Moving is always fun. February passed in a blur as we packed and cleaned and moved our household into the beautiful, two story 5 bedroom house we had found in Barrigada. Now a 10 minute drive to work, life was going to be much easier. And not a moment too soon as Stephanie was in full blown rehearsals for West Side Story with practices almost everyday.
A new house also meant new furniture so a cute little living room set was purchased from Designer's Direct. In hindsight we wish we had researched and tested our new couch set a little more as it turned out to be stuffed with foam chips and now that it's a year old, we have discovered it doesn't hold up well at all. I'm now on the lookout for an upholstery shop that could make new inside cushions for it, as it is a nice little set if it were only more comfortable to sit on!
Christmas 2011 found us living in the Inarjan house. A 45 minute drive from our office. Music production took place in our "library", the addition to the house.
It has come to my attention that life has suddenly fast forwarded to mid way through 2013. Whatever happened to 2012? For that matter 2011 seems to be much of a blur as well. I guess we all have our seasons and I seem to have just passed through a non-writing season. I think I spent a lot of time watching TV shows online and reading what other people wrote.
It is important not to let our years fly by so fast without really keeping track of what transpired. So for the next while I'm going to attempt to recreate the lost year, documenting it as well as I can through pictures taken over that time. With commentary thrown in as I remember the events.
So let's begin....
It's been a long journey. One that started almost 8 years ago when we bought our second oldest son, Adam, his first electric guitar. Little did we know that we were enabling a creative musical genius to be born.
Over the years Adam has unschooled himself in playing guitar, piano, composing music, production and lyrics. He has several albums worth of music ready to be produced and shared with the world. In the process of allowing this to happen there were more people that needed to get involved. Since dad worked with musicians he tried to get various local musicians interested in Adam's music. Unfortunately we weren't able to find people who had the same enthusiasm and commitment to make sure the world heard the music. So that meant we were on our own. Something needed to be done.
Unschooling DAD in music! He had to learn to sing. Adding lyrics to Adam's songs was easy. Les has a gift for writing and putting that gift into writing lyrics was the easy part. Learning to sing the songs was the hard part. But finally the hard work has paid off and we are now ready to share the music with the world.
Adam's "band" is The Desolation Sound - named after a place near our hometown in BC, Canada. A place were Les spent many years working in the logging industry. There are other bands and even a production studio with this name or variations of the name. It is so hard to come up with something original. Like it says in Ecclesiastes, "there is nothing new under the sun".
But Adam's music is new. And different. And worth sharing. So for your musical pleasure here are various places you can find the music:
First of all, no we did not eat a whale.
However, a sperm whale washed up onto the reef line a few miles from where we live. I heard about it on the news and in typical unschooling fashion, decided to take my kids on an impromptu field trip to see this sight. The only directions I had for where to find the whale was on the beach near the Yona cemetery. Eric thought it was very fitting of the whale to die near a cemetery.
I parked as close to the beach as I could get and then Eric, Cassie and I hiked a short way to the water’s edge. Along the way, Cassie noticed pinecones on the ground and was surprised to see them. She remembers our conversations in Canada about the different kinds of trees that grow in different parts of the world. The pine cones she saw were tiny replicas of those seen in Canada, and came from the Ironwood trees that line the shoreline.
The kids were expecting to smell the whale long before we saw it as we discussed decay of animals. But all we could smell was the usual salty air of the ocean. No sign of a whale. Looking out towards the reef line, at least 1/2 mile away, I could see a rounded long brown “lump” that the waves were splashing over. I'm fairly certain that was the sperm whale reported in the news. Too far away to smell or to get a good look at.
Disappointed we returned to the cemetery where we wandered a bit looking at graves and reading inscriptions. Then home we went, where we looked at various pictures of sperm whales (and others) online.
Later that night, another teachable moment ensued when Eric was trying his first hot banana pepper. He talked about enjoying hot things and the trick is to not let them touch his tongue. So then I asked the kids if they knew that certain parts of the tongue could taste different tastes.
“Oh, yes” Cassie exclaimed,” I read about it in a book.” Both her and Eric were able to tell me what parts of the tongue tasted sweet, salty and bitter. And then told me how they had both experimented with this to see if it was true. All without benefit of a science curriculum or lesson plan.
