The Best Nest: Staying Out Of Their Way

Photo copyright Amy Jones 2013

This little egg and this little nest are why I unschool.

This week, I decided to take my little girls, ages 5 and 3, to our town's small art museum. (On a side note, I had the bright idea of giving blood right before this adventure, and it's amazing that I didn't keel over onto a fragile exhibit.)

Our museum does a yearly festival that is totally dedicated to the gourd. Gourds galore. Gourds painted to look like trout on a line, gourds decorated to look like geese, and of course, the inevitable Santa Gourd.

I was afraid that my girls would run loose in there, and maybe damage some poor, unsuspecting artwork, but no. While Lily (3) was a little shy and wanted to be carried (fine with me), my eldest, Georgie, walked around the exhibits, letting the wheels in her head fly at full speed. 

I kept hearing her mutter to herself, "I have an idea." Over and over. And I'll wager that, each time she said that, there was a different idea whizzing through her head.

At the end of our tour of the exhibits (we were the only ones in there), Georgie told the curator that she was going to have her own gourd show right there at the museum.  

The curator graciously said, "Well, let me get you started," and he produced a box full of small gourds and invited her to pick one. She selected an egg-shaped gourd, and the man explained to her that farmers sometimes paint these gourds white and put them in nests as a visual aid for the chickens.

And, with that, our afternoon was planned for us. Georgie talked of nothing but painting her egg while we were in the car, while we were in the grocery store, and while I frantically tried to find paint for her.

True to her word, as soon as I gave her the materials she commenced to paint the egg white. When it had dried, she drew cracks all over the egg, a little pink baby bird, and her own name (which she said she wrote "to look like cracks in the egg too").

But that's not all. After she was finished with the egg, she had to make a nest. She asked me for cardboard, then made the nest by cutting an oval shape for the bottom and a strip to glue around it for the walls of the nest. Then she colored the whole thing yellow.

Wow, you might say. What a creative mom with great ideas, who makes her kids follow through with their plans.

Not so. I plan very few activities for my kids. I don't need to. I don't have time to. They're too busy planning their own, like this egg and nest--Georgie's idea, motivation, and work, from beginning to end.

And that's why I unschool.

Not that long ago (a matter of months), I might have interrupted this beautiful project with what I thought she should be doing, like a reading lesson. Why? Because I can't stand any loose ends. I make my plans, and I must carry them out, irrespective of what life is going on around me.

But, slowly, I woke up to see that, well, life was going on around me, irrespective of my plans. 

I realized that I didn't want to miss their lives while the proverbial i's were dotted. I didn't want them to miss their own lives while the t's were crossed. I have two very vibrant-minded girls, and those vibrant minds are great little teachers.

Just look at what all my daughter learned with this project:

• Art from painting the egg and building/coloring the nest
• Math from making the oval and cutting a strip to match its circumference
• Writing from putting her name on it
• History from learning about how farmers have traditionally used the egg gourds
• Science from learning about how gourds grow and that they come in all kinds of shapes
• Planning
• Tenacity
• Accomplishment

True, our trip to the art museum might be called "strewing," but I already knew that she loved creating her own art, so we'll call it "encouragement" instead. 

But that's where my involvement in this project ends, other than fetching what materials she asked for. She planned this and carried it out on her own, with no procrastination--or nagging from me--involved.  

I just stayed out of her way, and she learned. She created. She succeeded.

And, I got a really cute knickknack in the bargain.

Monkeying Around with Shakespeare

A couple of years ago, David and I had the bright idea of a calendar called Sock Monkey Shakespeare. The idea came to me when I had a dream--during a very high fever--of a sock monkey portraying Hamlet. I lay in bed, brain roasting, 4:30 in the morning, and let the idea stew in my bubbling juices. A sock monkey wouldn't hold a skull--no, he'd hold fluff!

When David woke up, I told him my idea, and he loved it. We bought some Rockford Red Heel socks, made the monkeys and their costumes and sets by hand, I read 16 Shakespeare plays, and we watched every Shakespeare-related movie we could obtain.

Two months later, we had a calendar, and a super-cute one at that. We, at the time, knew nothing about marketing, however, so the calendar just kind of sat there.

Today, however, it's serving as a great unschooling tool! Georgie and Lily are playing with the celebrities themselves, and have been having a great time going through the calendar. Georgie knows the beginning of the "Friends, Romans, Countrymen" speech, and she's been teaching it to Lily.

As they've been leafing through the calendar, Georgie has been telling Lily the synopses each photo (she's had the tour of the calendar before), and I've been amazed at how well she remembered each one. She's also familiar with William Shakespeare from a great Magic Tree House book!

Romeo and Juliet from Sock Monkey Shakespeare (c) David and Amy Jones 2011

I'm so glad that they have an early appreciation and understanding that Shakespeare meant his plays to be fun and entertaining, not boring or the bases for long, tedious projects. Learning was never meant to be work!

