Schoolless

Blinded with science

So maybe I'm a glutton for punishment.
Or maybe I just like having a lot of kids around my house.

Blindfolded piano playing

One of the questions homeschoolers hear a lot, of course, is the one about socialization. Socialization isn't a big problem in our house. We find ourselves surrounded by families whose company we enjoy, and we are blessed with two kids who developed good social skills long before they parted ways with their diapers.

So our problem is a little diffrent. Whenever we do "learny" things at home, we do them alone. And sometimes we do feel the satisfaction of completing a task, or finishing a book, or moving to the "next level". But sometimes it just gets a little boring. Some learning is more fun in a group.

How'd they get their edges so straight?

I'm not quite sure how we stumbled into doing a segment on vision. It may have been simply that we were doing the chapters in Gee Wiz in order, and one on vision came up. Because Peter and Nadia were into it, I went on a hunt for more activities we could do, and it occurred to me that as long as I am setting it up for my own kids, I might as well invite some others to join us. So I sent and email to some friends announcing "Science Friday".

Awaiting the arrival of the scientists

As is usual with adults, I think, my plans were a little too ambitious. All these experiments looked so cool! Let's just try them all! I prepared everything meticulously, and an orderly table with neatly organized stations greeted the guests as they arrived. At the last moment, I realized that the perfect accompaniment to the occasion would be Thomas Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science!" And, thanks to the miracle of iTunes, the musical selection became available with a click.

Watch that pupil grow!

As kids gathered around the table, it became clear that they cared not a whit for my plans or preparation. Although at first, I tried to direct their activities, I abandoned that approach fairly quickly, and let them simply plunge into whatever interested them. The much-anticipated vision meter proved too complex to be truly engaging. However, optical spinners of all kind were an instant hit.

Suddenly everyone wanted a piece of string to thread through holes in a cardboard circle, and watch a fish appear in a bowl of water, a butterfly hover over a flower, or colored rods meld into a constantly changing rainbow. "Ooooh, this one is cool! Try this one!" With very little adult guidance (usually only to solve technical difficulties), the young participants found their way through most of the activities laid out on the table.

Mirror maze

But was it science? There was no method in their madness. Their observations were not tabulated and analyzed. No hypotheses were posed. There is a part of me that wants that level of organization. But I'm not sure I can have it all at once.

There is a natural curiosity and exuberance in kids that makes them just want to make that interesting thing happen over and over again. I know this from my own school experience, and also from working with my own kids alone. The interesting part of the experiment is the doing. Discussion is fun too, as long as it's fairly spontaneous. Writing? Eh... that's not so much fun. Then we are getting "schooly".

So, first, I want to get them hooked working on these fun projects, and on working together. I want to give them the time and the space to explore "what happens, if", and to draw one another from one fascinating discovery to the next. Only after they do it enough times they may want to change some of the variables and note the differences. Who knows? Perhaps then the desire to monitor their findings will emerge.

Mind popping math

I'm not quite sure what I've taken on.

Thirteen kids aged 7 through 13 squeezed around my dining room table and looked at me with varying degrees of anticipation.
"I don't want this to be about rules." I ventured.

Running a math club for homeschoolers has been something I've been thinking about for several months. And now, it has officially begun. I imagine that a classroom teacher stands in front of her group of kids with a fairly firm idea of what she wishes to accomplish and how that's going to happen. I don't have a teacher's training, and had no such preconceived notions. I wanted merely to present what I hoped was a fun idea, and let the kids run with it. Yet now, running was something I was a little afraid of. There were, after all, thirteen of them.

Here was the problem:

How many kernels of popped corn would fit in my van?
You may use: one bag of popped corn, an empty box, a tape measure (optional), a calculator, plus paper, pencil and a friend.

The problem immediately had to get modified due to abundant rain, and a large quantity of squishy mud around my van. I desperately wanted that mud to stay outside. After a short deliberation, we decided to use various rooms around the house instead. I divided the kids into mixed-age groups, and set them loose.

Initially, they needed a little prompting. How would you go about figuring out how much popcorn will fill your box? Could you do it without counting the kernels? Could you do it without actually filling the box?
And they were off.

