found in pockets blog-

I found a piece of toast in my pocket today. Eva kept it after we ate at IHOP and gave it to me while perusing stuffed toys at Goodwill. I put it in my pocket. Where else?

This is great. One thing that I really love is finding out what other people are passionate about.

Today I was doing a search online about how shells are made and I came across this blog that has A LOT of information about slugs and snails, which I love, but which this person seems to be dedicated to at a whole other level... It is a real pleasure to look through this blog and see some of his photos and to witness his enthusiasm for snails and slugs- and his knowledge! There are several comments on his page as well, illustrating that others out there are enthusiastic too! And it is nice to know that others are taking photos of slugs out there in the world as well.0.

New Blogs

The kids have both started their own blogs. I have them linked on the side so you can check them out. Samuel has several links on his about knights. He is planning on expanding the links to other areas of interest. Right now, though, he is focusing on knights. He picked out a new knight book yesterday that he is really enjoying by Usborne. It has several internet links to all things to do with knights and these are the links he has chosen to put on his blog.

Eva's blog is about how much she loves animals. She plans to take lots of photographs of animals and all of the other things she loves and post them on her blog.

We have spent the last couple of days (and plan to spend a couple more days next week) figuring out if the kids like the classes we are trying out at Village Home. So far we have not really found a match for either of the kids. Eva said no to Spanish for Preschoolers. Samuel was disappointed with both his playful inventions class and the drama class he tried out today. He has decided to try them both out one more time next week to see if he enjoys them any more. Eva is also going to see what their little villagers class is like. It is a kind of preschool-y type of class for four-ish year olds (and threes and maybe a five or two), all homeschoolers I am told. And then because we dropped one class and are thinking of dropping some others, we signed up for an art class, because as Samuel says, those are always fun. If Samuel doesn't like the drama class next week I may sign him up for another drama class at a children's theater in Portland. But for right now we are just figuring out these classes. And that has turned out to be plenty for now. Even if we end up dropping all of the classes it has been a learning adventure for all of us and helped us to clarify what it is we are all looking for, myself included. And yes, next time I may go to the meet-the-teacher night to see if we can glean any extra information about the class and/ or teacher before hand.

We are reading many many books about cats and dogs and horses this week. Eva wanted lots of cat and dog books and also books on spiders (imagine that!) and a book on crystals and rocks and a great book on eggs (that was my pick and it was enjoyed by all). Samuel wants to know more about horses and even how to take care of horses. We are also reading this interesting and enjoyable series by Mary Pope Osborne (she wrote the magic tree house series) about the Odyssey. She has adapted the stories into six short books for kids. They are really fun and Samuel is loving them. They are a bit over the top for Eva, though, and a little more gruesome than I imagined they would be. She is very faithful to the original! I just saw she also has a favorite Greek myths book and favorite stories from the middle ages and I think those will be our next stop.

blog on sleeping

Here is an interesting blog with a post on bimodal sleeping. This is a neat concept to me, as someone who has been labeled a "light sleeper", a.k.a. someone who wakes up in the night if something is going on (e.g. earthquakes have woken me up, babies have woken me up, dogs tick tick ticking on the hard wood floors have woken me up, lights in the hallway have woken me up...).

Bimodal sleeping is thought to be the type of sleeping our ancestors engaged in, those who lived out on the savannah before electric lights kept us up to all hours of the night. It is characterized by two sleep sessions during the night separated by a light waking time of an hour or so between them.

"With artificial light, modern humans have essentially managed to extend their daytime activities late into the night, when all other sensible creatures are busy sleeping.

As a result, we have compressed our natural sleep into artificially short nighttimes, but not all people are so easily tamed by artificial light. Some people, who may just have very strong circadian rhythms, still have this primitive bimodal sleep that they confuse with a sleep disorder."

spiders

Well, I have already posted about spiders once recently. But I do love them so. Spider season is a fun time and it is in full swing now with the spiders getting bigger and bigger. I counted at least 7 different spiders and 5 different species making webs in just one window of my home. I love spiders and we co-habitate well together. I have been running into more and more webs that are suspended further and further out from tree branches and rose bushes and plants and in the car window and suspended from the roof and seemingly in mid-air. The other day I walked into three giant spider webs complete with spiders. They don't want to be on my head any more than I want them there and it is a mad scramble for both of us. And these are big spiders too, the larger banded garden spiders and they are getting bigger by the day. Then, if that weren't enough for one day, I put on my jeans that I had drying out on the clothesline and there was a spider, complete with web, inside one of the legs. I guess this is why I haven't found very many ear wigs lately.

