~a month of unschool~ pirates can be dinosaurs

my ~a month of unschool~ posts chronicle a handful of the enormous learning-while-living moments that happen in our lives. i focus mainly on what quinn is learning, as part of the motivation for keeping these posts up is to have a record of his learning life in case of any future need for such documentation. however, as learning and life and mama and quinn cannot be fully disentangled from one another, nor do we want them to be, there will always be lots of overlap.

and… surprise! we are still unschooling at home. i have yet to update more fully on this, but quinn is not in montessori, as we thought was going to be a necessary step. more to come on that… for now, our month in unschool:

~few things warm this unschooling mama’s heart more than happening upon you reciting the lorax to yourself.~ you’ve also been enamored with one of my own childhood favorites, the little lamb, and have been choosing it for bedtime reading, in what i think is a pretty timely manner for spring lambing season (we’ve also been enjoying library books on ducks including the ugly duckling)~ you’ve tackled learning the “jacket trick” this month, and while you still often choose to have help putting on your jacket (so as to avoid having your sleeves bunch up), you are now accomplished at one more task  in self care. and after what you accomplished last month, i wasn’t even going to bring up self care for a while, so good for you, buddy!~

~inspired by a stray worksheet that made its way home with us from the montessori visit, you designed your own ostrich unit, we looked up ostrich in our second hand wildlife facts-on-file, learned a lot about them running around africa real fast, and drew pictures of an ostrich sitting on a nest of “gi-hugic” eggs; eggs are a favorite topic around here anyway, so we didn’t mind learning more about the biggest ones!~ inspired by the character emmy from “the little lamb”, you needed a “party dress” and you put together a nice outfit from your dress-up basket~ inspired by the magic treehouse books and your innate desire to learn to climb trees, we had a nice conversation about dinosaurs eating magnolia flowers, while climbing the magnolia tree in the front yard.~

~you brought home the swords and spear you made with dada out of wood, and have been working on painting them- i love the way you have such a vision in your mind of what colors you want things to be, and am tickled about your rainbow sword idea.~ you are tackling more and more aspects of our baking activities, this round of carrot muffins was spooned into the cups by you- a task you usually leave for mama.~ you are showing real preferences in what you wear on your body. you are very much favoring sweats/elastic waistbands, and some days you just want to go to dada’s in your bathrobe.~ beans are nearly as exciting for you as carrots, and especially those jacob’s cattle beans that look like little cows. you got  your beans started over a bowl of applesauce.~

~oh the places we’ll go! it’s bike trailer season again.~ touring the historic tallships hawaiian chieftain and lady washington three times in one week was excellent for the pirate-at-heart (even when he’s a dinosaur, he can still be a pirate). you were excited that sailors eat bananas just like we do, and really enjoyed the way they hung their produce in small hammocks. now your cardboard box boat has a produce hammock all rigged up. ~ our berry crisp dessert has been a weekly treat that we whip up on a whim, and i enjoy having your pictorial recipe hanging in the kitchen. you have been practicing cutting the butter pieces with a butterknife.~ we have been reading a lot about dinosaurs, and you are starting to name the different ones, what they like to eat, and we talk a lot about dinosaurs hatching out of eggs, of course.~

~you are growing your own easter basket (wheat) grass.~ writing your own name a lot ~ observing your local wildlife (sea lions in this case) ~ playing with good friends (wonderful visit with friends of ours who are moving far away! you boys did a lot of cardboard box sailing and had fun looking for four-leaf clovers~

~you gardened, and gardened, and gardened some more. you gardened till your little heart’s content, and then continued to garden. you grew things, painted and erected signs, tilled and built and nurtured the soil, tucked in seeds, watered, and gardened. you garden boy, you.~

~you hiked and hiked, you created houses for newts and houses for ladybugs. you hugged an ancient cedar tree. you decided you would like to try to eat an earthworm (like a robin) as long as the dirt has been washed off first. i am amazed at the disappearance of your squeamishness with bugs/worms, but not sure i’m ready to feed you worms yet (luckily this has all been hypothetical pillow talk so far).~

what’s going on in your unschool? (feel free to elaborate in the comments here or post a link! i’d love for this to be a place where people brainstorm ideas for what to strew in our kiddo’s paths next…)