Not-Back-To-School: Top Ten Things She'll Miss

Well, next Monday would be Georgie's first day of Kindergarten, had we chosen to send her this year. So, I wanted to commemorate this time with a top ten list on what she is missing by staying home with me:

1. She won't learn that she has to only make friends within a group of people just her age.
2. She won't learn that she has to stay still and quiet all day long, never making waves or rocking the proverbial boat.
3. She won't come home with thirty sets of parents' worth of values (or lack thereof).
4. She won't be told what she is supposed to think or believe. She can figure those things out on her own.
5. She won't have to wait until receiving permission to go to the bathroom.
6. She won't have to miss playing in the park or outside in our yard in the middle of the day.
7. She won't have to forgo lying on my bed, watching a Veggie Tales or What's in the Bible (or Disney movie) when she needs some downtime. And we all need downtime. 
8. She won't have to stop jumping up and down, yelling (within reason), making paper dresses, staging plays, or climbing to get sap from the tree for her sap collection.
9. She won't have to spend the day without her little sister.
10. She won't have to spend the day without me. 

This list is not exclusive, but it's all I can think of for the moment (same thing?). I'm so blessed to have my sweet girls home with me!

"Did You Ever Stop to Ponder"--A Great First Experience at the Movies

Today was such a special day, or at least this morning was super-special.

Today, I took my two girls, ages 5 and 3, to their very first movie at a movie theater. I know, that's unthinkable, that they're that old and hadn't been to the movies yet, but times are tight, content is bad, and behavior is volatile, so there you are.

It was so awesome, and I'm so thankful that I got that special moment all to myself .  I'm also glad that we waited until they were older to take them to the movies for the first time. They'll remember that all their lives.

The movie was Charlotte's Web, the old Hanna-Barbera cartoon version that I grew up with and hadn't seen in 25 years, at least. Georgie was already familiar with the story--we read the book last year when she was 4.

The girls behaved wonderfully during it. Lily just sat on my lap and lay back against me the whole time, and Georgie beamed almost throughout and leaned her head on my shoulder several times. She knew what was about to happen before it happened, of course, but the whole experience seemed to thrill her immensely.

Tonight, she's been writing a song called "Did You Ever Stop to Ponder," about losing a friend, no doubt inspired by the story.

Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down

After reading Georgie a whole bunch of Shel Silverstein poems, she decided to compose her own. Here it is:

Thumbs up,
Thumbs down.
Put them together and what do you make
But a thumbs up,
Thumbs down
Really bad mistake!

All Things Bright and Beautiful

One of our chapter books right now is that great classic, Black Beauty. If you haven't read it, it's the story of a horse (of course), told from the horse's point of view.

As we read it, there are parts that I am tempted to skip, just to spare my little one from hearing anything horrific; throughout the book there are descriptions of the maltreatment of animals. And, yes, I can tell that hearing these descriptions makes her sad.

But I'm also intrigued to see her 5-year-old heart growing as we read this together, her compassion being molded and shaped.  And I mean compassion that you can see blazing out of her black eyes (if I may be so dramatic). She has told me, "When I grow up, I'm going to have a horse. It will have no bit, and I'm only going to use a cloth saddle and reins."

I think the author's endeavor to strike a chord of compassion in the reader is certainly resonating in Georgie.  She's determined never "to treat animals that way" and "always to treat her horses very well."

I believe that every time I read Georgie a book, she retains not only the information, but the deeper concepts. I fervently believe this, since she references books at all times, remembering concepts we read about as long as a year ago when she was barely 4. And, if the books are molding and shaping her little heart into what it should be, then I'm doing my job. On top of that, she's getting a biology lesson, history lesson, and literature class all in one, plus readying herself to follow long stories when she's able to read them herself.

As it is, every time I get to the end of a chapter, all I hear is the demand "More!"  And I usually give in.

Great Books for Little Girls

Georgie is madly addicted to chapter books. Yes, we read regular kids books every day, but she's so into the classics, and she loves moving from one chapter to the next of a long, ongoing story.

Right now, we're reading The Secret Garden, a great choice for February when spring is just beginning to poke through the brown of winter.  But that's the fourth classic we've started this week. Yes, fourth.

I'd like to share a short list of some of our latest favorites:

• A Little Princess by Frances Hogsden Burnett: The entire family got into this story. David asked me to only read it at night when he could be home. It deals with grief in a very real way,  and the heroine learns to be an awesomely strong person through her grief and ill treatment.  Like the Apostle Paul, she learns to abase and to abound: that is, when she is rich, she is kind and generous; when she is poor and all is taken from her, she is still kind and generous, but ends up growing an even stronger spirit. A great lesson in how to deal with sudden change, and how to stand strong in the face of enemies and adversity.
• Understood Betsy by Dorothy Canfield Fisher: I had never heard of this book before, but it's one of my absolute favorites. It's another story of a little girl taken out of her element into a situation she can't control, but in this case a sickly city child learns to think for herself and becomes healthy in the Vermont countryside.  It's not a dumbed-down story at all. No, the situations are very realistic, but also very entertaining. I particularly liked the scene in the one-room schoolhouse.  Betsy has only had experience in a public school setting, so she is floored when the teacher puts her in seventh-grade reading, second-grade arithmetic, and third-grade spelling. I was shouting "Amen!"  That's exactly the kind of school I want to provide for my girls!
• All-of-a-Kind Family by Sydney Taylor: Another book I'd never heard of, but Georgie had her little giggle box turned over several times during this account of a Jewish family of 5 young girls in 1912 New York City. We learned about the Sabbath, Passover, Purim, and Succos, as well as the ups and downs of sibling love and rivalry. 

So, there's the Oak Knoll Review of Books for this week. I think that, for obvious reasons, Georgie especially likes stories about little girls, and these are three very good ones. The Secret Garden has also been great so far, but is much denser than the aforementioned books, plus I've been forced to try my hand a Yorkshire accent!