Life, Unschooled

I realized the other day that this started out to be my unschooling blog, but that I rarely write about unschooling anymore as a subject. Come to think of it, I don't really think about it that much either. Rather, as time has gone by, it has gotten more and more normal just to live our lives - all four of us in this family - pursue our passions, and not really think that much about schooling in any sense. When the kids are younger and unschooling is newer as a concept, I think there's a tendency to be on the lookout for times that "learning" is occurring, to maybe have some anxiety that the right kinds of learning will occur by the right magic milestones, and to make sure to provide the right kinds of educational opportunities. As the years roll by though, it becomes plainly evident that such vigilance isn't needed. The kids are always busy, always pursuing so many different and exciting opportunities, learning becomes self-evident and not something to be chased in circles like a dog with its tail.

But since I know a lot of folks read this blog who are in various stages of unschooling, beginning to unschool, thinking about unschooling, or thinking unschooling is just plain crazy, maybe its time for a little update on how all of that works now that the kids are (ulp!) 12 and 9.

So here's what we've been up to lately. Firstly, robotics is still on the front stage since the team is going to the State competition in 10 days. So that means team practices for about 5 or so hours a week. Plus, Mackenzie has been working on one really tough program and spending extra hours on that. He put in three hours today on that program alone, and with the help of team member Tiff they finally got it completely debugged and working perfectly. Since this program uses variables, timers, loops, sensors, sub-routines and case statements, it's easily the most complex single program they've ever attempted. It's cool to watch the kids get completely involved in something and really work through the tough spots until its all puzzled out.

Speaking of hard work and fun, Asa had a great time in the musical production of Scrooge this December. She played Martha Cratchit, and can be seen here singing her heart out (far right) over Scrooge's coffin. Interestingly, that's exactly the part I played in a version called "Ebenezer" when I acted as a teenager. For this spring, she just auditioned for the musical version of Beauty and the Beast and she will be playing the part of Chip, the little teacup. There's nothing she loves more than singing, dancing, acting, and hanging out with other folks who love those things so the world of theatre is right up her alley. She can also be heard rocking out with her new Karaoke machine (thanks Santa) at all hours of the day, and has asked me more than once how old she has to be to audition for American Idol. She's got a gorgeous voice, so I wouldn't put it past her someday.


Mackenzie is more of the quiet and introverted type, so theatre is not for him, but he got a bow for his birthday from his Uncle Nickrooz and Aunty Meese and has really been enjoying using that at the archery range that Wayne set up down near the creek. When bad weather strikes, he's usually curled up with a book and a cat, or else playing D&D with friends, WoW, Chess, building Lego inventions, or his own game inventions. He recently approached me with an idea for a book that knocked my socks off, and he and I will be working on that together.

One extremely happy development in having older kids is that they have gotten inspired to try some cooking. Asa checked out a kids' cookbook from the library and has so far made guacamole (really good!) and her own sushi. The first attempt at sushi didn't go so well (a couple of forgotten ingredients didn't help) but this time around was delicious! I'm looking forward to more of her culinary adventures. Wayne has started baking bread for the family and he and Mackenzie made Cinnamon rolls for Christmas Eve. Yummmm.

And as for the rest of our time, there's always gardening, long walks, family game nights, karate, trips to the library, the art and science museums, plays, concerts, reading books together, hanging out with our 15 animals, and lots of other fun stuff. In other words, just living life together and learning along the way. Life, Unschooled.

Italia Day 5: Roma: The Vatican

It's been awhile since I posted one of these. Here's the journal entry from our 5th day in Rome. I start off with an example of jet lag in action:

Wayne: "Where are my socks??"
Us: "You're holding them in your hand."
Wayne: "How did they get there?"

And a quote from Asa while we were walking: "How far is it to those sixteen chapels anyways?"

It was about 2 miles from our apartment near the Pantheon, as it turns out. This photo is of the bridge of Castel Sant'Angelo, where we crossed the Tevere (Tiber) river.


So on to the Vatican. Today is a rainy day in Rome and I discovered that my rain jacket doesn't work all that well. I got soaked on the walk over. Luckily the body heat generated by the 80,000 people crammed into St. Peter's (the line went around the entire piazza) quickly dried us off. St. Peter's itself was so overwhelming it was underwhelming in a way: so big, so much decoration, and unfortunately so many people that it was hard to feel impressed, strange as that might seem. Probably if you arrived in November and it was nearly empty (if it ever is, anymore) then it would be more affecting. The kids were fascinated by the Swiss Guards in their colorful uniforms, especially when they changed over with much hoopla and presenting of arms. The thing that I found to be the most affecting was really that it hits home that Peter was a real person, who really died and was buried there. And he was a disciple of Christ. So I guess in a way it made all of the Bible stories I learned as a kid that much more real, just being able to stand there in that place. All the fancy swirling decor on the altar is so much frosting on the cake, but Peter was a real person and he's really buried there.

