Enforced Unschooling

 

Child is bucked off of horse, hits head on fence, gets concussion. A few days later same child dives into bed and hits the headboard, loses vision for several hours, worsens concussion symptoms.

Current treatment for concussion symptoms means that there is to be: no school work; no exercise; no television; no computer; no learning anything new. Well then. Most of us plunk sick kids down in front of the tv, give them liquids and let them rot their brains while their bodies heal. Time to work out a new approach. She’s not supposed to be reading much, either, but I’ve allowed her reread all of her favorite novels because, dude, what’s left?

For the first week my daughter lived under the trestle table in our living room. We padded it up with comforters and pillows and she listened to audio books and put beads onto pipe cleaners. Then she crawled out and painted a little bit.

The following week she read, probably too much. Percy Jackson, The Red Pyramid, Harry Potter… No horse back riding, no climbing trees, no multiplication, what in the heck did we do? Housework. We bought chickens and took care of the rest of our animals better than we usually do–spotless cages, well-bedded stalls, extra hay. We watched a little bit of tv and I allowed her to check her email twice that week.

We have gone to the zoo, had a few play dates, went to a spring break retreat in the mountains, ‘learned’ Reiki, told stories, watched Daddy capture a swarm of bees, practiced showmanship (yes, technically exercise but we have to do *something*). We have relaxed, shopped, thrifted, cooked and eaten a lot of yummy food, built fairy houses, stomped in a mountain creek and found an old mix CD I made years ago with the best songs ever on it.

I’m something of a fatalist and believe that life is carrying us along in the direction we are meant to go. We can fight it, swim upstream as hard as we can, but the current is still going to drag us along to our destination. So it seems to me that this concussion episode was a series of events that have turned into stepping stones that have helped us to relax, detox, let go of some of the pressure of keeping up with the Jones’ (the homeschooling ones) and allowed us to enjoy tubing the currents in our own river. We waved on our way past.

 

Spring Chicks

We are taking a break from school work thanks to my daughter’s recent proclivity for head impact injuries. Instead we are stepping up our animal husbandry skills. Knowing how badly my husband wanted more chickens and how unlikely he was to build them a coop unless the pressure of growing chicks made it an immediate need, I drove to the next state over and imported eleven day-old chicks.

Mostly Black Copper Marans, these little guys are fluffy, adorable, stinky and loud. We loved them immediately but after a few days of having them inside our house, the charm wore off. They really do stink. In fact, chickens stink far more than pigs ever have. Pigs are just bigger and muscled their into the title of ‘stinkiest’.

When the chicks first came they lived in a Rubbermaid tote that Mark, my husband, made into a brooder box. It worked fine for keeping the chicks warm and safe from our cats but it didn’t do a thing for the stench.

So I set to cleaning up the old rabbit hutch that Mark swore just needed to be burned.

It has worked out just fine as a new, outdoors and well-ventilated abode for the wee chickies. We close them into the nest box at night with their light and let them roam around during the day.

So far as we can tell, it’s raccoon-proof, fox-proof and possum-proof and we have no little bit of experience in these matters.

Our house smells much better now, thank you very much.

And the chickens? Well, they’re doing fine but they better start laying soon! I mean, they are two weeks old now.

(and I’m only kidding about the laying for those of you who don’t speak sarcasm.)

 

Harry Potter’s London

We spent 3 days in London over the summer. We also did some other interesting things but one of the most fun was the day Martina and I spent on our own, touring the Tower, Platform 9 3/4 and Diagon Alley (or, Cecil Court).

Sadly, they are doing renos on the metro at St Pancras and Kings Cross, so we couldn’t get down to the actual platform where the train is embedded in the wall. We had to make due with this, on the sidewalk out front.

This was so cool we had to go back the next day and actually purchase things from the Witch Ball and from the bookstore.

Martina got Harry Potter MONEY from this store. It’s awesome. Unspendable but awesome.

 

What ‘Style’ of Homeschooler Are You?

I’ve come to detest this question. The ones about how do you do it? What curriculum do you use? They don’t bug me. The one about what schooling style is an irritating one, I must admit.

