Cormorants in the pond
Peeking duck
Fishing Great Blue Heron (just watch him get that fish!)
The duck family outing (but how will they reach the ticket window???)
Psssst... (cinereous vultures or lovebirds?)
Riding the train, engineer style
Check out those two new crazy engineers...
And this is why we came...to take Jon through Dinosauria
T. rex photo bomb
Zoo, photography, wildlife I should actually probably title this the first day of everything.
There are moms that I've known online since June of 2006, when we all shared our baby experiences on a social networking site. We formed loose friendships and support groups and shared the stories and photos that marked our children's milestones—rolling over, first steps, first words. Now that we've reached the fall of their fifth year my facebook homepage is dotted with the pictures of their first days of kindergarten, and messages with their mom's pride and tear-filled announcements of this next step in life. This is a fun thing to witness, even knowing that, our own path being different, this is one milestone in which we won't be taking part. There will be no parting, either tearful or smiling, no last minute shopping, no nerve wracking adieu at the bus stop, or waiting on bated breath for its return. There will be no photo taken by the front door, or outside the school.
But if I was to choose a picture to commemorate this time, I think it would look something like this:
Can you find Calvin? I can't either, but I know he's there, and I caught glimpses of him often enough to keep worry at bay, tearing through the play structure with a multitude of other kids, while I sat at the picnic tables and chatted with their parents. They were homeschooling families, and they will make up some of our learning cohort through the years. We had gone to the park to meet them today, having heard great things about their group, and were immediately welcomed and instantly felt at home. Calvin had a great time with the kids, of all ages, and I feel that my balance has tipped back towards the confident side after spending some time talking with all those parents who have gone through, or are going through, exactly the tangles I'm trying to work out now. We'd arrived nervous and excited, we came home happy and exhausted. If we could mark any day as resembling a first day of school, I guess this would have been it, and I'm so glad we shared it together.
homeschooling So Antarctica it is these days.
He spent the better part of the morning in the kitchen with Play-Doh, molding away before proudly presenting me with his three dimensional map of Antarctica. And all I know how to do is roll out snakes. But he asked me to help him make an ice cave and inhabitants, so while he made the cave I attempted a penguin.
I think both turned out nicely.
After molding the various land forms and plant and animal life of that forbidding continent out of the much less cold dough, we went to the library to pick up some more books and videos on the subject. When we walked in the librarians, who are always happy to see Calvin, since we live in a small town and practically at the library, were completely ecstatic. Turns out, the kid won one of the prizes in the summer reading program drawing and they were just thrilled to give it to him. This is the program I'd been reluctant to let him sign up for, and here he's won a gift card to the local pizza shop, and that will mean pizza dinner, no need to cook, on one night of his choosing. Mmmm..I fully admit that sometimes I am wrong.
Somewhere, between the late swarms of mosquitoes that sounds like summer and the early changing of the trees that looks like fall, is the essence of now. Somewhere, between my longing for an extension of hot summer days, to spend at the lake or the pool, and my desire for the golden weekends of fall, to spend tailgating or raking leaves, is my ability to just be in the present. There is nothing more valuable than this moment right now, which outside of the cliche is painfully obvious given the myriad of things that pull at my time and demand my attention at any given moment. Take this minute, for instance. I have two books I am longing to read, laundry that needs to be put away, a variety of odd household chores to be done, and some hefty decisions to make about the coming year.
I hate hefty decisions—they always make my thoughts difficult to balance.
What they boil down to, though, and really they're not as hefty as they seem, is an inability to define the homeschoolers we'll be. Having decided that I need more of a structure to get through a week I sat down to peruse the Currclick site tonight, looking for unit studies (which are mostly on sale) to help me make a fall plan. Since he's so intrigued by penguins right now I asked him if he'd like to study Antarctica this week, and then I downloaded a unit study on exactly that. Could I have made my own? Probably. Do I really want someone else to have written a plan for our exploration of that continent? Mmmm...maybe not.
And the doubt creeps in.
But I kept going. With Thanksgiving right around the corner (just ask the commercial sector, which is already stocking for it) I sought a set of studies on US history and geography and downloaded those as well. Then I started looking at the Five in a Row book units I typed up, while borrowing the book from the library last winter, and started distributing those books throughout the fall months, coupling them with the activities in the unit studies.
Midway through writing that calendar I hit the brakes and quit with a big sigh.
I haven't fully given up on my desire to unschool, to let go and follow. I feel safer—more grounded—when I have a plan, but when I look at the studies and my calendar I see exactly what we wanted to avoid with home learning—a plan leaving just one way of doing things. We had wanted to provide many ways to reach a goal. In my ensuing panic I realize that I'm right back at square one, which is the point at which I have to decide what I'm doing and how I'm doing it. Even leaving a door open, through which I can go to change my mind, I have to have a path to follow before I can even get started.
How much guidance to give? How much planning to do?
Of course I am the problem. Calvin is thriving in his learning environment, no matter what I throw at him, be it the FIAR book studies, an Itellego unit study, or a general freedom to seek answers on his own. Is a mixture okay? And where is the fine line between planting a seed of interest, nourishing it with information and encouragement, and letting it take root, and creating an interest that would not exist were it not for external pressures, i.e. planting a water lily in the desert and keeping it alive where it shouldn't be merely by excessive attentions? The answers have not been forthcoming, and lethargy (my own) is setting in.
Which is not to say that I am devoid of excitement about this process. Quite the opposite, really. I sent messages out today to two different local homeschooling groups and we will meet them at the end of this week and the beginning of the next. We've made a new nature table and study center upstairs in our office/learning room, we've re-organized and re-shelved the books, and I still have that calendar I started earlier today. Maybe, as the mosquitoes leave and the trees turn, I'll use it. Maybe I won't.
I can't close this one up neatly. I want to be honest in sharing about our journey, and right now my head is swimming and I feel a little unbalanced and lost, so all I can offer are my thoughts, without a logical conclusion. My guess is that, as much as I desire a plan and a clear, distinct goal, only time will really tell me how our path will go. We'll get there, though, even if we get a little lost along the way.
fall, homeschooling, summer With temperatures at a manageable level, lazy white clouds drifting across the sky, and a week of hard work and great patience (preparing for the book sale), today just had to be a zoo day. The other bit of impetus was that Calvin finished reading Mr. Popper's Penguins and thought that it might be nice to see some real penguins. He asked very nicely about planning a trip to Antarctica, and I suggested the zoo. He was amazed! He'd had no idea there were penguins at our zoo. All these zoo trips and we hadn't taken him in the penguinarium since he was a baby. For shame.
The zoo was willing to oblige, and even treated us to penguin feeding time just as we got there. We spent about a half hour in the penguinarium, actually (after a while the fish smell is no longer noticeable. Really), and observed all kinds of behaviors.
The cinereous vulture was mighty friendly. I'm probably the only person in the world who finds them cute. Did you know International Vulture Awareness Day is just around the corner? Don't forget to love your vulture on September 3!
The tigers and bears were asleep, the lions were on vacation (they're getting a new house!)
The elephants have been gone from our zoo for years, except for this cutie pie, and if you think this makes me want to get him an elephant friend, you're right.
Fungus, fungus everywhere
In the primate area the drills were being bashful and the chimps were attempting Rodin.
And the butterfly house was our last stop, as usual.
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