FreeLearningMama

Bill 78

Bill 78 was on the homeschooling agenda today. We joined a crowd of people at our local park, made some noise, and returned later to quietly watch as police cars and protestors increased in number, and passers-by added to the din with their whistling, clapping, and cheering. When it got dark and the boys started yawning, I led them home where they opted to sit on our porch while the neighbours and I had a conversation about student debt, Québec politics, media bias, and personal rights and freedoms.

I'm never sure how much of this gets absorbed (heck, I've got the radio on all the time and I always feel uninformed on these important issues). My wish is simply that they grow up to believe, to know, that these things matter. 

Dylan's question of the day (while making cookies): "what does the flour do, exactly?"

CBC radio podcasts

If you don't mind I'm just going to carry on and continue blogging as though I haven't been absent for the past month and a half.

For ages I've been wanting to share with you the many  CBC podcasts that we enjoy together. I think you and your kids might like them too. Some may require adult screening beforehand in case of objectionable language/subject matter. I'll include a '*' if I think this may be necessary. You know CBC Radio is playing too often when you say the word 'Canada' and your six-year-old follows with "Canada lives here", in a deep voice. Anyway, below are a list of shows that Noah (and Dylan, more and more) will come running to the kitchen for a listen if we happen to be home when they air. I love that.

- Quirks & Quarks (science) - a favourite

- WireTap (humour)*

- Laugh Out Loud (humour)*

- The Age of Persuasion (marketing, arts, & media) - a favourite

- Under the Influence (modern day advertising.... similar to above)

- Vinyl Café (geography, Canada, humour) - a favourite

- The Debators (humour)*

- Q (arts, media, culture)

- Definitely Not the Opera (aka, DNTO)*

My own personal list is more exhaustive but those are the programs the kids enjoy. Please, please go ahead and suggest some other great podcasts, I'd love to expand our repertoire! It doesn't have to be CBC of course.

 PS: my banner needs to be updated, I know. I'm on it. Kind of.

 

preparing for a garden

This photo has nothing to do with what I'm writing about today.  I just like it.

So this year we have big plans to turn our back yard into a vegetable garden. I'd like to keep most of the perennials intact, though, so hope we can mostly work around them.

See all that grassy space? The plan is to make two rectangular box gardens there. When the kids were small we'd use that space for sprawling out on a blanket and snacking but now that they're older they run about mostly in the alleyway with their friends. Also, last year Danny finished off the back part of our outdoor space so that we could have a table and some chairs to hang out there...

So all that grassy space doesn't get used much anymore. A friend has offered to help me get this vegetable garden rolling in exchange of course for some of the fruits of our labour. I'm kind of excited. I ordered this book which arrived today and I had a few minutes to flip through it. I already love it.

 

Noah's question of the day: "how do they decide how much artwork is worth?"

 

 

sweet, sweet thaw...

It's that time of year again. And you know the day is off to a good start when the weather is warm enough to collect sap in your PJs...

(drilling and hammering in more spigots)

(reading while waiting for the sap to boil down to syrup)

(we found a little nest on the ground!)

(last chance to toboggan?)

We had a wonderful time in the country this weekend. There wasn't a ton of sap (yet) and we (ok...I) made the mistake of leaving what little of it there was unattended on the fire at the worst possible stage and it sort of, well... burnt. But it wasn't all bad and we came home with one jar of very dark (ahem) maple syrup. I'm trying to convince myself that some lessons must be learned the hard way and you can be sure we'll never do that again. As you can see from the photos above it didn't exactly ruin our weekend.

crazy weather

We've now been blessed with a couple of days of Spring. Look, that's my boy in a t-shirt!!

This week is Spring break which means plenty of playdates with our schooled friends!

 

more and more snow

 

snow day!

A couple of weeks ago we were out walking and Noah suddenly stopped dead in his tracks and said "Mom. This winter sucks." It was mid-February and yet patches of grass spread out all around us. But it seems the weather gods were listening because since then it has snowed (impressively) not once, but twice.

I love these days. They are a mix of hanging out at home (cleaning, reading, sorting, baking) and going outside to play. Here's a bit of what we did yesterday:

(Apple Cinnamon Coffee Cake recipe from JoytheBaker.com)

Noah's questions of the day: 

"Do you have to pay to vote?"

"How old do you have to be?"

"What if there's a tie?"

"What if you can't vote because you're, like, on vacation or something?"

It was a nice opportunity to pull out this book all about how governments work. 

Four years ago this week...

I started this blog on February 22nd, 2008. Three days later I wrote this post about how hopeful and excited I was about the prospect of networking with a small group of other homeschoolers. We had just come back from making pizzas at Sonya's house with about five other families we'd never met before. Today, four years later, rather than meeting up at eachother's houses we have enough people to fill up a space like this:

We sure have come a long way!!

Dylan's question of the day: "what happens if you whisper into a microphone?"

Noah's question of the day: "what if you don't want to vote for any of [the political parties]?"