We ate lunch from our backpack under the great columnade at the edge of the Piazza, protected from the rain at least. The kids took a hundred more photos of The Pigeons of Rome, which will figure prominently in their personal photo albums. After lunch we mailed some postcards and got ready to trek through the rain to the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican museums, which are actually a good ways away from St. Peters.

The Sistine Chapel was definitely truly amazing. The scope and talent and creativity displayed by Michelangelo there is really overwhelming, especially considering he was pretty new to the whole fresco business not to mention still fairly young. I'm glad we got to see the ceiling post-restoration because the vibrant colors make the whole thing so much more affecting. It doesn't really come across much in photos, it's of course hard to capture the scope and the enormous amounts of detail. (Post trip note: Michelangelo: The Vatican Frescoes is the best book I've found, incredibly thorough with gorgeous photographs and lengthy descriptions, history, and explanations of each part of the ceiling frescoes.) I could've easily stayed another hour or more just taking it all in. I also noted that there were several nursing toddlers and nursing older children pictured, although I have heard that some of those nursing breasts were covered up in the pre-restoration ceiling for "modesty".

We also went through the rest of the Vatican museums. The kids really loved the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman galleries, and we got the audio tour which they always love. The museum itself has little in the way of explanations or presentation of the artifacts, so without the audio tour you'd be left guessing about the details of anything there. It did make me appreciate the trend in American museums in the last 30 years or so toward more interactive exhibits with description and presentation all helping to give some context to what you're seeing. Between all of the different exhibits there at the Vatican, it's huge of course and takes hours to wind through all of the galleries, it's pretty mind-boggling. Note to parents who might bring young kids there, once you start down the one-way U-shaped museum wings, there's no easy outs. And no bathrooms either that we noticed.

Personally I liked the sculpture gallery best. I had a flashback to art history class at several points. Suddenly statues that you've only seen on slides or pages of a book are right there in front of you. I especially loved seeing Laocoon and his sons with the serpent. I was always struck by the emotion in that statue and its so much more affecting in person. Asa too found it to be very sad. She really loved the sculpture gallery of the animals, taking lots of photos there. Mackenzie especially liked the statues pertaining to Greek mythology. They were both very engaged and patient considering that we were on our feet for about 7.5 straight hours. Good thing these kids have stamina!

The kids got a kick out of these signs. Italians seem to love to use signs with drawings instead of a lot of text. I'm sure it helps in such a place where people come to visit from so many different cultures and languages. But this particular sign started our trend of purposeful misinterpretation. The kids dubbed this one "Nose Picking Allowed" and "Funky Dancers on Stairs"


Tonight we went for some great pizza on one of the small streets near our apartment. Now we're packing up to leave Rome tomorrow and head to Perugia!

Have Yourself A Mellow Little Christmas

After the insanity of this crazy year, it was nice to hunker down and just have a small our-family-only Christmas. We had virtually no plans, other than to open presents in the morning and eat something in the afternoon, and that was really nice.

The kids as usual popped out of bed bright and early, but in a ritual common to cruel and heartless parents everywhere, we kept them pinned down upstairs until Wayne had his coffee and I had my tea in hand and we were both more or less awake.


One very sweet thing I thought about this Christmas is that after emptying out their stockings and finding a candy cane or chocolate to chow on, the first thing they wanted to do was to open presents from each other. Both had done a stealth job of wrapping to disguise size and shape of presents, using multiple boxes, bags, tape, etc. This cracked me up, and reminded me of last year when Mackenzie swore for weeks ahead of time that he was giving Asa an onion for Christmas, and actually wrapped one up as a gag before giving her his true present.

After that was out of the way, they opened their Santa gifts. Well, opened isn't really the right word for Mackenzie has he got a note from Santa saying his present wouldn't fit through the chimney!


After a summer spent borrowing my mom's kayak at every opportunity, I guess Santa figured that he would really enjoy his own, and if you look at his grin here you know that he will.

And Asa's expression in this photo more or less spells out "A karaoke machine? OMG!" She was beyond thrilled, and has been singing day and night ever since (not that she doesn't sing day and night anyways, but now she's mic'd.)