At first, four groups of kids crouched of the living room floor deliberating and scribbling in their notebooks. Then, for two hours, chaos reigned. Each team picked a different room to measure, and one team picked the fireplace. There were kids inside the fireplace. Others stood on the bathtub and the toilet. Still others climbed beds and each other's shoulders before they figured out they could measure the height of a ceiling with a stiff tape measure without actually climbing to reach it. Popcorn disappeared from bowls as great quantities of it were consumed or scattered on the floor in the course of the project. Calls for help were heard from one part of the house to the other. Younger kids needed explanations of what bigger kids were doing. Bigger kids needed conversion factors. Liam entertained everyone with stories of a monthlong ski trip from which he had just returned against his will.

But, in general, everyone seemed on board with solving the problem. Peter drew 3-d cubes and penciled in numbers along the sides. In between ski stories, Liam measured several corn kernels, and calculated their average size. Zola multiplied numbers into the tens of thousands longhand, oblivious to the presence of several calculators in the room. Zeb figured out that two boxes fit in a foot, and measured the room using boxes. Nadia wrote long paragraphs documenting every step of the process. Louise and Eric meticulously converted feet into inches and then into boxes. Mattie had a little trouble with writing some numbers, but seemed to intuitively grasp the concept of volume.

In the end, it was estimated that about 149,000 kernels would fill my fireplace, just over one million would be needed for the bathroom, and about three million for each of the bedrooms. As a bonus problem, we figured out that if we wanted to play a joke on Peter and literally fill his room with popcorn, it would cost us about $5,600. There were no takers.

Here are a few things I would consider for future math club meetings:

• Briefly introducing the basic concept of what we are doing. I wanted this to be as far from a "lecture" as possible, but a short demonstration of calculating volume with a few simple cubes might have been helpful.
• Having kids work in same-age groups. The idea of dividing them into mixed-age groups was, of course, to keep everyone involved, and to balance out different levels of ability. This notion of "balance" may be somewhat flawed. Younger kids may understand something conceptually, but are frustrated by the inability to express it in mathematical terms. However, they may be able to express it through pictures or narrative. Older kids who have the facility of using mathematical notations may find it more satisfying to use these shortcuts. I dunno. Different activities may lend themselves to different approaches.
• Allowing kids to choose to what degree they want to participate in the project. Kids have different attention spans. Many of the participants seemed quite eager to get down to the business of solving the problem, while others wanted to go exploring. I think that's fine, as long as they respect the essential integrity of my house. I prefer to have kids voluntarily engage in an activity. Perhaps if those who are genuinely engaged appear to be having a good time, the more reluctant ones will come around on their own.

I consider this our warm-up project. The kids almost certainly had fun. They probably learned something from the process as well, though perhaps it was not what I would have intended. Who knows. But, as usual, I myself learned a few things, and walked away with a lot of questions.

Bike polo (and other silliness)

We recently took our kids to a bike polo tournament, as our bike shop sponsors a local Chicago team. Peter naturally thought that he'd be terribly bored, but, as it turned out, the tournament provided ample fodder for his stop motion. The timing needs a little work, perhaps, but I think he's really honing his comedic skills...

For pictures of real bike polo, click here.

These are the insects in our neighborhood (and beyond)

This summer, we've been spending a lot of time at my mom's. Big house, big yard, big woods. Sort of empty without my dad. And without him, not much for the kids to do, while mom and I attend to boring adult business that inevitably follows a loved one's departure.

My mother's neighbor across the road owns a beautiful piece of property with a lovely river running through her some 120 acres. Initially, the kids thought it would be boring there, but once they started searching for frogs on the riverbank, they could not be pulled away despite a fierce mosquito attack.

We spent a large portion of this summer looking around just seeing what we would find. One of the most numerous and interesting things we've found were bugs. Here are some of them:

Bumblebees seem to be the most active pollinators in our yard.

Here's one coming in for a landing.

Just a wasp, but isn't this a great flower?

Ah, my favorite, a hawk moth that hovers like a hummingbird.

Never enough of these guys.

They have competition for the milkweed.

And don't you think they are all so pretty. Here's something to give you goosebumps:

A ladybug with her herd (or is it horde?) of aphids.

Hey! They're not pollinating! They're ...um ...fornicating!!!