Cassie has been showing an interest in cooking lately so I have been taking full advantage of this window of opportunity and trying to teach her all I know. On Sunday we made a cheesecake together. It didn’t turn out so well. It tastes good enough but the texture is not right and so the kids, who generally devour cheesecake, weren’t too interested in it. I used the failed cheesecake experiment as a lesson to teach Cassie the importance of following a recipe. It’s not good enough just to gather the ingredients together and use the right measurements. It is the ORDER you put the ingredients together that makes all the difference. Our mistake with the cheesecake was not putting the items into the bowl and mixing in the correct order. Result? Cheesecake that was not as good as it should be.
Last night we made macaroni and cheese. With a white sauce. Very important to do that in the correct order or you will have very lumpy sauce. Cassie was very interested in my stories of Home Economics classes in 8th grade. She thinks that has got to be the best class in school. Until I told her we still had to do tests and homework and it wasn’t all just about cooking food and eating it. She feels that it should only be about the cooking. That is what is so great about homeschooling. It can be just about the cooking! But at the same time I showed her how to read the measuring cup and to find out how many tablespoons are in a cup and how many teaspoons in a tablespoon. She also learned about thickening agents and seasonings. And how just a little bit of salt can really make or break a dish.
In the meantime, while cooking was happening, back in the bedroom, Eric was working with his dad on how to find out where his air con was leaking from and how to rig up a system so that the dripping water landed in the bucket and not on the floor. So a little home building, mixed in with physics came into play. And a little lesson on electronics and water, and how the two just don’t mix.
Recently Adam moved out to a small apartment in our dive shop, freeing up a bedroom in our house. Since Eric will soon be 11 and Cassie will be turning 8, we figured it is time they each got their own room. So this weekend I worked on both room and finally have them all switched over. The bunk beds are a pain to move and so Cassie inherits the bunk beds. Eric had no bed, but luckily Dad just happened to bring home the extra couch from the dive shop, so it is temporarily his bed until a new one can be bought.
With this new switcheroo I thought I’d post some pictures of the clean rooms.
Cassie’s bed, with stuffed animals poised on a chair next to it.
I love big closets, it gives more room to store their things in!
Eric’s room. He wants posters to cover the pink walls! All the walls are pink in this house!
The bookshelf is still full of Adams’ books. Eventually they will go wherever Adam chooses to go. Or Eric will inherit what Adam doesn’t want.
So far we are on day 2 of the switcheroo and Eric has rediscovered his love for lego, now that he has room to play it. The sound of rattling lego pieces in a bucket is a cheerful, productive sound. Though it can drive you crazy at times!
Cassie is enjoying her room too and our next step is to help her turn it into a girl’s room.
I used to be involved in a direct sales company, Simply Fun, that sold board games. I loved the idea of playing games as a family and stayed in long enough to get one of each kind of game they sell. I love all the games and if I were a better saleswoman, I could see this company doing well. Anyway, despite my enthusiasm for the games, my family pretty much ignored them. Until recently.
Cassie and Eric are finally at the age that games are appealing. So they sneak into my closet and take out a game to explore. Part of the appeal is the sneaking into mom’s closet I’m sure.
The latest game they’ve been playing is called Take Your Pick. It is a card game. Each card has two words on it. Usually opposite or contradictory in meaning. Like “Hot” and “cold”. Or “Indoors” or “Outdoors”. You are supposed to take three cards and think about the other person you are playing with. What would they choose? It’s kind of like a personality game where you try to analyze the other person’s personality. What do they like? Great game to play between brother and sister.
Cassie needs help reading some of the words and then thinking of a question related to the words to ask Eric. They both need help figuring out what some words mean. Great vocabulary builder for both of them, and Cassie is practicing her reading skills. She is getting much better and I predict she’ll be a full on reader by the time she is 8. A little later than our other 4, but you can see how the process is just so different for her. One thing I’ve observed is that when she is reading she does not look ahead to the other words, but actually stops on each word and ponders the meaning. Sometimes she begins to question the author of the story. Like this simple reader I found called “This is a Fish”. In the story where the kids see a whale at an aquarium, one character says, “that is a big fish”. Cassie paused in her reading to scold the book. “It’s a whale you stupid kid!”. Reading further, the other kids do correct the boy, minus the word “stupid”.
Other games played this week:
Take Four – Discovery Toys – a scrabble type game with letter tiles.
Ooga – Simply Fun – memory type game with dinosaur cards.
