This blog covers a
longer period than most, partly because we recently had a screen-free week. The
kids were into the idea, and I joined them, though I did use email and recipe
lookup sites. But not this one. :) So here's a sampling of what we've
been up to:
Reading
- One day, T realized that he could touch my phone screen
in such a way as to highlight words on a web page. He loved highlighting
different words and portions of words and having me read them. He did it
over and over, breaking down different words, phrases, and parts of words,
and he noticed with interest that when he highlighted the "hum"
part of "human" I pronounced it differently than I did when the
whole word was highlighted. He also liked highlighting spaces between words
and asking me which words he'd just separated.
- P has been reading a novel called The Merlin
Effect from the library, and other books from time to time. She's
also been devouring comic-strip treasuries, including The Far Side and Calvin
and Hobbes. The Far Side books have been fun for
exploring some of the cultural references the jokes rely on.
- My sister sent several picture books for the kids'
birthdays, about the civil rights struggle of the 1950s-1960s in the
United States, and we've read those together and talked a little about
what was going on then and how things are different now, though racism
still happens in some ways. Before I even got to the books, P had read all
but one.
- We did a lot of reading aloud during screen-free week,
even more than at other times. Some reading was by candlelight. I liked
turning off the lights in the evening and reading in the circle of
candlelight with the kids. It's amazing how distractions recede when the
circle of light in a room is small. We focused better on the story and
each other, and had good conversations, at those times.
Doing
- We took a trip on an airplane, the first T can
remember. He loved watching the control surfaces on the wing do their
things, always pointing out when he saw them change. We talked a little,
when we were at full flaps for landing, about how that mimics birds who
cup their wings forward when landing, to maintain lift while slowing
forward motion. P was amazed at how slowly we seemed to be moving when we
were up high. We played with different ways of clearing our ears on ascent
and descent. We speculated about where the stuff in the airplane toilet
goes on flushing. Here's a good answer.
- We started an indoor worm bin, buying worms from a
garden center. We put it together, and the kids like looking inside to see
where the worms are, what they seem to like best to eat, and how the food
scraps change over time.
- The kids also enjoyed helping me assemble the outdoor
compost bin, and playing inside it until we took it out and started
loading it up.
- During screen-free week, we played a lot of cards. P
learned to play Gin, Five Crowns, Spit, and War with me. War (the most
boring card game ever?) was made more interesting by having T judge who
won each comparison. He was quite accurate in his decisions, and seemed to
enjoy the practice. I asked if he'd give us a dramatic decision
("Queen beats three!"), and found that he didn't know all the
number names; but he was game, so he got some practice with them.
- While T was having his gymnastics class one day, P and
I sat in the bleachers. There was pop music playing, and I heard P
starting to hum in harmony with the music. I started tapping some body
percussion and then humming another harmony along with her. It kept
changing over a few songs, and it was a wonderful series of wordlessly
collaborative improvisational moments.
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| A great hand-me-down gift from a neighbor a few years ago comes into its own. |
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Making
- T's birthday happened recently, and P made her presents
for him. He's always wanting to take over the couch or a long table as a
runway for his toy planes, so P made him a cardboard runway, complete with
a slight upward slope, drawn-on lights, and directional arrows. She also
made a sort of airport terminal with waiting area, complete with tiny
scrolls for the people to read while they waited.
- One day while I was digging the garden, T and P worked
together inside to build a zipline the right size for Polly Pocket dolls
to use, plus hooks and harnesses they could ride in.
Writing
- P told me one morning recently, when everyone else got
up rather late, that she'd been in her room since early, drawing and
writing. She hasn't yet showed me what she did.
- One morning, I found T had arisen before me and was
diligently writing letters in a book for that purpose. P told me he'd
found the book the night before. T used it all day, asking for different
kinds of help (more details early on, then less as he got the hang of it),
and going through all the letters. The next week or two, he used a
magnetic drawing tablet a lot to write different things. One morning he
asked me to show him how to write his name, so I wrote an example for him
on a nearby dry-erase board. He wrote it beautifully, then erased both
versions and kept writing his name through the day. He's written his name
before, but this was the first time he did it without a model right in
front of him. He's not reading very much yet, though he is recognizing
some words in context by their first letters. It seems he may be learning
to write first. :)
- T and I worked together to compose a thank-you note for
a birthday gift. He didn't know what to say (it's a new skill for him), so
I talked about the sorts of things people often say, asked him what he
liked about the gift, and made suggestions about what to write, writing
down the ones he approved of.
Watching
- I read in a favorite mom's blog about her kids, who
enjoy cooking, doing "Iron Chef Lunch" some
weekends when she is fresh out of energy and lunch ideas. I thought that
could be fun if we built up the right skills and knowledge, so we watched
a couple of episodes of Iron Chef America. The kids didn't like it as much
as I did, but they got the concept, and it was interesting, if a little
creepy, watching the crayfish episode (all recipes starting with live
crayfish). We talked about crayfish basically being big water-dwelling
bugs, and about other instances of human eating bugs on purpose.