And that, plus a turkey dinner in the afternoon was more or less our Christmas. Small, mellow, fun and family. In the week leading up, we celebrated the solstice with a progressive dinner with neighborhood friends, baked cookies, sang carols, decorated, read books about the Christmas story and in general just enjoyed all of the rituals of the season as well as celebrating the reason for the season.

Snowy Days

We've had quite a week with several days of good snow and great sledding. The kids are a bit disappointed that we didn't get the dumping down here that the rest of the Pacific Northwest has been getting, as in several feet of snow! But they're happy that we got enough to keep their school-going friends out of classes for almost an extra week and so there were lots of kids out sledding on our hill.

They were really really hoping for a white Christmas this year, and the weather reports seemed to indicate that's what we were going to get, but now it has changed to mostly rain. Still, we're hunkered down and ready for a great little family Christmas together. No traveling this year after our whole year of crazy travel. And all of our family is elswhere, so it will just be the four of us together. Wayne is planning on making Christmas Day cinnamon rolls with Mackenzie, and the turkey is already defrosting. I got another big package of the world's best Oregon cranberries to make some sauce with, and we should be all set for a nice mellow holiday.

My mom and I went thrift-store shopping together yesterday (50% off day at my favorite place!) and I took her to the train station this morning where she hopped on a completely full Amtrak to Seattle to spend the holiday with my sis and brother-in-law. We got a few little stocking stuffers and had a great time.

To all who are celebrating this time of year, whether it be Christmas or Yule, Channukah or Solstice, I'm wishing you a wonderful holiday time filled with family and friends, love and laughter, and maybe a little white fluffy stuff falling from the sky!

Funny Christmas Quote

This morning:


Asa: It's only 7 days to Christmas! A week to Christmas!

Mackenzie: No it's eight

Asa: No look, it's the 18th and Christmas is the 25th, that's only seven

Mackenzie: But Christmas Eve goes so slowly, it counts as two days.

They Did It Again!!!!!

I'm still trying to wrap my head around this one, but the kids won the robotics tournament yesterday. As in got the champion's award. Wow!

The tournament was very up and down for them. They were the first ones to go through project judging, and the judges seemed kind of "eh", but maybe they were still waking up. Regardless, the kids did great in the project (I think!). For one thing, they memorized all of the lines for their play, and some of them (most especially Asa, the narrator) had a LOT of lines.

Then they went on to technical judging, which I think they really aced. Although they're a pretty young team, they attempted a lot more technical sophistication this year, using sensors, loops, variables, and subroutines in their programs. They all explained themselves very well, and the fact that they each wrote their own programs was a real bonus I think. Mackenzie was able to explain to one of the judges his program that used input from a sensor that fed into a decision tree and executed one of several sub-routines, and I could see that the judge was really impressed.

In teamwork judging, I know they did awesome. It's clear that these kids are all good friends and they work together very well. As always, I am proudest of the fact that they are a great team and are positive to each other and to all the other teams there.

On the robot table, their first run was an unmitigated disaster. I think they scored 20 points, LOL. That's out of the 170 they could get if all of their missions went well. One of Mackenzie's programs that we thought operated within the rules was ruled otherwise by a judge, and a well-meaning volunteer interrupted one of Mikke's programs with a ruling that was then over-ruled by the head judge mid-round. So it was very confusing. Their second round wasn't much better, with Asa's program going haywire for unexplained reasons.

By that time they decided to head to the practice room and re-write some stuff in the 30 minute break between rounds. Mackenzie re-wrote his program to conform to the new interpretation of the rule, and I tried to soothe the kids' ruffled feathers. They felt like things were being changed right out from under them, and I explained that it might not be entirely unintentional. After all, in the real world when you're an engineer you might work on a project for months only to have the marketing team come tell you that due to their latest focus group or marketing survey you now need to rework it an entirely different way, or discard those features and write entirely new ones. It's good for them to be able to quickly re-think their strategies or re-work their programs. After that, they buckled down and got to work and their last table run was much much better.

It was clear that all of the teams were struggling with this year's table, which seemed much harder than last year. So I knew that even if we weren't scoring as high as we'd hoped to, the other teams were in more or less the same pickle. I figured we had a good chance of being a runner-up and going to the state tournament, but when they announced the runners-up and we weren't in there, I wasn't sure what to think. But as it turns out, they did it again and won the overall champion's award. They didn't score the highest on the table, same as last year, but their work on all aspects of the project including trying our best to exemplify the FLL core values pulled them through!

I just looked through all of the photos which are so great, and will have to post some soon. Right now though I'm just so proud of all the work these kids have done!