Breaking Down the House – Simply Fun - dice game where you build a house by rolling dice. Three die alike and an earthquake strikes (the house falls down).
Psychonauts – playstation 2 video game
Lots of TV watching as we just got cable at the air station office. So far we aren’t directing their viewing too much…lots of iCarly and Nick cartoons so far. I also got a new DVD free in the mail from the History Channel – America, The story of Us. So we’ve been watching a bit of that a night. Along with a new hulu.com show we found….or an old show actually, Eerie Indiana – spooky stories told by a 12 year old kid about his weird town he lives in.
One thing to mention about my kids and their game playing. They sometimes ask me to tell them the rules. Once they get the basic concept down, though, then their own rules come into play. Rarely do they keep score. Eric used to have an issue with winning and losing (hated losing of course) which made playing games with him a nightmare a few years ago. So now, his rule always is, there is no keeping score. You just play for fun. And he loves to figure out the rule and do the opposite. And make that the new rule. Hard to explain. You’d have to see him in action. But thankfully Cassie agrees.
Two weeks ago I took the two youngest kids half way around the world to visit my homeland, and their heritage, Canada. Our specific destination was Powell River, BC where my family lived. On the way we passed through Vancouver, my birthplace.
The journey there had much to be desired. But any travel long distance on planes with kids is stressful. It started out with good intentions, but reality is…..plane rides and waiting at airports for 9 hour layovers in a foreign country has a lot to be desired. However, Eric and Cassie tried to make the most of it. Here they are posing at the Osaka Airport. 
In Japan, the kids played hide and seek, rode around on the luggage car (with mom as driver), learned about Japanese Yen and foreign money exchange rates, sampled Japanese Ice cream and gum. By the time we arrived in Seattle, they were quite worn out!
We had many adventures and I hope to be able to record them over the next few days. Stay tuned.
Steph is going to audition for a part in Cinderella. She has been taking private lessons from a voice coach.
Rhea, her teacher, is young and friendly. We watched her give her recital when she graduated as a music major in opera. She stood alone on stage with only a piano in the corner for accompaniment. She sang in German, French, Italian and I believe, Swahili. So we know who we are getting for our daughter.
Rhea is gracious to give Stephanie extra lessons as we get close to audition time. Steph is going against people who have been in lessons since they were three. I hope she gets her part. She is working for it. If she does not, I hope she gets something. She really wants to learn this business.
We are also preparing for the turn-over of our new business on Sept 1. Steph will not be the main person in the store as I thought would be the case. She needs to be writing and sleeping. The people we are buying the business from are sharing their knowledge with us, so we are blessed. But Steph is misunderstood, or we are. She comes in late after writing all night and sleeping too much. So she is in trouble for wasting her time and we are in trouble for allowing it.
But again, how can we judge someone else’s journey if we don’t even know where that person is headed? The air shop business is not the end; it is the means to an end. The purpose of it is to create resources for us to follow up on our collective artistic promise. So Steph will NOT stop writing in order to become a scuba air tank filler. She fills air tanks so she can write and get voice lessons and fancy musical equipment and sleep all day if she wrote all night. If she writes 1000 words per day for 10 years, she WILL be a writer.
And we continue.
“Mission Accomplished!”
Remember the photo of President. Bush on a carrier with a banner announcing, “Mission Accomplished!” on the eve of five or so more years of combat? When can I (or we; the unschoolers), claim success, or alternately, when can our critics declare our defeat?
My dad was (still is, I suppose) opposed to homeschooling. He invested maybe 10 years of expensive education to become a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), so I don’t blame him for being kind of put out when our actions say, “It was all redundant. We don’t need experts to educate our kids. In fact we don’t even need adults, except for guidance and resources. Kids can teach themselves what they desire to know, and what they don’t desire to know, they won’t learn no matter what coercive technologies you develop and impose on them.” Whew. But that is what we say, right?
I asked him (ten years ago) what he would want to see. He replies something to the effect that he would want to see some fruit. Don’t think that was his word, but that was the idea. I didn’t follow up; I thought about it and I hope he did, too.
Some questions: What about other kids, ones in school, that are 11 years old? What “fruit” are they expected to display? My experience is teachers and staff make endless excuses even for 18 year olds, saying that they are not just miniature adults, but that they need time and guidance to become adults before they can be expected to reflect any positive character traits. So what is the difference? If kids are on a journey, then when do we grade them on their ‘arrival’? Or do we grade them on the journey itself? What about a kid who takes a different path? We declare him a failure because we can not be bothered to take the time to understand his motives, his plans and therefore his progress?
