We love natural learning!

Spikee is really loving reading! Tonight we made him a dinosaur book. We printed out lots of pictures of dinosaurs and he coloured them in and cut them out, and I typed and printed "This is a " and then we glued it all onto paper and stuck the pages in a clear sheet folder. Now he reads it and points to all the words. He's very pleased with himself.

We spent the day building our hot house, and I can't wait to get a veggie garden up and running again. There's so many REAL, USEFUL lessons in growing food. We've also added some chooks to our family and there have been many opportunities for learning there! It seems that this is the perfect state for natural learning.

dinner from our very own garden

I decided to uproot something in the garden that I was pretty sure I hadn't planted. It turned out to be the most lovely bunch of tiny little potatoes! We cleaned them, and boiled them, and ate them for dinner with fresh mint, chives, and parsley from the garden. We had them with salad that was all home grown (lettuce and cherry tomatoes), and free range chicken which I marinated in chili and lime sauce that we bought way back in April at the easter show from in the produce hall. As we ate there were many exclamations of "this is yum!" and "this is sooooooo YUMMY".  And one member of the family (who shall remain nameless) rolling peas off the table onto the floor and telling us all - quite cheerfully I might add - to shut up. 

There are two more bunches of potatoes growing in the garden now, and we'll leave them until xmas and harvest them for salad on xmas day. I discovered after a google, searching for cucumber plants, that our pumpkin is actually a cucumber plant! We have nearly thirty flowers on it and they're so pretty, but sooner or later they're gonna turn into a massive crop of cucumbers, probably not in time for xmas unfortunately.  

I discovered a rogue watermelon that has decided to spring to into life beside the trampoline. None of us have any idea where it came from!? But there it is, doing it's own thing, growing well! We may get fruit off it one day! The potatoes began in the compost heap that is now our garden bed, so we have rogue potatoes too. And they taste amazing!

a day at taronga

Today we spent the day at the zoo, we got up nice and early (8am on Saturday is early!) and drove over there. We would have caught a ferry if I wasn't pregnant, but I thought all the walking and waiting might be a bit much after a day wandering at the zoo. 

Stylish was very impressed with the Corroboree frog breeding program that was on display, and I was very interested in how many of them there are in captivity when there are only about 50 in the wild. Taronga is working on their resistance to a bacterial bug (the main reason they are critically endangered) to make their release back into the Alpine area where they live, more effective, and hopefully to replenish their numbers in the long term. She impressed us all with her reptile knowledge about various species which she rattled off before she had a chance to read the information next to the animal, she is such a wealth of information!

Spikee was kind of interested in stuff, and yet more interested in bolting about like a mad thing. he must have ran about two kilometres up and down hills. When asked what his favourite animal from today was he said "de effant" which translated into English is "the elephant". He also liked the part of the seal show where the seal was balancing a ball on it's nose and playing catch with the keeper. He was also really interested in the goats that he got to pat - don't get me started coz I really want a goat.

The zoo has changed so much since I was a child. One of the changes is the play areas that are kid friendly. There is a wading pool with a boat in it that Spikee loved, and we all dipped our hot feet in the cool water for a bit. There's also a large play area all constructed from wood, and it had a whole water play area with water wheels and water falls, and pumps, and a sand pit where we spent some time letting the kids just be kids without having to be interested in stuff! After half an hour there Spikee's mood improved notably.

Stylish got to climb inside the old bear enclosure and was horrified at the darkness and the tiny space that the enormous bears used to live in. it's probably less than three metres of floor space, and a large part of that is taken up with a water trough. 