The kids and I have also been going again out at night with a flashlight to check out the spiders. This is a great time to see them. They are out in all their glory, often catching several insects. We keep track of the biggest spiders and check on them periodically. There are two right now in the front that are vying for largest-spider-in-the-yard-status, otherwise known as the big-ladies. I like to find their hiding places as well. Usually you can trace one of the web lines to a leaf or flower or some small hiding place and if the spider is not in the center of her web, she can be found hiding behind the leaf, etc.

For those who haven't seen the link about the giant spider web in Texas... What fun to think of those spiders weaving those webs together.

And here is an interesting biology blog...

art class

This is the art class the kids are taking at the Multnomah Art Center. The class has four different stations set up each time to do different projects and the kids can move around to any of the areas depending on what they enjoy and what they are up for. It is very loose and the teacher is there to set it all up and take care of finished projects and be really enthusiastic! Today was the last day of this class and we are going to sign up for another of the same kind in the fall. We are hoping that the next teacher is as open and enthusiastic as the one we had this time. She is on her way to work at the Portland Art Museum.



Samuel is working on a collage with glue and tissue paper on aluminum foil.



Samuel and Eva working on collages with colored glue and feathers and pasta and different types of paper, all on coffee filters with paint or origami paper. The number of different supplies is really exciting for the kids.



Eva pointed out this photo is her in purple but with the red paint and Samuel in red but with the purple paint. She wished I had taken one with her with the purple paint and Samuel with the red paint. Ah, if only I had thought of it!



And here is a big pile of art projects from the different classes. There was clay and different painting with spray bottles and salad spinner paintings where you put the painting in the salad spinner and added glitter. Lots and lots of glitter! And lots of collages and colored glues and eye dropper painting on coffee filters and shiny paper and feathers and lots of colored pasta. Today they had oil pastels on black paper and different types of chalks. I liked too how she mixed up the projects each time because the kids moved around and did all of the different projects and then did others they didn't think they would like if some of their "favorites" ended up not being there that day. And they enjoyed those as well. A real discovery class.

And on that note of discovery, I found another unschooling blog today that I am thoroughly enjoying. I agree whole heartedly with her sentiments that, "we are trying to be a buffer for our children, so they can lay claim to their own gifts without the weight of second guessing themselves." Very aptly put. She had a link to this ode-to-creativity article that is well worth reading. I get shivers reading the last lines. It can be an effort to find what we truly love and what inspires us, but surely that is what this life is about.

visual-spatial learning

So I was looking around at some other unschooling blogs yesterday and I found this wonderful site called Throwing Marshmallows. Her quote is really appropriate for unschooling- "Learning can only happen when a child is interested. If he’s not interested it’s like throwing marshmallows at his head and calling it eating.” - Anonymous.

She had some great information on visual-spatial learners. I recognized my Samuel in her description of her own son and was off taking the quiz she has listed to determine my own learning type. Turns out I am also a visual-spatial learner, which I suppose explains a lot. From what I have read about different learning types, I know that most people have a couple of ways to learn that are basic to them. This doesn't mean they can't learn things other ways. In fact, most adults have learned how to *learn* in many ways. The problem lies in how schools typically teach things to kids ONE way, mainly the left brained way, or through auditory-sequential learning. Which is fine if that is your primary way of learning. I managed just fine most of the time and adapted to this type of learning but boy do I remember some frustration. I also remember 4th grade as being fantastic and now I know it was because the teachers had us up and out and learning many different ways creatively and hands on. I suffered in Russian classes in college because they believed you had to learn the language by listening only and would not write the words on the board for me- the still unknown visual learner- to better understand. I didn't fully figure it out until I started birdwatching and lo and behold found it is easier for me to see the bird and identify it than by just hearing its song.

The long and short of it is that unschooling for me is partly about helping my kids understand how they learn things so they can better understand themselves and what they love to do, how they love to be. There is no one right way to do things and that includes learning.

Off to the library to get some more books about learning styles, oh and a couple of books on fairy tales too!