Ducks, Dad Time, and (just a little) Deconstruction

She is gentle! She is wild!
She's a riddle! She's a child!
She's a headache! She's an angel!
She's a girl!
     -- Rodgers and Hammerstein, from "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria," The Sound of Music

It's been nearly a week since I posted, so of course I probably have forgotten 60% or more of what we've done. But here is a nice sampling!

I'm continuing to volunteer in P's former classroom most weeks, since there was not another parent prepared to take my place. I've been a teacher, and I know what it's like to be left in the lurch! Last time I was in, I was assigned to play a homonym game with the students, putting together mini puzzles with pictures of homonyms. We had fun with the game and finished a little early. Normally the students are supposed to do independent reading when they finish early, but some of them wanted to draw instead, and I said they could. Two of the girls drew nearly identical scenes of a flower with a sun overhead. I whispered to them, "Can you think of a homonym for your drawing?" Both could, and one tried drawing it. I brought that story home to P, who grooved on it. She's really starting to enjoy puns, and she immediately recognized the link between homonyms and pun humor and proceeded delightedly to make new puns for quite a while.

On our trip to the science museum last Monday, I bought a field guide to Colorado birds. Tuesday we tried going to another local home schoolers' park day, but no one else showed up (good thing we have our more active unschoolers' park day!). P spent a good deal of our time at the park watching some mallard ducks. First she told me her observations of their size, posture, coloring, setting, and activities, which were some of the suggested observations in the field guide's introduction. Then the ducks settled down to sleep on the creek bank. P wanted to go sit by them, so I coached her a bit on birdwatching ethics -- that if her presence was changing their behavior, she was too close -- and she was able to settle down and watch them from about six feet away for perhaps half an hour until a less quiet child disturbed them and they left. She's had great focus since she was a baby, but I felt proud nonetheless.

This past weekend we took a weekend trip as a family so that I could attend a physics symposium at my alma mater. I loved having the chance to hear talks (on Saturn's magnetosphere, radiation oncology, scientific contributions to ending the Macondo gusher caused by the Deepwater Horizon failure last year, and recent developments in the hot-spot theory of island formation and the forecasting of volcanic eruptions) by my fellow alumni who had gone on to research careers, stretching my physics muscles again to take it all in. I also connected with some folks who live near us and work in local scientific facilities where they can help us find appropriate tours and other learning resources and opportunities. I think it speaks well of my physics department's focus on learning (and not just the knowledge gained thereby) that everyone who learned I had begun home schooling my kids was glad to hear it. Those who also learned that I was using an interest-led approach rather than a standard curriculum were even more pleased.

While I was at the talks and receptions, UnschoolerDad was hanging out with the kids. They enjoyed some new foods that they were skeptical about at first (some Ethiopian dishes and smoked gouda spread), saw Pike's Peak, and learned how mesas form (we drove through a lot of meseta-rich terrain, and I shared what I remembered from college geology about their formation). Dad also taught P to play checkers and how to set up and make the basic moves in chess. After we returned from our trip, I got out my chess set, which was my dad's when I was little. I've never been much of a chess player, but I know the basics, and as a child I adored setting up the chess pieces in standard and fanciful arrangements. It turns out that P and T also love doing this. Even T is starting to pick up the names of the pieces and parts of how to set them up and move them. We also used the chess pieces as props to try a logic problem I suggested. P enjoyed thinking about it, but she needed some help to figure it out. P loves checkers and has asked to play again several times.

Finally, we had a great time yesterday and today watching The Sound of Music. The kids had never seen it before, and it had been a long time for me. Several times when I looked to see how P was reacting, I saw her face positively aglow with enjoyment, much more so than with most movies. She watched the entire 3-hour movie with rapt attention, and then watched part of it again today, with commentary turned on. T was not quite so spellbound, but he also really enjoyed it. We took opportunities to pause the movie and talk about metaphor ("She's a headache!" from "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" was a great example), sex roles ("Sixteen Going on Seventeen" is pretty cringe-worthy by today's standards, but it's a great illustration of some of the things that have changed about the world, and the choreographers clearly understood some of the irony of the song in 1964), history (Hitler and the expansion of his power in Europe before World War II), nuns (convent life, dress, etc.), and other tidbits of interest.

On to more. Stay tuned.