch all the wildlife "videos" and then played a game based on compass directions)
~Juicing a heap of fruit
~Various household chores and food prep

The kids made their way through a bunch more of the puzzles and games in the drawer over the past few days. This evening Nathan discovered some alphabet cards and some with numbers at the bottom of the drawer and wanted to copy them out. So we sat down together while he went through and copied out all the lower case letters.

Danielle showed an interest in lighting the woodfire tonight. So she helped Simon build up the paper and kindling and then he held her hand while she struck the match and put it to the paper.

This evening as the bath was filling Nathan picked up an old plastic peanut butter container that the kids use as a bath toy and filled it up with water, screwed on the lid and dropped it into the water. He noted that it floated just under the surface. I found this interesting, because for ever he has been playing with filling bottles, putting the lids on, floating boats, boats fill with water and sink etc. But this was the first time he really "noticed" this in a way that it made him curious. So we experimented with what he had discovered. I showed him how there was a small amount of air at the top which caused it to float, then filled it entirely to the top and that caused it to sink. He then emptied it and it entirely floated and then half filled it and noted that it half-floated.

We took a little break from Farmer Boy tonight and started on Heidi which I'd borrowed from my mum.