Proud of my super inventive son!

I'm never sure how Daniel will occupy himself when we hang out with our super home learning family friends!  These kids amuse themselves, often silently working or reading by themselves for an hour or two.  Will Daniel find something to do?  Will he get the engagement, I feel he needs, will he be bored?  My doubts are always unfounded.  The creativity, kindness, enthusiasm for each other's ideas always rubs off.  Plus, my little dude knows how to occupy himself too.  Daniel wanted to play a board game with everyone, but there where none to play.  S. suggested cards.  Nah!  M. brought out the Jenga, and they played around.  Then, while other's were busy, Daniel invented his own game!  Replete with pretty complex rules, and both girls were into it.  I was sitting working on the sofa in silence, and frankly amazed by Daniel's idea, and by the enthusiasm of the girls to join in, and contribute their ideas.  Later, M. mentioned that Daniel really wanted to play it with me.  Thanks for that consideration, M!  So, here they are setting the game up for me.  A game entirely of chance, but definitely fun.  Each person gets a Jenga colour, and rolls a Jenga die to then picks up a Jenga piece and the card below.  Brown pieces win picture cards (king, queen and jacks), red Jengas win red number cards, and Black ones win black cards.  Everyone wins jokers.  You keep rolling the die until you either get your colour or a star.  If you role a star, you can keep whichever card you lift out from under the Jenga piece, and keep them for points: Jenga piece is worth one, number cards their face value, Jacks 11, Queens 12, Kings 13, and Jokers 14.  If you role your colour first, you can only keep the card that matches it.  Cards that don't match get discarded for the next round.  Each round involves laying out a grid of cards that can be divided by three players with equal amounts of cards each, with each round using fewer and fewer cards (the discards). Very complex!  In the end the game is just luck, but it was wonderful to watch each child, Daniel, A. and M. work out for themselves how to add their points accurately, help each other with this.  Great math practice.  Incredible planning and inventiveness on Daniel's part, and wonderful to see them collaborating on this so enthusiastically.  This was a wonderful "home schooling project"!

First Snow!!! Yippeeeee!!

This morning Daniel and I woke up to the beautiful snow, sadly no pictures of the lovely sunshine.   Daniel was up and dressed and ready to play within minutes, and out he went.  We quickly decided to go join friends to play and hang out in coziness afterwards.  Daniel has definitely come a long way as far as getting into the fight, at first he really wanted to make sure he was on the right team, and wouldn't feel too threatened, but quickly, grew into the pure joy of aiming and ducking!  Later, when the kids went out again in the dark, a wonderful collaborative project of turning one of the giant snowballs into a sofa!  Gotta get a photo of that one.  Thanks guys for all the fun!

Daniel hides where the stash of pre-made
snowballs are in wait to ambush the adults!

Taken seconds before Daniel smacks J. in the face with a snow ball!  Ouch!  Sorry J.

The Web of Life, Home-Schooling at The Beaty Biodiversity Museum, UBC Part One

Today I was struck by one of those impressions that crystallize and magnify all that is important to me in life.

I stood silently, outside The Beaty Biodiversity Museum at The University of British Columbia in Vancouver, with my new camera in hand, awestruck by the beauty of the 26 metre Blue Whale Skeleton suspended between two vast lengths of glass, the layer of bare autumn branches reflected in the window in front, the white sky a background behind, all creating a graphic image of inter-connecting branches and bones stretching in all directions.

I bore witness to the astounding beauty of layers of life inter-twined in an intricate web, the simple framing of the stark, minimalist concrete, glass and steal structure, the court-yard behind with its wild meadow bordered on one side with young trees, and Salal, on the other by low shrubs and picnic tables, and on yet a third by a border of tall, fluffy white grasses and a long wooden bench stretching back to infinity.   My two smallest children were asleep in the stroller beside me and my two older ones had headed with two other families into the building beside to check out more skeletons.  Along with four or five other home schooling families, we’d spent a couple of hours exploring the museum and eaten outside, then the children had romped in the meadow’s long wet grasses, ran, climbed and played to their heart’s content, made new bonds and collaborations in fantasy play and science experiments alike.  I was feeling overjoyed by the community-web of home schoolers that I am finally understanding are indispensable to my joy and ease, and there I was in this moment of peace after the whirlwind of activity, camera in hand,

. with a story welling up inside me: I knew without a doubt that I want to be with the children, I want to be supported and support my community of friends in offering our children what we feel is the best, I want our children to be free to learn and socialize in the world at large, indoors and outdoors and come to their knowledge and growth through passion, free association with children of all ages and caring, enthusiastic adults of all personalities, skills and temperaments, and as much self direction and independence and loving, nurturing dependence that they need at any given moment from their community of support.  Last of all, I want to take pictures and I want to write about and promote what I love and believe in.

Today was a success because it revealed so profoundly what the first image above portrays to me:  this intricate web of life, made up of home schooling families and others who want to be a huge part in the growing, learning and happiness of their own and others' children, who offer endless support, resources, guidance and companionship, is akin, in many ways to the inter-connectedness of nature.  How can we as humans isolate ourselves, me as a single mum, children in school, separated into same age groups, away from their families, diverse communities, connection with nature and a wealth of experience for so much of the day, when confronted with the reality of the natural world’s inter-dependence including our own fragile relationship within it ?  Are we not all connected and reliant on each other?  What better place than the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, and the meadowed court-yard behind, for this epiphany to happen?

Tune in soon for more, including a summary of the field trip and a review of the museum...

Thank you all for your support!  It was a great day.