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.