AWESOMEness

I found this great blog earlier, 1000 Awesome Things, and Logan and I spent a very pleasant hour reading some of the entries together. Then we were talking about writing, and blogging, and he decided he wanted to start his own blog, so with no further ado, here is Logan's very first blog entry--about his latest passion, Pokemon--at Logan 101. (A title he came up with, by the way!)

More awesomeness: Yesterday we visited Wheaton Village with our wonderful homeschool group, and got to see a glass pitcher being handblown right in front of our eyes, as well as over 7000 pieces of glass in the museum! The museum lady almost had a heart attack when she saw how many kids there were, but they were all very respectful and interested. (Of course, they're homeschooled!)

Logan's favorite part of the day was watching a man make a clay pitcher and a bowl on a pottery wheel. It was very cool. He made it look so easy! They teach classes there. I think we'll definitely be looking into that.

Love Them Like a Rock

Earlier today, Logan was NOT happy. We had been on a homeschool outing with some other families, and we had just stopped at a restaurant to eat. He was tired, hungry, grouchy, upset that we didn't go to Friendly's, and frustrated that his DS froze up on him. He was taking it out on us. When we settled into our booth, he was rude and surly, refused to look at the menu, refused to talk to the waitress, threw a coaster at me, and was just generally unpleasant.

At that point, Ely and I had a choice. We could parent him the conventional way, using some combination of reward and/or consequence. I work in a restaurant, and so I see this form of parenting every day--threaten the kid with leaving, or with no dessert, or yell, or bribe. I've waited on many, many families sitting in stony silence because of the parents' reaction to their kids' behavior.

Or, we could love him like a rock. As my boy sat there and huffed and sulked, I had this vision of myself as a solid unshakeable rock, being buffeted by a storm. The rock isn't affected by the storm, the rock can't be hurt. The rock is simply the rock, before, during and after the storm.

We were our usual cheerful selves. We didn't ignore him, but we didn't make a big deal about his mood either. I offered to order for him if he didn't feel like talking to the waitress, and he tearfully agreed. We ordered his favorites. We suggested that he take a break from the DS if it was upsetting him so, and he threw it across the table. I calmly picked it up and put it in my purse with no comment. I pointed out that it must suck to be so miserable, and I reminded him of one of my core beliefs, that he could simply decide to be happy if he wanted to. He could let go of the bad mood.

He wasn't interested in doing any of the puzzles on the kids menu, so Ely and I started the word search by ourselves. Well, before long, he wanted to do it with us. By the time the food came, he was back to his old self. He had decided to let go of his bad mood. We jokingly asked, "Hey, what happened to that other kid that was here??" Logan answered, "He ran away to Arizona," as he happily spooned up his mac and cheese.

After dinner (which he didn't finish, by the way) he had a sundae, because we always get him dessert if he wants it, no matter what. (He didn't finish that either.)

As we left the restaurant, with Logan's bad mood all but forgotten and with our happy family feelings intact, I couldn't help but think of all the parents who would have handled that whole scenario very differently than we did. I am so grateful we discovered unschooling, which has helped me unearth my inner ROCK.

Sorting and Counting Hot Wheels

Earlier today, I noticed Logan was being awfully quiet in his room, and when I went to investigate here's what I found:


He had sorted all of his Hot Wheels and Matchboxes by color! Right after I took this pic, he asked for help counting them, and here's the final tally.

Silver--37
Gold--12
Pink--5
White--45
Green--42
Black--42
Brown--12
Yellow--40
Red--96
Blue--96
"Special" cars in a display of favorites that didn't get sorted--59

Grand total--485!! Wow! We knew he had a lot of cars (he gets a new one every time we go to the grocery store, plus multi-packs for all birthdays and holidays) but had no idea there were so many. I told him there are probably more around here that didn't get counted, in the couch, under furniture, outside, in my car. If we find anymore, we'll update the tally. I'm thrilled to be able to share his passion with him!

National Pi Day!

We did some fun stuff for National Pi Day. Logan would like to tell you in his own words:

It was a very fun day. We made a pi pie. We also made a pi paper chain. Each color represented a digit. Even though this has nothing to do with pi, I made a splatter paint picture. So here are some pics:

Best. Comic. EVER.

Logan and I just read all six episodes of this awesome comic, written by a 5-year-old, and illustrated by his 29-year-old brother. Episode 7 comes out later today!

Later on, we'll be packing for our long snowy drive to the Unschool Winter Waterpark Gathering in Ohio. It'll be our second conference, and we're so excited! I'm especially looking forward to the keynote speaker, John Taylor Gatto, who wrote Dumbing Us Down (and whose title was the inspiration for the title of this blog!)

Back in Action!

Took some time off while I thought about what I wanted this blog to be. I had been focusing only on our homeschooling, while leaving out all the messy, juicy LIFE stuff and so of course the result was...well, a little dry.

Plus, what I'm finally, finally starting to really GET, deep down in my bones, is that because we are unschoolers, all that messy, juicy life stuff IS learning. Once you've been living this way for a while (and we're coming up on a year now), you realize that you can't separate out the "unschooling" from everything else. It's ALL learning, ALL the time. It seems silly to me now that we ever thought about it any other way.

Our unschooling encompasses everything we're into at the moment. For Logan, that means learning how to find shortcuts on MarioKart, making videos on his new camera, reading his Hot Wheels magazine, practicing breakdancing. For me, it means learning how to build my own website and start a business, deepening my Tarot study, honoring The Compact, and editing my novel. Even Ely, who doesn't have as much free time as Logan and I do, has been reading one of my Tarot books.

Unschooling--life-learning--is all about following our passions, so it's impossible to blog about it without blogging about all of life. I'm making a personal commitment to write here at least three times a week, and document our family's journey in all its juicy, messy, wonderful glory.

By the way, like the new look? This template was free at yummy lolly

Elevator Speech

After two recent homeschool gatherings, where I somehow couldn't manage to explain unschooling coherently, I realized I need an "elevator speech". This is a concept I first heard about in our former UU church (UUism is another thing that's hard to explain!). If I was riding in an elevator with someone, and they asked me what unschooling was, would I be able to describe it clearly and positively in 50 words or less, before the elevator doors open?

At our last park day, there were two moms brand new to homeschooling. As one of the only unschoolers there, I felt like it was my job to advocate for unschooling, and I failed miserably. I saw the look of confusion on one mom's face as I tried to explain it, and then came the question: "Wait a minute--so you don't make him do anything?? At all? What do you DO all day?" The other mom seemed to be listening intently, and nodding, and then said, "I've heard Calvert is really good." Aaarrgh!

To further muddy the waters, I've come to realize that there's a big difference between people who are just unschooling academics (an oxymoron if ever there was one), and whole-life unschoolers like us. I've been so steeped in the RU (Radical Unschooling, another term for whole-life unschooling) lifestyle the last few months, that I forget that most of the moms I'm talking with in real life have never even heard the term. They're just trying to wrap their minds around not using a curriculum, and here I am babbling on about unconditional parenting and no bedtimes, and god knows what else. Let's edge away slowly from the crazy lady, dear.....

So. My mission for today is to create my "elevator speech" so that when unsuspecting newbies ask me about unschooling, I don't scare them away. Does anybody have a good one I can use?