Bird poop on my car? No, it's a wood nymph moth, aka "bird poop moth". Good thing Peter stopped me before I scraped it off.

And finally, a stickbug on the patio door screen.

Bowling for evolution

Cruising down route 23 along the scenic Lake Huron coastline, we came upon this arresting sight:

"Jesus-themed bowling alley! COOL!!"

Chris and I apparently both had the same thought.

Alas...

To top off our disappointment, the theme-park was closed, so we could not personally examine the anointed heart of the brontosaurus.

Full Moon

I didn't know about the Full Moon Jam. When a friend called and invited us to come along, I thought is was just gonna be some kids gathering on the beach to watch the moon come out of the water. Which would have been cool too.
But this was a different and more tribal experience. It started innocently enough, with a few people trickling in a starting to settle in a loose circle around some musicians.

Pretty soon, drums were beating, and some kids and other adventurous souls were doing dance moves in the center. It was still fairly mellow. We were sitting around with some other unschoolers we ran into, ate pasta salad, and observed the kids take in the sounds, sights and smells:
"Mom, what smells like smoke?"
Hmmm. What indeed?
"Mom, this lady has earring, and her ears go around the earrings."
Uh-huh.
As the sun went down, more and more people came out of the woodwork. Some sporting festive attire.

Like Carlos. We know him from the bike shop: he's one of our oldest customers. What you can't see in the photo is that he's also wearing a bunny fur vest. There were a whole bunch of other people wearing bunny ears. But his were the longest. And orange.

Once it got completely dark, it got harder to people-watch, and the fire came out.

Fire spinners against the dusky skyline.

Man-turns-fireball.

They look like topiaries, don't they. Wonder if this is what Moses saw.

Goodnight, y'all. Don't play with fire.

Spying on the life of plants

I'm feeling too lazy to write, so please sit back and enjoy this photo essay of sorts on our exploration of seeds.

We put on fuzzy wool socks and gathered some of last year's seeds. We also gathered seeds by hand.

Here are some examples of the seeds we gathered. Some were neat and tidy like these. The big surprise was the cottonwood seedpod, resembling a small bunch of grapes. We had no idea that's what they look like before they burst open.

Other seeds were less cooperative, and made a tangled, spiky, fluttery, fuzzy and tickly mess.

Like these.

And these.

Some landed where they weren't supposed to.

Here is our dissecting lab.

We were especially proud of this beauty.

Its babies look like little bisons, or perhaps mythical horned slugs.

Here we are making a model seed out of a balloon, strips of newspaper and paste.

Finished seed model. Note that this seed is unusual, as two different plants seem to be growing out of it. This is not a result of a genetic mutation, but rather of having to accommodate two different artists with only one balloon in the house.

The end result of our explorations. Pretty, no? But it was all in the process.

Just call her Miss Tolstoy

Both my children started uttering intelligible words at the tender age of 9 months. Interestingly, they began with the same word: cat. But while Peter confined himself to the last letter of the word, allowing us to figure out what he meant by pointing to one of our household felines, Nadia enunciated the word clearly and completely from the start. Once she mastered one word, she continued in the same vein, until at eighteen months, she was speaking complete sentences, like when I tried to blow hair out of her eyes: "Mommy, don't blow me, I'm not a balloon!". To balance her brother's tight-lipness, Nadia spoke early, enthusiastically and a lot.

Naturally, we assumed that this verbal precociousness would lead to early reading. In fact, we were puzzled when she showed an interest in writing long before she ever started to read. She didn't really know how to form all the letters, but didn't let that stop her, and composed paragraph upon paragraph of remarkably writing-like... well... writing.

Here she is, at her craft. (Incidentally, my dining room table almost never looks this neat.)

About a year and and a half went by, and Nadia tried everything from active reading instruction, being left to her own device, practicing with emergent reader books, and finally starfall.com. She read street signs and cereal boxes, but was no closer to being a Reader than her brother was at her age.

On her seventh birthday, Nadia received a set of Junie B. books from one of her friends. It took her about three days to get through the first chapter, and another week to get through the second. By the end of the next week, she'd read all of the books, and was ready to move on to an older heroine, Judy Moody.