If success is the incremental achievement of a worthwhile goal or goals, then how can we judge someone else’s, most especially if we don’t know what their goal is?
What is the Goal, Anyway?
Of course, it is widely accepted that the goal is to get an education so you can get a good job so you can afford to get your kids a good education so they can get a good job so they can….
Yuck!
Hey, anyone seen this super-depressing movie called Revolutionary Road? (spoiler alert!)
This couple had a dream to go to Paris and find the husband’s “true vocation”--his dream. The world did its best to entice them away from the dream, offering tempting promises of a bigger house, a nicer car, a happier wife…
They let the world steal their dream. And it killed the woman, the wife who was supposed to be happy for the success. Well, we have always known we are different, and I thank this horrible movie for clarifying a few things:
I now know why other homeschoolers tend to misunderstand us and our methods: We went to Paris. Figuratively speaking, but yeah, we did. Our life is an adventure—for real. We do things and build our lives around things that are not just designed for long-term security. In fact, I believe from Bible verses in correct context, that spending your entire adult life working to provide financial stability and attempting to eliminate any possibility of financial discomfort, is the opposite of trusting God.
But there are some tradeoffs for our freewheeling lifestyle. My kids hardly have any friends here because most of the homeschooled kids we know are even more regimented and inflexible than schooled kids. And strangely enough, the parents are proud of it. (One mother wrote a scolding email to Colleen explaining that they literally do not have a five minute block that is unscheduled and available for discretionary use, like walking on the beach, which we do every day.) I’m still not sure if she was supposed to admire this or pray for them…
Other kids, school kids, are not allowed to play; they must do homework until bedtime. Again, not sure if I should admire that or pity it. So anyway, most of my kids’ socialization comes from adults, family members and online friends. (We may have to let Eric go to school ‘cause he loves to play with kids and nobody will play with him.)
We worked hard for many years to build a business that provides the flexibility we enjoy. But I could quit any time if God tells me to. I already left a successful career and moved half-way across the world to a place where my skills were mostly non-transferable. I suffered for it, but where are we promised that there would be no trouble in this world? We do have roots here, but God can pull them up any time He wants.
So these are just the facts, not an indictment of anything or anyone. And I know there are lots of other people who live the adventure. But this is about my family, and this is me putting down what I am thinking about what we are doing and how we are doing it! So here it is:
Trying to Understand Why
I guess most of us have a hard time separating our lives from the American religion of over-consumption. It all ties in together. We buy things we don’t really need, mostly to impress people we don’t necessarily like, so they will admire us. But we also know that if there is a glaring weakness evident, that is what people will talk about. That makes us want to shore up our defenses and be ready to cover up anything that may cause people to look askance at us.
School-at-Home vs. Unschool
I think that may be why the majority of homeschoolers might as well be in school because they don’t take advantage of the flexibility that homeschool allows (at least from what we can see). Instead, it seems like they try to emulate the school in their home. That’s the major difference between unschoolers and school-at-homers. We are confident in what we do and do not feel a need to display our flight itinerary and progress to people who are looking for something to complain about. School-at-homers want to be sure they look and smell good because they know that the average parent sends their kids to school and that’s all they know. So if they don’t want to be misunderstood (by people who adhere to public school doctrine), they just make it look like they are doing the same thing that everyone knows and that way the path is pretty well paved and not too bumpy. In other words, emulating the school in your home is the path of least resistance.
And to keep on subject here (declaring success in homeschooling), the school-at-home people will do standardized testing to be sure they are on the right track, and also to show others that they are on the right track. This is to reassure the parents and also the community. We (my family) accept the trust and take responsibility for it, like a manager or steward is expected to do. Once in a while we explain what we’re doing, but mostly I am very glad we have a large “traditional” homeschooling group here and I am happy to let them be the face the community sees when they see homeschoolers. Because not even homeschoolers understand us; why would anyone else?
My Second Homeschool Graduate
One of our workers, a part-time guy who is a professional teacher, talked to me about Adam. Adam is the manager of the office that this teacher works out of, so Adam Smith is basically this guy’s boss. Well, the teacher guy said Adam is too quiet. He needs to get out of his shell.