Why? Because I prefer the enigmatic to the strictly defined. I prefer wavering boundaries to tall, firm fences. I want to use wet-on-wet watercolors to back up the living book we read, the movie we watched, the video game we played and the field trip we took to learn specific material. I don’t want to be defined by someone else’s idea of perfect.

Years ago I wrote a post about ‘Frankenstinian’ homeschoolers, joking about how we were a combination of many different styles. Surely we still are but I don’t even want to joke about it any more. Steiner, Mason, the SOLs and CATs can kiss my lily white you-know-what. From now on we’re just learning, the best, most interesting, hands-on way we can. How about you?

 

Disheartened

This is a picture of a nine year old girl riding a five year old pony at a horse show.

This is a story of a mother’s frustration at how unfairly people, not just horse show judges, can treat children who are tall for their age.

Look at this face, the neck, the cheek, the expression...

Maybe this will cause someone, someday, to stop and ask herself, “How old is this kid? Let me actually look at this child and see her for herself and not judge her by some preset size standard.” Maybe someone will make a small adjustment and cause a little less hurt because of it. Also allow me to preface my complaints by saying I understand that in the world of problems, a child whose braids are too long for the taste of one horse show judge is miniscule, but since this is my blog and the post is about my child, I’m going to talk about it a little bit.

You see, Martina shows in a class designed for kids 10 and under. She is 9. In most of the divisions she rides in, she is the largest child in the class. Generally she is in the middle of the pack age-wise, but she is always the tallest and because she’s so tall some of the judges treat her differently, as if her height has some deeper soul-meaning. As if, because she is tall, she is also smarter, more capable, more competent than other children of the same chronological age. I remember going through exactly this with my 24 year old son. It made me angry then, too.

This post is also about honoring the girl’s ability to ride a green pony into a ring full of other ponies ridden by other inexperienced riders. I want to tell the world that she works about five times as hard as any other rider out there because her pony is young and has little idea what he’s doing and so she has to be the voice of experience for him while learning what’s going on herself. As a team the two of them really are amazing, even when this doesn’t show in the ribbons they win.

After a recent show, our trainer spoke to the judge and found out that the judge for the Walk Trot Equitation’s main reason for marking my daughter down was because of her braids. She doesn’t seem to believe that this 9 year old child should be wearing them because she’s TOO BIG and it makes her look like a poser*. Only in this case, it’s a kid being just exactly what she is: a little kid riding her pony in a class designed for little kids and ponies.

The judge also had other things to say, like that the pony was too forward (and I agree that he was for the first two classes of the division) and that my daughter’s position is beautiful and that she did everything she should have and did it quite well. Good feedback and some positive, which is always nice.

I told Martina some of what was said. She knew I took the call, she eavesdropped the entire time and she was the subject of conversation. Her decision is to continue to wear braids. She has no desire to put her hair into a hair net just yet. My advice to her was that we set goals independent of winning ribbons and focus on those goals, with any ribbons being bonuses. She agrees that she will try that approach, even though letting go of her deeply competitive nature is going to be difficult.

We’ll see how it goes. This is an opportunity for growth for us, in the way we focus our attention at shows as well as how petty we allow ourselves to become when she doesn’t place as well as we think she should have. We are growing and evolving and trying really hard but sometimes my protective mama bear nature gets the best of me, especially in situations where my child is being treated unfairly. We were only disheartened for a little while though. Now we are determined to work harder, be more committed and to remember that this is, above all, supposed to be fun.

 *my word, not hers

Note: In English (Hunt Seat) equitation classes, little girls typically wear braids with bows, jodhpurs and paddock boots until they are 12 or 13 years old. This is what is right and proper. I guess it’s only actually true of petite children (apologies, I do tend to use the descriptive ‘girl’ though this applies to boys as well.) Though a boy would probably not be so proper in braids and bows in the English show ring.

 

A Bee Talk

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/During the Spring semester at our homeschool cooperative, HSObX, I taught a Science through Story class for 6-8 year olds. Our last class was preempted by amazing talent and performances done by our choir, drama and dance classes. I didn’t mind but had planned a Beekeeping talk for that day. My husband brought all of his stuff, including a jar of bees.