All round it was a lovely unlearnt day! Now we just have to muster up the energy to cook something for dinner! We have our last lettuce ready to harvest, and we also have about 13 tomatoes. And on that note, I'm gong to go and water everything and get some dinner organised.

happenings

Today isn't too hot so we spent a good deal of time in the garden weeding, and planting mustard which I'm hoping will be ready to eat by xmas. Spikee very enthusiastically waters his peas and corn each day, and was delighted when I showed him some of the pea plants we started ages ago now have flowers on them, so does our watermelon. Plus we have about ten or more pumpkin flowers, and twenty odd strawberry flowers too.  The kids (and the grown ups) have all been interested in the seeds we plant because they  .... look just like the seeds in the fruit or veggies that you eat. (pick the city slickers)

Stylish is really getting into the whole water saving thing now, and when the washing machine starts pumping out the water is often standing right there with the hose going into the watering can, ready to run it out to the garden and come back for more! It's rather therapeutic for me, so I suppose she finds it enjoyable too. We have such an elaborate system of bottles, buckets, and watering cans happening that we rarely waste a drop these days, which - owing to the size of our growing veggie patch - is great! 

The kids decided that they're not going to buy xmas presents this year, they're going to make them instead! Which I think is lovely, and will be pulling out all the stoppers to assist them over the coming weeks. Recently for Grandpa's birthday Stylish gave him a red pot of soil with seeds in it for him to water and discover what she had given him as it grew, I thought that was creative. They both made him cards which he loves.

I had a bag of organic black beans sitting in the cupboard unopened for a while now and I decided to do something with them so I googled black bean sauce. It was the easiest thing I ever made, and everyone (except the resident breatharian) loves it! We've made it four times since then. We did some food science with the bean soaking process, because you're meant to  use fermented black beans, so we soaked them over night and watched the yeast forming. Then observed how much it grew over the course of the second warm day until the mixture smelt disgusting - at which time we were hesitant to admit that the beans were ready to cook. 

Stylish has started her new blog and is enjoying the creative side as well as the writing side. As soon as it's got more on it I am permitted to post a link here. She is really showing some internet competency these days, enjoying a couple of reptile and amphibian forums, and her game (which seems to be under control thus far). 

Spikee keeps wanting to write, so today we sat down with a pencil and I wrote 'a' and he wrote it too! then I wrote mum, dad, Stylish, and Spikee, and he read them, and recognised them when written again! After that I took him to starfall where he enjoyed looking at the letters and saying what words he could hear the sounds in. Then after that he requested some 'nummas' so we went to poissonrouge and did their numbers a few times. He managed to more or less drive the mouse himself which is a huge development!

general happenings ....

Stylish has decided to start a new blog with animal information. I'll help her to do that tomorrow, stay tuned! She also has a new pen-friend which she seems to be enjoying. And she has recently gone back to her old on line game with horses, I'm hoping that now she's more de-schooled than she was when she first got involved with that, it won't take over her life like it did last time. Limits will be placed on it if it looks like it's getting out of control. I much prefer self set limits though .....

Apparently her male frog is calling early in the morning and waking her up, she's not impressed with his efforts  (I personally admire him, waking her up takes some effort!). We gave our old rat a few days to grieve, and then yesterday purchased a tiny little timid baby rat from some ghastly pet shop - it cost $20!!! Over the course of yesterday and today the poor wee thing is much less skittish, she's obviously not used to being handled. 

Spikee is asking more often about writing. He asks me to write a certain word, then scribbles over it, I figure he's heading for some more controlled efforts ... in the next five or ten years. He's also learning to read numbers, and gaining some competency bit by bit at number recognition. His counting is really taking off too! 

Yesterday he asked me if he could plant some seeds so I showed him what seeds we had and he chose some corn and peas, filled a pot with soil from the compost heap, dug little holes with his fingers, and the pushed the seeds in. He very enthusiastically watered them several times yesterday, and then again today. 

Tomorrow we're gonna be making a clock out of a lemon - don't ask me how - so we'll no doubt have pics to show off! And Spikee will be watering the garden again ... and again.

Giftmas fast approaches!

We have set up our xmas tree, and decorated it with some new decorations and some fairy lights. We have turned the lounge room into Stylish's bedroom, and made her old room into Spikee's play room / bedroom - he did sleep in there the first night but is now safely back in bed with his dowdy old parents. 

Stylish is loving her new bedroom, and Spikee is feeling terribly grown up and independent with his play room. We set up the plastic xmas tree in there, and will do present opening and whatnot in there come giftmas morning. 