Well, let’s see here. Adam is quiet. And when I was teaching in a classroom setting in a private high school, I wish some of the students knew when it was appropriate to be quiet. But they had zero self-control and so they talked and talked and of course swear words came out and I had to discipline them for it. So as a criticism of a person, or of our schooling style or of our parenting, that’s pretty thin.
Let me try this: I will make a small list of some of Adam’s positive and negative character traits. And then we will see what we got.
Adam is kind to people and animals.
He is organized and dislikes a mess.
He works the family business for a meager allowance, because he knows that after age 18, dad does not owe you a living.
He washes dishes and laundry.
He cares about accuracy and keeps the paperwork in order.
He is an excellent manager and keeps the office profitable.
He shares ideas and helps me develop profitable ones.
He is presentable and friendly to customers.
We can trust him with the business’ money.
He is frugal and sensible with his own money.
If he doesn’t know an answer, he does not give false information; he calls or looks it up.
He cares about his younger siblings and keeps them safe.
He teaches them.
He writes music we all love.
He stays out of our way and seldom asks for anything.
He does not complain about unfairness—ever.
No girl is pregnant because of him
He does not say bad words or take drugs or alcohol
We know where he is at night even though he is old enough to be on his own.
He has pledged to share his success with his family
He reads voraciously and writes beautifully, including perfect college-level essays
He can and does cook.
He is a very safe and correct driver.
He respects and obeys the laws (to which we are to be subjected according to scripture.)
He is respectful to his parents, even in anger.
He is interesting. Fascinating, in fact—If anyone cared enough to get to know him.
He is intelligent.
He is extremely flexible for our family’s sake.
He is in touch with his sensitive side.
He can cut the grass in 100 degree heat.
His siblings adore him so much they fear him as they don’t want to be displeasing to him.
I could go on and if this was your kid you could too. But maybe you get the point:
Anyone who has met or worked with Adam should know more about him than he is shy and too quiet. And if that’s all you take away, it’s your loss. Friends look for good things to say about their friends, and if you try, you can find plenty to be celebrate in any of your friends.
How to be Special
I have to tell this to well-meaning friends and relatives: If you want to critique, criticize or complain about our kids, our parenting, our style, our school, etc, take a number and get in line. This does NOT make you special. If you want to be special, understand your choices: You can love my kids or disapprove of them. Your choice. You decide if you want to invest in a relationship with these little-known relatives of yours. Or if you want to discard them and all the richness that friendship could bring, because you are disinclined to take the time to try to understand and maybe even have your eyes opened to something new…
Wisdom
One more thing before I close this chapter about the journey and when do we declare success, or failure in a child’s education: Revolutionary Road. Again. Ugly movie. But eye-opening. Very depressing for most, I can see why! To some extent, everyone sacrifices their dreams and goals for security and prestige, and justifies it by calling those spectral ideas “immature” and “unrealistic.”
But in the end, in the final analysis, what you have done with your days is what you have traded your life for.
Money? Security? Will that keep you alive? In a hundred years, we will all be dead; we have that in common!
Does Anyone Really Believe This?
In most serious discussions about homeschooling, people understand the basic premise. But in some discussions, where the truly uninitiated embarrass themselves with commentary, we hear that kids must go to school to learn intangible lessons, such as how to prepare for the real world of work, where your ability to deal successfully with nasty office politics will be your salvation, or to be able to understand a deadline and meet it, or to be prepared for the reality of getting up at 5:30 am to be at work by 7:00, five days a week for fifty or more years.
Wait a sec! You mean to tell me my kids need 12 years of training in order to be able to get up at 5:30 or whatever? Maybe the reason these poor kids need 12 years is to prepare themselves for the horror of emptiness that will be theirs if they subscribe to that program. That’s what “going postal” is all about! They need years of being inured to the reality that their dreams must, and will, evaporate unless they are lucky enough to save enough money to enjoy a sliver of the original dream when they are over 70 years old and can retire and travel .
All that institutional training is to prepare them mentally and psychologically and spiritually for the reality that they will work a job they hate so they can make enough money to have everything that is advertised on TV so they can show the neighbors that they have the ability command more than their share of resources. Then they can declare “success”, while desperately trying to forget that there once was a dream…
Conclusion
I am very thankful to God for allowing me to have an adventurous life, and to have a family that, for the most part, agrees with it all and enjoys the adventure.