Since we didn’t have time to get to it on the last day, we invited everyone over for a Saturday morning Bee Talk. Mark may have gone a little over the heads of the littlest kids with his talk but it was great for the older kids and parents. When we got to the hive, the little kids were all but INSIDE it. A couple were suited up, they took turns poofing the smoker and gathered closely for a view of the queen.

I think that in addition to learning a bit about bees, most everyone learned not to be afraid of them.

 

The Marine Science Consortium’s Homeschool Family Camp

We just returned from one of the best homeschooling experiences we have ever had. Three days at Wallops Island, VA, sleeping in a noisy dorm, eating awful cafeteria food and being shuttled from activity to activity. Sounds like hell, doesn’t it? It wasn’t, not even for my quiet-loving, introverted self.

The MSC’s activities were not the boring fluff many school-oriented activities are made of, not in any way. The children were drawn right into collecting scientific samples, testing water quality, identifying the samples in a laboratory setting, team work and various safety considerations when in a lab, using chemicals or on a boat.

You can check out the MSC here. One word of advice: take your camera on the wet, soggy, marsh walk unless it’s raining.

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A Baker for a Day

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BAKER FOR A DAY AT CAROLINA CUPCAKERY

This story begins with a 4H fundraiser, a silent auction and spaghetti. It ends with hot pink cupcakes.

My daughter is in a 4H equestrian club. Their annual fundraiser is ‘Italian Night’. Part of this festa is the silent auction during which said daughter fell in love with the idea of going to Carolina Cupcakery and being allowed into the kitchen where she would bake the cupcakes she loves.

She won the auction with a desperate and final bid. Then she at half a pizza.

On a recent Monday she went to the Cupcakery for her kitchen time. The ladies at the CC were wonderful with their 9 year old assistant. The owner’s daughter gave Martina a tour then one of the staff members got her started baking her choice of cupcakes: Pink Champagne.

Kiddo made batter and ice cream scooped it into cupcake tins then into the oven they went.

Dawn, the owner, shepherded Martina through the icing and decorating of the cupcakes. They came out beautifully, more an art lesson than one on baking.

She got to use power tools to mix the flavoring and dye into the butter cream base for icing! Nothing like a third grader handing a gargantuan drill.  Once the cupcakes were iced Dawn handed her piles of fondant to roll and mold into leaves, flowers and dragons.

By the time the cupcakes were finished, the child was in a sugar coma but managed rouse enough to bounce out the door with a huge grin on her face and a dozen hot pink cupcakes in a box.

If you’re not already in love with Carolina Cupcakery you probably haven’t been there. They make the best cupcakes and getting behind the scenes to see how they’re done was the icing on the (cup)cake.

 

Derby Day Salon

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These photos are from our 2nd annual Derby Day Salon. The idea of a musical salon is certainly not original to me and some of my homeschooling friends were doing these long before we started doing ours. Thanks to them, I had some guidance on how to put things together.

There was a printed program with all the names, pieces and instruments so that everyone knew when they would perform. The list of performances was based on trying to distribute the instruments throughout the program so that violin, piano, voice, cello and etc were in a rotation rather than a section. Sometimes the beginners go first, sometimes the younger children start, these two categories are not necessarily the same. As always, the musical ability of our friends is jaw-dropping. There’s a four year old who plays a violin the size of my shoe and an eleven year old who plays…everything!

Genres? Ran the gamut from Mozart to the Grateful Dead. Yeah we rock…and we also classical

For the closer there was a rousing rendition of Galway Races, just to get everyone into the spirit of gambling on the Kentucky Derby. Yes, there were mint juleps later but don’t worry, no one drank and then drove off with the kids.

 

The Swing

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Our daughter has a weird life. She has things that other children only dream of: a pony; trips to foreign countries; a dad who takes her hunting. However, there are things that a typical American kid has that she doesn’t. Things like a swing, a slide, trips to the carnival…

Well, after ages of pushing on my part and requesting on her part, Mark finally hung a swing for her. In typical Daddy/Mark style, the wait was worth it. The swing is extraordinary, hung high from the branch of a beech (?) tree over by the pool. The seat is double wide so that two kids can sit on it at one time. The ropes are long and so the arc of the swing is long and luxurious. It’s a perfect dreaming spot, shady in summer, breezy, quiet, with a view of the pasture, sheep pens and river. Yes, definitely worth the wait.