We had some sad news this week, with the death of our favourite rat. last week she started getting frail and her breathing was odd, then on Monday afternoon she took a turn for the worse and died. Poor Stylish is devastated. She wanted to cremate the rat, as her grandma, baby brother, and cousin were cremated. So I breathed deeply and we set up a funeral pyre in the garden. Stylish helped collect fire wood, and then we dug a hole, put a wooden board in the hole, place the rat (wrapped up in furry rainbow material) on top of the board and built up the fire about her body.  It burned for about an hour before we let it burn out and doused it with a bucket of water.

The garden is going really well, but we have decided to move into our own house some time next year so we're hoping to harvest as much as we can before then! I would hate to leave it here after so much hard work. The strawberry box has 11 flowers in it!!!

Tonight, and most nights actually, we go walking around the neighbourhood enjoying the xmas lights on people's houses. The kids think it's the best thing ever, and I quite enjoy it too. Sometimes we even go to the park and they play for an hour or so first, it's been too hot most days to get out much, so going at night is our only option. 

Summer taking over Spring

We've had some insanely hot weather for Spring, days nearing 40C and it's only Spring. Admittedly it's nearly Summer, but we seem to have bypassed Spring, which is a shame because I love the in-between seasons! Extreme weather is no friend of mine.

We have spent the week watering the garden constantly, and covering the more delicate of the seedlings over with umbrellas during the heat of the afternoon sun. The pet rats started behaving strangely this afternoon so we had to move them outside and spray them with cold water. They soon perked up and wandered about chomping on grass and other goodies.

Stylish has been busily decorating the indoor cage for the rats with hand sewn hammocks, and various things for them to climb on and rest in, they are loving life! And she learns so much from her little projects. Needle craft is such a useful skill, as is caring for pets, and providing all their sustenance, which she does with vigour!  

Her pet frog is starting to call for a mate. I think he should be re-named Pavarotti, but .... what would I know. Their names are Hansel and Gretel. She hopes they will breed and that she can sell them for billions of dollars. Owing to the fact that the two she has cost her $50 of her hard earned pocket money, I think it's possible that she can make something off their breeding habits. 

Spikee has developed a sudden interest in writing so I bought him a wipe clean numbers book and he is happily tracing the numbers (well, scribbling on them anyway). He amazed us all with his ability to circle certain things and draw lines between things that are connected - like a lamb and a ewe, a foal and a mare. He rather impressively understood their relationship of mother and child, which I was interested to see. Sometimes we forget how many things small minds can absorb in their daily existences. Who ever compared them to sponges was onto something. 

Watching the children learn by simply living reminds me each day that the natural learning process works! I know that I struggle with de-schooling myself, more than the children struggle with it, especially Spikee because he has never been institutionalised. I really wonder about how literacy develops without a structured system being imposed on the children, but from discussions that I've had with other parents .... it just does! How could a child grow to adult hood without learning to read in our culture? Our culture relies so heavily on reading and writing skills, that it would be impossible!  Having grown up with an English teacher as a mother, this is really departing from my own early belief system though, and that's why I often have questions or niggling worries. However in a recent discussion on a forum I frequent a member told me that an illiterate adult can learn to read, or learn the skills which make reading possible, in just 30 hours. With Stylish being fully able to read by the time she was pulled out of the institution, I never witnessed the amazing ability to self learn that so many natural learning families have experienced. I guess I just have to resign myself to a bit of waiting now that I have that information on board!

pics!

Another busy weekend!

This has been a busy week end! We did plenty of gardening as a family, and Stylish finished making the cover for her frog tank. We also put a lay-by on a heap of camping equipment for our upcoming xmas camping holiday! We are now the proud owners of a camp kitchen and a table with built in chairs. 

The frog tank looks amazing now! Stylish put so much hard work into it, and it really paid off. For some reason or another the lid that the tank came with (she bought it with pocket money, off ebay) was no good so she needed to make one. She did lots of research - google is her friend - and worked out that with some wood and some fly screen she could make a more suitable lid. It was an exercise in many areas .... but it was a PRACTICAL exercise in them, and she enjoyed it because she wanted to do it. The measuring is maths, the budgeting was maths, the whole process was artistic, it is a science lesson to care for frogs .... I could go on, but I will spare you.