I guess I am declaring success to be the adventure itself. I give us a passing grade.
Cassie can tell time. On a real clock, not a digital one. Most people would read that statement and say “no big deal, isn’t this a basic that all kindergartner’s can do?” Truth is, it hasn’t been something I have thought to teach her formally. Whenever she asks what time it is, I’ll do one of two things, depending on what I’m doing at the time. When busy doing something else, I’ll just glance at the time and say “it’s two fifteen” or maybe I’ll say “it’s quarter after two”.
Most of the time an answer like that really has no meaning for a child. What she really wants to know is When is dad coming home, or how much longer before I can eat something again? I
f I have time I may look at the clock and say “well the little hand is on the two so that means it’s two something. The big hand tells us how many minutes past two o’clock it is. Each number represents 5 minutes, so if the big hand is on the 3, then we count 5, 10, 15 so it is 2:15.” If I’m really in the mood to impart some wisdom I’ll take it a step further and go through the quadrants on the clock face to explain why 2:15 is the same as quarter after two.
Little lessons like that happen in our daily conversation and I don’t think of them as “school” but more like “life lessons”. I see no need to sit with her and do worksheets of clock faces, having her draw hands and numbers to depict different times. I’ve seen entire math workbooks delegated to teaching time. She listens to my 5 minute “lectures” and goes about her daily business. Next time she wants to know the time, she’ll look at the clock and see if she can figure it out, then ask me “is it five thirty now?” to see if she is correct. And yup, she is!
You’ve heard it mentioned. You’ve seen the beginning pictures. Well, here it is in various stages of construction. Melon Marker Studios and Cassie’s Clubhouse. Eric is the owner and creative genius behind MMS and Cassie is CEO of CC. Each kid has their own entrance that we hope to paint respective signs on this week.
It has been a busy summer. I could just say we are taking the summer off, and that would be a good excuse for not updating the journal, but a kid’s love of learning never takes a break.
So we carry on and try to remember to quantify things. We know we are accountable to raise kids who are educated and productive. So far the powers that be wisely trust us to do so in a manner that is appropriate for our family and our community. So this journal is a formality and an experiment. All the same, I will try to keep up from now on.
We almost finished Melon Marker Studios, but rain came and now I have to re-think the roof. And re-install a roof. Our garden is flourishing with eggplant and cherry tomatoes, a couple of pretty useless vegetables when it comes to feeding a family. But Cassie and I have fun harvesting our bounty. She likes knowing she helped grow it.
Eric is working on creating his own video games in a DIY game factory cartridge we bought him. He asked for it because his big brother Adam recommended it. It has kept him occupied with creative pursuit and problem solving activities all summer. He has read some, but mostly works on his DSi.
A few days ago, he was suspiciously chipper in the early morning—6:30 early—and it turns out he was quite proud to have stayed awake all night working on DIY video games: one with zombies that gnaw on your head if you are too slow, another called Pancake Lake, and so on.
Stephanie has lately taken a break from the dive shop while they sell all their stuff and get ready to leave. We are going to at least get a couple of scuba sets so we can dive together. The rest of the time she does mysterious things I don’t quite understand. She reads and laughs at the computer. During the last couple of weeks, she has been working with her graphics pad. Yesterday she explained: One of her on-line friends, a RPG gaming buddy, won a contest and got a self publishing package. She never used it, and it was about to expire, when she gave it to her friend; her other friend, who is the one that Stephanie writes with during all hours of the night, on account of her friend is many time zones away and must, of course, attend school. So Steph and her writing buddy decided to collect some of their RPG stories and publish a book. The other girl is to compile the text, and Steph will draw the cover art. That is what she has been doing all week. The finished work is totally free-hand. I like it.
Adam has been writing songs. I enjoy the songs so much, I have a hard time not making a fool of myself trying to force people to listen. Sometimes when I listen to his songs in the car, I think I’m listening to Moody Blues or Pink Floyd. Other times it sounds like children’s music, but pleasant in its own way, and then I’m listening to a blistering electric guitar solo or a dramatic trumpet piece. The music certainly defies classification, and is always a joy to listen to. I am happy to protect and nurture his gift of music and thank God that he was not subjected to the withering meanness of school. How many delicate gifts are crushed in the name of conformity? It pains me to think of it.
I have a suspicion that in ten or twenty years, that gift will be well-developed and will bring pleasure to many.