Listening
- We had the radio on more than usual during our
screen-free week, usually to the public-radio talk station. We didn't talk
a whole lot about what we heard, but I could tell that at times the kids
were listening. Sometimes if I went to turn the radio off, P told me she
was listening and wanted to finish the story.
Talking
- P and T invented and initiated their own game, in T
which gives P a series of numbers, and she adds them one by one for a
cumulative total. I just listened to her get to 47 without making a
mistake, even when she was mentally adding two 2-digit numbers (16 and
21). They've been doing this when I wasn't listening, they say. It tickles
me to listen to P improving her mental arithmetic while T improves his
sense of numbers and how quickly or slowly they add up.
Visiting
- We went to the county recycling center to buy a good
compost bin at a good price. They had a self-guided tour area from which
we could see the sorting machines, the railroad spur that took the
recyclables away, the wetlands that were helping with water purification,
and lots of useful signs explaining the process of separating recyclables
from each other and from contaminants. There was also a display that did a
much better job than the pamphlets we get in the mail of explaining what
can go in the curbside pickup, what can't, and why. Seeing how the
machines worked made these rules make much more sense, too.
- I've been digging up a garden plot in the front yard,
and that has helped with meeting neighbors. Recently a dad and two kids
were ambling by, and I called T out to play (P was away at a musical with
UnschoolerDad). We found out where they lived and visited them shortly
afterward, seeing their garden and backyard and meeting their backyard
chickens.
- I saw the next-door neighbor's child, a little older
than mine, playing in the snow one day by herself. I asked if she'd like
to play with my kids if they came out, and she said yes, so P and T
dressed in a hurry and spent the rest of the afternoon playing outside
with her. That was the start of a beautiful relationship -- she comes over
often to play, and we are in good communication with her parents. This is
the first time we've had a friend close enough for truly spontaneous
visits and play, and we're loving it. P went to her house one day and
played with her six pet rats.
- P went to an evening campfire at church with me. After
we'd toasted our fill of marshmallows, I fell in with the music makers,
and she played with several kids around the big yard. She told me
afterward that she needed to come to the late service the next day, since
she'd agreed with another kid to meet and check on the rabbits they'd
found. Usually P and T don't come with me to church; I go to the early
service and come back quickly so UD can do his own Sunday activity, and
the kids prefer to stay home. That Sunday, though, they both went to
church, and they both enjoyed it. I hope we're opening the way for them to
enjoy church with me. They are both registered for a week-long day camp at
church this summer, and with luck, they will build some friendships there
that will make church even more fun for them.
- On our trip by plane, we visited friends, family, the
beach in Alameda, and Chinatown in Oakland. On the beach we looked at
birds, shells, erosion patterns, and how the tides went in and out. The
kids built sandcastles. In Chinatown we tried new foods from a dim sum
takeout stand, looked at traditional and American-influenced children's
clothing for sale, looked at and bought a few beautiful things made of
fabric and semi-precious stones. We also noticed how many more people were
hanging around outdoors, without or without their families, and talked a
little about the history of Chinese immigrants in the American West and
how and why Chinatowns would have formed and persisted.
Thinking, Asking
Questions, Planning...
- In the car one day, we were listening to a story on NPR
about the foster care system. The interviewer mentioned that the guest had
been a foster mom for more than a quarter century. I kept listening for a
couple of minutes, and then P said this: "A quarter century would
be 25 years. Because I know half of 100 is 50. And the sound on my
computer goes up to 50, and when it's exactly halfway up it's on 25. [She
told me later she knew it was exactly halfway because she could see it on
two different scales, one showing 50 out of 100 and one showing 25 out of
50.] And half of 5 is two and a half, and if you imagine each of those
ones is a ten, then the half is five, and that makes 25." I was
tickled to hear all this -- it's not how I would have taught it (except
maybe the last part), and she connected it all together on her own. I
asked her later how she knew half of five was two and a half. Her answer:
"Well, it wouldn't be fair if one person got three and the other got
two, so each should get two and a half." Spoken like a big sister who
needs to know these things!
- Again in the car, P asked about the GPS display (miles
to next turn):
- That three point four there, how do you say that?
- I'm not sure what you mean. I'd say three point four.
- Yes, but what does it mean?
- Oh, it means 3 and four tenths. If there were another number, like three point four five, that would be hundredths: three and 45 hundredths.
I say a little about how UnschoolerDad and I sometimes talk about short times in milliseconds, which are like three decimal places. 100 milliseconds is one tenth of a second.
P is quiet a moment, then says:
- I just realized something. One in ten is the same as ten in a hundred is the same as a hundred in a thousand.
- Yep, that's right. (I went on a bit more about equivalent fractions, but she had moved on, so I let it go.)