And yesterday: "what is a 'dictator'?"

a day in the life

As homeschoolers there are days when we have nothing planned and if I'm asked what we're up to I'll likely hem and haw for a bit. These are days that I treasure and although I trust that learning and valuable life experiences are going on, I sometimes worry that we're in a 'funk'. It's normal for homeschoolers to doubt their approach and anybody who tells you otherwise is lying. It did occur to me this morning that we're mid-February, arguably the most blah time of year.  That reassured me a bit. I also grabbed a pen and paper and decided to jot down everything we did today, a little exercise I sometimes do on these 'nothing' days because I find it reassuring:

7:30am - 'screen time': Dylan played Super Mario Bros while Noah chose Minecraft. At 8:15 Noah noticed that a friend was playing on the same server and asked if he could use the phone to call him. In this way, they talked strategy, shared and traded items, and collaborated as they played the game. 

9:00am - 'screen time' is over. While I start breakfast the boys are in the other room chatting. At one point I pop in to take a peek and see they are playing Rocket Race together. A few minutes later Dylan comes into the kitchen and asks if he can pour the whisked eggs into the pan. I explain that fat from the butter creates a non-stick surface (we use cast-iron) so he needs to do that first. I can see from his face that he thinks this is pretty cool. We watch it melt and agree that there's something nice about that sizzle.

Noah joins us in the kitchen and asks if they can eat some frozen yogourt that their grandfather brought over last night. I remind him it's not even 10am. He says, but it's yogourt. I read out the list of ingredients and we talk about misleading marketing strategies.

10:00am - after breakfast I do dishes while Noah plays with his buckyballs and Dylan plays with the Minecraft magnets on our fridge, creatively putting together a scene... or structure? 

CBC was playing on the radio all this time and Jian Ghomeshi starts interviewing some guy about sugar and I think to myself, "what a coincidence, considering the frozen yogourt conversation we've just had". I happily take note that both kids are listening intently while they go about their quiet games. After the interview a song comes on and we all immediately and intuitively feel compelled to dance. So we spend the next few minutes rocking out in the kitchen.

11:15am - kids are talking in the other room while I'm finishing up in the kitchen and Noah hollers "mom, can you come and read Harry Potter?" A few minutes later I'm there but first they want to play Rocket Race again, all three of us this time. So we do both.

11:45am - I run on my treadmill for 30mins while I let them watch an episode of 'Walking with Dinosaurs'.

12:15pm - get dressed and pack lunch for Communidée. Walk to bakery on the way and reluctantly engage in a conversation with the friendly lady about homeschooling when she asks why the boys aren't in school. She already knows we homeschool and seems embarrassed for some reason when she realises she'd forgotten.  I say 'reluctant' because there is always the risk of a slew of questions (yes, she's asked them before) and sure enough the questions come one after another and we are now running late. I remind myself that engaging with people in the community is enriching and a good example to my children while rolling my eyes at myself at the same time.

1:00pm - arrive at Communidée just in time for Book Club.

2:00pm - rather than go home after Book Club we decide to stay. Only five families are there today and there aren't any little ones which means no adult is bothering to supervise any of them while they play in the other room. I believe that unsupervised play with friends is important and they're having so much fun so we stay.

4:45pm - arrive home just in time for Noah's bass guitar lesson. Dylan and I decide to bake cookies together while Noah is gone.

6:00pm+:  the usual dinner and bedtime routine.

Dylan's question of the day: "why do our ears pop when we're on an airplane?"

 

 

birds & bees

This has been on my mind lately. My kids are still young, so who knows how this aproach will play out but I intuitively feel that the easiest way to have 'the talk' with your kids is to prevent the need to have it to begin with. By answering their questions and regularly engaging them in topics related to sex (either consciously or as they come up) most of the groundwork is done. For example, I first clicked on this video (below) a few months ago and I couldn't help but look up from the computer to say, "Boys, come quick! Look how cool this is! Isn't nature simply amazing!?". We've watched it several times since then. I think I've already mentioned that I've been showing them videos of (uncomplicated) childbirth since they were practically toddlers. I want to normalize it and to it's fascinating to watch. It's science, it's life, it's magic!

 I can't think of a (reasonable) argument not to go about it this way.  They ask good questions and most of those can be answered in simple terms without giving more details than they're seeking. We once saw a condom in a museum and I told them frankly what it was for and they just kind of shrugged like 'huh, cool' and moved on. Kids are smart and I figure if they sense that I'm uncomfortable when they ask these questions they'll learn not to ask them anymore.  As far as I'm concered that is the worst possible outcome.

Sometimes it's hard and I need to leave my comfort zone. Once or twice I've had to say to them "that's a really good question and I want to explain it to you properly so just give me a couple of minutes to think about it, ok?" It buys me a little bit of time to explore what I feel uncomfortable with and why.  It's not always meant to be easy, this parenting gig.  I know this sounds terribly cheesy, but I feel like it's such an honor to be in a position where I can really make a difference in their lives at a time when we are immersed in a culture that is so incredibly messed up when it comes to sex and sexuality.

 

Another aspect of all this that I find really important is sex education that includes things like relationship issues. Schools are finally taking bullying seriously but let's also see some talk about the importance of communication skills for young couples. Safe sex is a must but all too often the importance of respect, early signs of conjugal violence, and so on are left out of the curriculum completely.  This stuff should be mandatory, right up there with math and reading. 

Thanks for reading this unusally long post.