Insanity, Continued

Five kids, a mom/coach, a car, lots of sleet, rain, and wind, darkness, an hour and a half drive, a motel where the power keeps fluctuating due to the storm, and a robotics tournament tomorrow.

Actually, the kids are having a blast. They're in the hotel room playing D&D and just generally having a fun time. They've all worked so hard in the last two weeks, with robotics team practice several days in a row each week. Their research project is simply awesome (I'll share after the tournament) and their robot runs have been getting better and better (although as the team is largely young and pretty new to this, it's not quite as advanced as some teams will surely be.) More than anything, they're having fun and really enjoying the experience.

I'll update after the tournament tomorrow!

It's the Most Insane Time of the Year

I think I post something like this about every year in this week. What the Heck Was I Thinking????

In the next few days we have 4 play rehearsals, 3 robotics practices, 2 research project presentations to give for our robotics team, 2 performances of Scrooge that Asa is in, 1 karate belt test, 1 robotics competition in another city, and a partridge in a pear tree.

You know, I love this crazy busy wonderful fun-filled unschooling life of ours. But this one week a year, it always kicks my butt.

Happy Thanksgiving to All

We've had a really gorgeous Thanksgiving weekend here, with my sister and her brother-in-law coming to stay with us. We cooked a great dinner with lots of local foods (discovered that cranberry sauce with fresh local cranberries is an amazing richly flavored and nuanced dish that tastes nothing like the usual stuff) and just enjoyed having some time with them. We played the Ungame one evening, one of our favorite family games. You always learn something new about the people you're playing with, their life, emotions, memories, etc. We played Whoonu on another evening, and that's another game that brings you close together and lets you really think about the people you're with. I'm on the lookout for another great family game for our Christmas tree this year!

The weather here is freakily gorgeous (who would think you could be out in shorts and a t-shirt on Thanksgiving weekend?) and it was nice to get out and get some gardening done, take walks down to the store with my sis, and be able to bicycle to the gym to swim without getting drenched. Yesterday we biked down to the Holiday Market and Asa got a hand-knitted strawberry hat to replace the one she's worn forever and finally outgrow (old one seen here, I'll have to get a photo of the new one).
Today it's Robotics practice, trying to get ready for our public presentation next week and the tournament (gulp!) the week after. Hope you have had a great Thanksgiving too.

Stay Tuned...

I got the Blue Screen O' Death on my hard drive last week so I'm computerless right now. This is going to be a crazy two weeks with Asa's Scrooge performances and our Robotics competition. I will update if possible...

The Kids Are Arguing and I Don't Care

We just got unlimited texting on the family cell phone plan, and they're having a disagreement via text message. At least it's quiet.

On the humorous front, after texting back and forth with some friends, Mackenzie said "wow, their spelling sure is bad!" I had to point out that people use all kinds of shortcuts to save time while texting and just because they spell "your" as "ur" doesn't mean they don't know how to spell, LOL.

Italia Day 4: Roma: A Day of Miscellany Adventures

I could look at today as another set of plans foiled by jet lag, or I could look at it as a day we got to just kick around and be adventurous. I guess I'll choose the latter. We were going to do the Vatican today, but sleepless night for Wayne and sleeping-in kids meant that we just had a casual day instead. We didn't really have anything in the way of plans, but just took the day as it came to us.

We went to an internet cafe and caught up on email, then meandered over to the Spanish Steps. The kids really liked the whimsical fountain of the sinking boat there, but other than that it was some nice-looking steps and a whole ton of people. So we didn't stay a whole long time there, though we did go in and visit the church at the top of the steps and admire the view out over Roma.














On the way back to the apartment, we happened upon a cool little DaVinci museum that had working models, done in wood, of many of his designs. Everything from camshafts to ball-bearings to bicycles to tanks and mortars were represented there. The kids had fun with these hands-on exhibits, and Mackenzie especially enjoyed the video on DaVinci's conical tank. The nice thing about keeping a day or two free is the little jewels like this that you stumble upon!


Then, while the kids were taking a break and playing (and Wayne was sneaking a catnap), I went out with my camera alone for awhile. I happened upon a piazza with an interesting obelisk resting on a statue of an elephant, and decided to go into the basilica church there, which was called Santa Maria Sopra Minerva (meaning that it was built sopra, or over, the remains of a temple to the Roman goddess Minerva). I found out later that this is considered to be Roma's only Gothic church, and it is one of the loveliest churches I've ever seen. Despite an unassuming facade (shown here behind the red bicycle), the inside is gorgeous, with a blue starred ceiling adorned with biblical figures.


