Pile of Doubt

As an unschooler, sometimes do ya feel as though no one @ your house has done much lately? I know when I feel this way all I have to do is really think about what we have done. I mean, I know I have this blog and I started it with the purpose of maintaining a record of what we do. It has really turned into more of a photo album, which I don't mind but maybe I need to occasionally write something about what we actually do around here!

So we called Aunt Jessie today to tell her Happy Birthday! and she asked us what we did today. I went on to say it ended up being game day. We played Set, Blokus, Blink, Crazy 8's, & a bit of Monopoly. Niki painted a lovely picture (picture to come) and we of course jumped on the trampoline, played crash car derby with the new cars Daddy brought home, and went to the store to get some new board games. Bc, yes just as with the books, once we played all the games Niki deems fun in one day, we decided we need more games. @ the store Niki found some pirate garb, toy swords, toy guns, and knights shields which she proceeded to play with there in the isle. She fore footed all that booty for a "My Little Pony" doll with bottle and one toy gun. The girl cracks me up. We had to do some budgeting and all the things both of us chose were not in the budget. We split the money I had between the two of us. I got the boys some toy tractors, plastic dress up hats, and a strange tiny plastic horse which you set in water for 72 hours and watch it grow to 600 times it's original size! I also got Parcheesi, Yahtzee, and Uno. These games conjure fun memories for Dom and me as kids, so I thought I would get them to see if we could make some fun memories with our kids. You can see from the comparison that Niki's pony baby she just had to have was a tiny bit expensive.

We came home and checked on our Webkinz and I got online and read her some political satire links I found on one of our group posts. I was excited that she asked me to read it to her until I looked @ her to ask if she understood what I had read only to discover she was asleep! What a day!

So, are we unschoolers? Yes. But with all the talk/reading of late I think I have to add that we practice a child led life style. I think the term unschooling is so vague. We obviously do things all day and I know the babes are learning. Sometimes I just need to put my pile of doubt aside and make sure I am trusting our kids. They know themselves and I always witness what they have learned when I truly let go of expectations. Now time to crawl into my bed and see whose in it tonight.

One thing leads to another

Mady and Niki and I talked about utopias today. We each have our own elaborate list of products, entities, and goals to incorporate in our own personally designed utopias. We had fun making the lists while the boys were napping. Niki wanted to watch Spongebob and said we could talk more about our perfect worlds tomorrow. I thought we would continue to talk about utopias for awhile. I thought after the Gesundheit Institute research and chatting we could make our own models. Mady enjoys playing on Webkinz and Club Penguin so much that designing her own world may sound appealing to her. I thought it may stretch her imagination.

Truth be told, I have enjoyed the utopia books I have read. The whole utopia/dystopia ideal is appealing to me. For anyone that knows me now, I don't think it will be a shock to read my own utopia would consist of all my family on a huge ranch with everything we need to be self sustaining. I enjoy exploring the world outside with my family but when it comes down to it, how many people can you really be close to? How much of what society, the media, the government pushes do we honestly need? Haven't we taken more from the earth than we truly NEED? All this talk about immunizations, lead, mercury, global warming, phthalates, everything around us is poisonious, WE did this. The world is overpopulated and everyone wants to save everyone else. While all the recent deaths resulting from raging cyclones and blinding snow storms are saddening these events are natural. We have no control over them. Global warming maybe natural too. No doubt the human population is contributing to the rapid rate of the melting ice caps, but wouldn't this happen if we weren't here anyway? Experts, you know how I feel about experts, say we cannot return to an agrarian society. It seems to me our planet may not survive if we don't return to a more pure state that closely resembles an agrarian society.

Mady and I are currently planning our garden for the upcoming season. Last year maybe we were lucky with our awesome crop of squash, tomatoes, basil, rosemary, and lavender. It was inspiring to see how much our little garden yeilded, and with such little effort. I so enjoyed playing in the dirt. So here is the list so far.

lavender, basil, rosemary, lemon grass, potatoes, tomatoes, rhubarb, strawberries, some kind of peppers, squash, carrots, peas, green beans, and we have a lemon tree and 3 apple trees bc that is a good number for a small area and pollination. After typing this list it appears I maybe a little ambitious. I will try not to over plant, and if I do, we have neighbors that I am sure will be more than willing to help us eat them. We are getting some more rabbits to aid us in developing healthy, well fertilized soil too! I will post some pix soon of our growing farm. Yes, we have a tiny house, but we are having fun while we live and learn. Oh, pix of the east Texas property coming soon. We are planning a trip @ the end of the month.

One thing leads to another...

Remember the movie Patch Adams?

We watch our fair share of movies around here. I think it is a pass time we ALL enjoy as a family, frequently. Tonight we watched Patch Adams. If you have never watched, the shortest summary I can give is the movie is about an aspiring medical student, Hunter "Patch" Adams, who dreams of changing the sanctimonious attitudes of doctors and the bureaucratic red tape of the health care system during the 70's. It is based on a true story. The movie is of course ended with a short paragraph or 2 about what was happening in the main character's life as the filming ended. Patch did complete his Ph.D and went on to found the Gesundheit Institute.

After clicking around the website I found Designing a Society. The entire organization sounds completely unschooly to me. I can only begin to imagine the kind of brainstorming that goes on in a place like Gesundheit.

This gives me an idea to talk with Mady and Niki about what their thoughts on a perfect society are. What would you have if you could have anything? Every idea would be different. One of the first things that comes to mind is how could everyone reach a consensus? Design my own society...this could be scary! I read The Giver by Lois Lowry and it is one of my favorite books from a unit we did in school on utopias. One of the most memorable portions of the plot for me has to do with twins. A good read, and easy for young readers too.

Happy almost Friday!