After a trip to the local hardware shop to buy two planks of wood and a metre of fly screen, she set about measuring the tank, cutting the wood to size, nailing the planks together, and then attaching the fly screen. She was a bit disappointed with the finished product but I think it's great! She is unhappy because it is a tight fit over the tank, but it's not TOO tight at all! And it slides on tightly enough to keep the little froggies in!

The garden is going really well. We transplanted all our mustard and rocket seedlings yesterday. They're now in a big, was-unused, black recycling box, surrounded by organic sugar cane mulch. They seem to have transplanted really well. The only problem we had was the sun was too hot for them the last few days, so we put Spikee's umbrella over them and they were doing fine ...until our CAT SAT ON THEM!!! Suffice it to say he will NOT sit on them again because I have put bbq skewers all the way through the box. I suspect it will be an uncomfortable resting place now!

We also turned our compost heap into a new garden bed, planted rock-melon, corn, and pea seedlings in it, covered it in mulch and news paper and tied blue wool all around the patch to keep Spikee off it. We have started a new compost heap at the back of the garden and will aim to have it in use as a garden in the next month, as our current seeds sprout and get to a good size to go out into the wilds of the garden where there are snails, cats and children everywhere!

I feel like I spend my whole life saving water from our washing machine and carrying it out to the garden beds. We have an elaborate system of plastic juice bottles, and buckets, that I catch the water in, then I tip it into the watering cans and lug it out. It's a time consuming process, but I know that I've saved hundreds of litres of water simply by using our grey water on the garden beds.

garden pics

strawberries!

life goes on ...

This week has been a really productive gardening week. We've planted lots of seeds, and lots of our seedlings are sprouting enthusiastically. Two trays of seedlings (rocket, mustard, and bok-choy) will all need to be planted out either this week end or next. I'm pleased to say that some of our crop specifically designed for fussy eaters has started growing. These include rock melon, watermelon, strawberry, and corn.

Stylish has been busily organising life around reptiles and frogs. She recently obtained her amphibian 1 license, and bought (using her own pocket money that she saved) two dwarf tree frogs. She intends to use them for breeding purposes and hopes to earn millions. She's very enterprising, in an 11yr old kinda way! Her next goal is her reptile license, and a blue tongue or a bearded dragon, but we'll wait until we get home from our xmas fishing/camping trip to start worrying about that.

de-schooled, or pretty darn near it!

Still no lists! 

I find myself unable to list all the ways my daughter has changed since leaving the institution. Our relationship is entirely different, and it's almost as if I have suddenly - over the course of nearl a year - acquired a new daughter! One of the interesting changes has been her interest in "girlyness" which has started to show lately. It's like she suddenly feels safe to be interested in the more socially conditioned interets of girls which she has always fought so hard to reject. For her recent 11th birthday she asked if she could get her ears pierced. She now has small purple stones in gold studs, and they're very pretty. Hearteningly though, she is not all consumed by her new "girlification", and the first set of earrings we bought her for when her ears have healed sufficiently, are small silver frog studs, they're very "her".

I keep meaning to take a photo of our gardening but just haven't gotten around to it. Suffice it to say the veggie garden is coming along ok. We've only killed the bok-choy so far, everything else is alive and well. 

We will go to the museum tomorrow. it is Stylish's Grandma's birthday, my mother, and although she's dead, I think she'd like to think of us going to the museum on her birthday. No doubt photos will follow so I must make sure to take some of the garden before updating! it's not a spectacular project, but it's satisfying nonetheless.

a busy home day

Today we're going to plant our seedlings in milk crate pots. They're outgrown their current baby pots. We have brussel sprouts, leeks, bok choy, and lettuces. We also have herbs, but they're alright where they are for the time being.

I found a 5 minute gardening book at vinnies, and so we're following the instructions in it. We'll layer news paper, mulch, and compost in the boxes and stick our baby plants in. 

This is all in keeping with our sustainable living projects, we're growing some of our own veg, and using compost and news papers to support the project. 

Stay tuned for pics of our gardening exploits.