As I walked down the length of the church, I was drawn to a most amazing statue. There were no crowds around it, the church was almost empty. But the statue was magnetic, no other word for it. It was a statue of the resurrected Christ, and He was so real, like He was looking right down at me and could step right off the pedestal at any moment. I looked around at other statues nearby and they all just looked like cold stone. I can't describe how affecting this statue was. At the very bottom was a small tag - The Risen Christ - Michelangelo. The photo doesn't really do it any justice at all. Every detail is so human, down to the toes curled slightly around a rock. When you study the great Masters in art history class, you sometimes wonder why they are considered "masters" when there were so many fine artists of the period. Now that I'm here, looking at all of the amazing art and sculpture here, I can definitely say that the mastery is evident when you look at a piece like this one (and its widely considered to be not one of his best, either).

This church and its statuary and artwork were so lovely that I brought Wayne and the kids back here later in the day and we all walked around together. There are many great cathedrals to come on our journey in Italy, and this may not be one of the grandest or most important, but it certainly is a beautiful place.

Also on my little photographic jaunt, I took some photos inside the Pantheon with its amazing symmetrical dome and oculus, and did some people-watching on the piazza outside the Pantheon, taking photos of fountains, people, and their dogs as well.


In the evening, it was very balmy and nice. We found an outdoor restaurant on a smaller side street and ate pasta. The kids have noticed that soda here tastes so much better than back at home. It's fizzier, less sweet, and is made with sugar and not corn syrup. I told them it tastes like I remember soda tasting when I was a kid (you know, back in the good ol' days). On one piazza, the columns were lit up with all different colors, very striking.


As usual, I'll leave you with an assortment of photos. These are from my little shutterbug excursion on the piazza in front of the Pantheon.

End of a Journey and Dawning of a New Day

Thus ends our journey of politics and hope this year with the kids, we attended the Election night bash at the fairgrounds here in town. We went with some friends, met more friends there (all with kids) and saw many many people we knew as well. The best moment of course, was when they announced that Obama had won the presidency, and you can see Mackenzie's reaction here. It was definitely a "where were you when...." kind of time to remember, which is why I wanted to be somewhere that the kids would remember the excitement and electricity of all of those people celebrating together. The tears streaming down the faces of black and brown families around us, and seeing what it means to so many people. Then we settled in to watch the results of local races (many are still too close to call, a couple of days later, we may have to wait for recounts even) and wait for the speeches.
I thought McCain's acceptance speech was extremely gracious and moving. I kept thinking "this is the McCain that would've given Obama a run for his money" Not the McCain who was trying to defend the choice of Palin, or the McCain repeating platitudes about Joe the Plumber, but the McCain who is a dedicated public servant to the United States of America. I'm certainly glad that Obama won, but it did make me sad to see how the Republican party was able to drag McCain all over the place away from his previously espoused values, and essentially make a mockery of his years in the Senate.

But thankfully, the very choices that drove moderates away from McCain ushered in the historic victory of Obama. Although some found his acceptance speech too dry, I really loved his emphasis on where we'll be going now, what all of us will need to be doing. It was not a gloating speech, but a celebratory and roll-up-our-sleeves kind of speech. I think it's exactly what our country needs, and I hope he can continue to inspire the very same people who worked tirelessly to get him elected to come to the service of their country as well in this time of need (well, I hope he can inspire everyone to do so, of course!) This energy and momentum can and should continue!

Halloween Fun

We've had a great week leading up to Halloween, and the weather was warm and lovely all week. It was supposed to rain on Halloween night but held off long enough for trick-or-treating without umbrellas. For the first time ever, we managed to grow our own pumpkins, and they came out lovely! So instead of going to a pumpkin patch, we strolled out to our very own garden and picked a few lovelies from our crop of seven to carve for Halloween. Mackenzie is being very goofy here with his pumpkin. And the lovely miss Asa poses with her pumpkin choice.

Then we carved them up
With the usual silliness from Wayne...


And lighted them up with some candles. This year I was scolded a bit for our lack of Halloween decorations from the kids, so I spruced up the porch with some cornstalks from our garden and raided the 1/2 price Halloween table at Goodwill for other decorations.


The kids were very traditional this year, probably for the first time ever, in their choice of costumes. A vampire and a witch, and I threw on some farmer clothes to go out with them. We had a great time walking around the neighborhood on a very balmy evening. Just for grins, I found this old photo from when they were 5 and 2 years old. Mackenzie wanted to go as Luke Skywalker, and then Asa insisted on being "baby Luke Skywalker". We had a couple of very young trick-or-treaters this year that reminded me of how fleeting that tiny and cute stage is!