Cassie can read words and communicates through notes. That’s fun, and a good demonstration of how reading and writing are part of life and it’s much better to know how to participate! So she is gradually improving. We have an occasional lesson, but she mostly learns by spending time with Stephanie and Eric, reading the commentary on video game screens and reading labels, posters and signs.
I am sure I missed some important educational thing, so I will clean up my mess later.
Les
We've all been doing a lot of independent learning this week. Even mom and dad.
Colleen (me) has been working on getting certified on Stampin' Up's new MDS - My Design Studio. A computer based program for online scrapbooking, card making, calendars and so much more. I'm amazed at what i learned this program can do. I've tried other scrapbooking software, and though I can see the potential, I found myself enjoying the hands on aspect of scrapbooking instead of the digital version. Since I do spend a lot of time on computers most people would assume I'd like digital scrapbooking. MDS did peak my interest in giving this form of creativity a chance. And one of the great things I learned this program can do is interactive scrapbook pages! I can create a movie, download an audio file, or upload a hidden picture into "hot spots" on a scrapbook or calendar page and share that on blogs, email or CD/DVD! So off to do more unschooling on this aspect this week.
Stephanie has been diligently working on the cover art of a book she is co-authoring with another young lady in the states. They have been communicating online for the past two years in a fan fiction forum. The girls had a deadline to meet today and I sure hope they made it! I don't know all the details on this one, but will be excited to see the finished project!
Adam's music has been passed along to some "influential" people. Or so we hope. Kind of vague, but just sharing it with people who were hope can lead us to those who can help get Adam noticed. I've been wanting to share some of it here but until we get a full set copyrighted we have decided to keep it limited to who has copies. This stuff is too good. Adrian Belew would be proud of how he influenced this boy indirectly.
Eric has been, well, being Eric this week. He decided he would reach a goal he's had since he was 3 or 4. To stay up all night until morning. Without sleeping even for a few minutes. Well, apparently he fulfilled this goal last week Thursday (Friday morning) and greeted me chipperly at 7am to inform me as I staggered out of bed. Like one of my online friend said, "who said unschoolers can't set and reach goals?" It's made for an interesting rest of the week as it took him a few days to re-adjust his schedule. In the meantime he has also been diligently working on his new Wario Ware DYI - Do it Yourself game for his DSi. You basically make little video game levels and then play them. Great for Eric and his creative imagination.
Cassie has been astounding us with pictures of kissing hedgehogs - Amy and Sonic to be exact. Her doodle can be found here. Her artistic skill is astounding me as she moves purposefully and boldly forward in her drawings. She has this very unique style that is all her own, and her ability to portray expressions and movement are amazing. She has also been thoroughly enjoying a color by number books she found (Christmas stocking stuffer) and can be seen quietly coloring at the kitchen table.
Life has been full. It is hard to keep on top of documenting what we do each day. I try to at least photograph some of the more memorable events. So thought I’d share some pictures.
Cassie is learning to communicate via writing to us. She has always had her “moods” and sometimes just doesn’t want to talk. I remember as a toddler I’d be trying to figure out what she wanted for lunch by her body language when I suggested something to her. Now, if she is hungry she will take out an item (like a can of soup) and write on a piece of paper. “Can I HAV –>” with arrow pointing at the can. Here is a picture she drew with note, to let us know she wanted the lollipop Les had bought her as a treat.
I love this stage in the reading/writing development of children. Cassie may be entering it a little later than my other children, but I can see the same stages being negotiated and, from past experience, know that the writing stage she is portraying will quickly bring her into the world of reading and writing.
Cassie may be behind in her reading and writing, but her drawing is far beyond her age level.
This is a drawing that Cassie started this evening around 6pm when we got home from town. She admits that it is a “doodle” page. She worked on this on and off until around 9pm, taking breaks to watch me cook dinner and learn how to make home made macaroni and cheese (complete with butter roux to start); eat dinner; and do some painting on Melon Marker Studios.
This is the beginning stages of Melon Marker Studios (hereafter known as MMS). The walls and doors are finished now and inside is painted red and outside is painted green stripes. I will post more pictures tomorrow when I can take some in the daylight. Les has made this with a small chainsaw, drill set, and staple gun. And lots of input and help from the kids.
And finally our garden is starting to pay off. Here are the beginnings of my cucumber patch
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And here are the first fruits of the patch!
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