Saturday, June 18, 2016

Why (and How) We School Year Long!


1. Because we can! The great thing about homeschooling is that we can choose a schedule that works best for us!

2. There will always be those doldrum days throughout the year when no one is motivated or inspired - especially the month of January. So it makes sense to just keep going when we're excited and there are still fun things in front of us!

3. With child-led-learning, the whole wide world is school. So we follow wherever our curiosity takes us...

4. ...And our curiosity has so many places to take us in summer!

Summer is the perfect time to grow gardens. We plant a seed, we watch it grow! It is perfect for botany and biology; to study life cycles of plants. And for entomology; there are so many amazing bugs in our yard everyday! We can study their life cycles as well. We can study spiders' webs, bee hives and wasp nests...

Summer is a grand time to explore the auspicious forest fires and floods and their effects on different habitats...

To observe a family of robins until the babies leave the nest...

What happens in the compost pile???

Exploring rivers and currents... What happens when you skip a rock across the water?

Collecting rock samples...

Storms. Thunderstorms, tornadoes, rainbows. Observing weather & cloud formations...

Picking delicious wild & traditional foods...
A summer full of beautiful things is a summer full of learning.

painting a picture of the garden
pipe cleaner bee
"pollinating" the flowers
Happy learning!
~Beth



Friday, June 10, 2016

Clouds

It was last spring that we were studying clouds. We had just put up a fort/tower/swing set in our backyard and had climbed up on top. From there we could see the whole wide world. It brought me back to springs in my childhood, long forgotten, as we stood up there in the midst of the bright blue sky and billowing clouds. We were daydreaming and looking forward to all the things that spring would bring.

I am always looking for ways to introduce new subjects to the kids, so when I saw one particularly beautiful and mysterious cloud, I said, "Wow. I wonder what kind of cloud that is." Immediately Fynn came to see what it was and Rowan followed close behind. "What is it?" they asked. They were now curious about clouds. So we went in and researched clouds on the internet together. It turns out that cloud was a cumulonimbus.

We found a cloud identification game online that Fynn liked to play for a while, and I made us a cloud chart to hang on the wall, or to take with us in the car. Now we could identify any cloud in the sky. Fynn memorized them pretty well and made his own chart using a blue table cloth and pillow stuffing. We made cloud experiments with water, stuffing, bubbles, shaving cream and so on.

As the kids' interests turned to other things, I went on in my pondering of clouds. We had learned that clouds are formed  by water evaporating, and that it takes particles for the molecules to cling to, but there seems to be so much we don't know. For instance I can make a "cloud in a jar" but I'm really only creating steam or mist. I can't re- create those billowy white beings. I suspect the charges of ions must have something to do with their swirling billowing patterns. Water and wind seem to also have these patterns. And in a rigid, less flowing way, so do continents and land formations! Also, there seem to be so many more kinds of clouds in reality than we learn about in books. I'm still looking for answers to these questions, while the clouds themselves continue to inspire me, reminding me of the past and making promises of future adventures.

I will leave you with this verse from Joni Mitchell:

Flows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
Feathered canyons everywhere
I looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It's clouds' illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all


Happy learning!
~Beth