Spring, Space, and Spicy Language

Our last few days have been quite a mixed bag. But then, isn't life, generally speaking? Unschooling looks a lot like life in so many ways.

There's been reading. P did a bunch of reading to T during one of their more peaceful periods, including a Berenstain Bears book. I read another chapter or two of Sing Down the Moon to P. P listened to a couple of Magic Tree House books on CD, again while cleaning her room. Audiobooks truly make room cleaning painless and are fun and sometimes educational to boot. Why didn't I think of this sooner?

There's been outdoor time. Saturday P and I tried going for a jog together. Her stamina was low, but we did make it to her former elementary school, where we discovered she'd left her coat and mittens on her last day of school. We were able to find and retrieve them because the building was open for construction activities.

Yesterday P and I went on a spring nature hike for kids at a nearby park. It was a very steep trail, and she got tired quickly -- it looks like we need to get out on foot more often to replace our daily walks to and from school -- so we ended up leaving the group hike and going at our own pace for a while. P got her first relaxed aerial view of our whole town from the high hill we climbed, and we talked about what we could see and how P knew those places. Maps may make more sense after that experience. I wish I'd thought to suggest making a drawing while we were up there or taking a photo -- but it wouldn't hurt us to go again! We saw a bark-beetle-killed pine tree and took a look at what that kind of damage looks like. I showed P the difference between ponderosa and piñon pines. She asked a lot of questions about why the trail was designed the way it was, so we talked about erosion and how trail builders try to minimize it. And when our hike ended because of a need to get to a restroom, we talked about how backcountry hikers would handle their potty needs.

Today T and I took a walk around the neighborhood after dropping P off for a play date at a friend's house. With spring just beginning to bring out the buds on the deciduous trees, I showed him the difference between evergreens and other plants. We looked at buds, some just appearing and others beginning to open into flowers and leaves. We checked on the construction progress at the school, where some portables were torn down last week, leaving big holes in the ground. I wish we'd been around to watch that! We saw a police officer stop a speeder and talked about how speeding tickets work. We saw some birds' nests, left from last year, examined the shape and construction of one within my reach, and talked about why birds would build nests in the shapes they do. Finally, we compared needles and cones from spruce, fir, and pine trees. T was engaged and asking about things all along; it was a fun walk for both of us.

When we weren't outside, usually the kids were reading or playing elaborate pretend games together. They play well for a while, and then opportunities arise to help them find ways to play that they both enjoy, and to problem-solve when there is conflict. While there's more of this peacemaking to do now with P home all day, I also think we may be making more rapid progress, since we have so much time to practice!

And then there's video. Yesterday P and T watched the last Magic School Bus DVD from the library, learning about the water cycle, erosion, and buoyancy, while I got some work done on the video game we're trying to get out the door.

Today all of us together watched the first half of Apollo 13, which is one great opportunity after another to stop the movie and answer the kids' questions about interesting things. There was the obvious material about the space program: the basics of rocket propulsion, rocket stages (P was very concerned that the first Saturn V rocket stage was allowed to fall into the ocean, but agreed that it was probably better than letting it fall on land), lunar and command modules, pressure suits, and the roles of mission control staff and telemetry equipment in manned space travel. Then there were the health aspects: the importance of peak physical health for astronauts, the fact that having had measles is protective against getting it again (we talked about vaccines too), the use of electrodes to monitor heart rate, and why astronauts don't smoke. (P, born in the age of widespread smoking bans, wondered where all the smoke in mission control was coming from, and she was a little shocked to realize that so many people did smoke in 1969.) We got a look at the emotions that astronauts and their families experience before and during a mission. And the language! The movie includes a sprinkling of adult language, certainly not shocking by today's standards, but stronger than most of what my kids have heard before. I love the fact that, when one of the astronauts realizes he's been cursing on an open mic, he is deeply and genuinely embarrassed. There's a great lesson there about there being a time and a place for everything, and what happens when behavior is out of its appropriate time and place.

While writing this post, I read up on gimbal lock and the part it played in the Apollo 11 mission. We didn't talk about it during the movie, partly because I didn't know enough about it to explain it. I still think it would be a tough concept for a 6-year-old without a gimbal model on hand, but I'm glad to know why the mission control folks were so concerned about it, and if it comes up again, at least I'll know where to start.