Throughout all this, she continued to compose voluminous written materials: a diary, a travelogue, picture-books about cats and dogs, and numerous letters to friends. With the discovery of chapter books came new inspiration: she decided to try her hand at writing novels. She already has several manuscripts under her belt. I've found them tucked under her bedcovers, slipped into books, spread all over the rug, and  (her favorite place to compose) on the heater in the front window.

The young author draws heavily on real-life experience (though she changes her friends' identities to protect the innocent) and spices it up with intrigue, betrayals and drama. Her characters display strong emotions, have values, loyalties, a keen sense of fair play, as well as an eye for fashion. What is remarkable about these chapter books (aside from the creative approach to spelling) is the sustained effort she puts into them. Some of the novels are well over twenty pages long, each decorated with handsome illustrations.

Upon learning that I wanted to use her compositions in my blog, Nadia was horrified. It was  only after hours of strenuous persuasion that I got her to reluctantly agree to publish her works. But she wants you to understand that these compositions are still in draft form. So don't judge her too harshly.

Playing catch-up

It's been that kind of week. Not enough time for anything, yet I can't quite account for what we have done. You have such weeks, don't you? I think they usually happen when outside duties, appointments and obligations intrude on the things that you want to do. And you have to scramble to fit your life around them.
A camera is a great thing to have when you want to chronicle your comings and goings without having to write anything down. So, in reviewing last week's snapshots, I realized that we actually got some things done.

Nadia made necklaces following mathematical patterns.

Peter drew a scale plan of our kitchen, and Nadia helped him decorate it with pictures of our cats, hypothetical mice, not hypothetical ants, and even an anteater.

We made a stab at our family tree using stamps cut out of an eraser. As the above kitchen plan, the family tree included pets, both living and deceased. (Note that we are straight line descendants of Adam and Eve.)

We spent a day at the beach.

We made bone models out of drinking straws, and tested them for strength.

Drinking straw bone models are fun to look through.

Oh, let's see, what else? We also stained our teeth and tongues pink with disclosing tablets while studying teeth and plaque, we dropped out of math class, but we did do a lot of work with fractions while studiously avoiding worksheets, and helped an imaginary but very dull-witted farmer add up the feet and tails of his livestock. The kids also discovered the Klutz window art kit, so we now have beautiful stained glass throughout the house.

How many steps ago was that?

One of my favorite recent acquisitions is a nearly complete set of Brown Paper School Books. Since the weather was cooperating last week, we did a really fun activity from the Big Beast book of dinosaurs. The cool thing about the Brown Paper books is that while the title suggests you may be learning about one thing (in this case, dinosaurs), you're really learning about a whole bunch of other stuff at the same time. I think in this activity, we were able to combine a little writing, math, crafts, PE, geology, history, a break at the park, and practical skills, like a small grocery shopping trip, using an automated check-out clerk.

We started out making ten signs for pivotal periods in the earth's history, including the present, the appearance of first true humans, last dinosaurs, first dinosaurs, first land animals, etc, etc. Each sign included the name of the period, it's chief characteristic (along with an amusing illustration), and the number of steps we would be taking back in time. Each step was to represent a million years. We had some notion of what a million years looked like, because we had also completed an earlier activity comparing our age, represented by about 1/32" on a ruler, to a million years, represented by a football field. So the steps we would be taking were the equivalent of one football field each, or 1,000,000 years. Got that?

We located a suitable field not too far from our house, and started planting signs. We attracted the attention of a Middle-Eastern grandma with two kids, and a gentleman and his dog, but other than that, no one bothered us.

This is what it looked like after Nadia planted the 7th sign (The first two ones are really close together, so they look like one. Believe it or not, only two measly steps separate the civilized creatures that we are today from our early human ancestors.) We continued to plant signs 8 and 9, and celebrate the milestones along the way.

After sign number 9, we only had one more to plant. But it presented a problem:

To go back to the beginning of time would require us to take an additional 4160 steps (about 2 miles?) for the total 4600 required. So, we decided to cheat a bit. We walked an estimated 1500 steps to the local Jewel, bought some snacks, and supplies for the Jello geology project (there is a bad pun in there somewhere), took a few extra steps around the store for good measure, went outside, and planted our sign.

So the beginning of the earth is now officially at the Jewel-Osco at Foster and Pulaski in Chicago.