It certainly has been hot around these parts !!

Not feeling like doing much except trying to stay cool!

Make art

Make gooey messes with cornstarch and water

Clean up in the pool

And of course…lots of melty ice cream cones

Here is to staying cool!

While clicking around in the  Summer edition of Rhythm of the Home, I came across this awesome idea!! As soon as I saw the photos  my heart skipped a beat and I started making a thrift store list for our own mud pie kitchen!!

It didn’t take us long to find just what we needed!!

First, I picked a nice shady spot in our yard. Not too far from the hose and close to lots of dirt and sand, sticks and leaves. All the essentials for good, messy fun. Something my kids love!

Next,  we headed to the thrift store to stock our kitchen—think little and cheap. Pots, pans, muffin tins, cups, bowls, silverware…..

These make the perfect little molds and were only 30 to 50 cents a piece! Besides the fact they are pretty and shiny!!

More pretty, shiny, cheap staples that every kitchen must have… a beautiful bright yellow tea pot and pitcher.

The appliances were a little more tricky to find. It took a second trip to the store–but we totally lucked out and found the black shelf marked $5.00 and the little book shelf marked $2.96 and both were half off.

Let me tell you– this has been a bustling kitchen… breakfasts, coffee, lunch and dinner and don’t forget dessert–lots and lots of desserts!!

Oh …and lots of soup

All served on a table the girls made out of some scraps of wood they found above the garage— and then painted with glitter paint. Yes, they are my girls!!

And when the meal is over….you must wash the dishes!

If you need any recipe suggestions, Ginger highly recommends this cook book

What’s cookin’ in your mud pie kitchen?

If you ever pass me while running you may wonder why I am smiling or giggling-it’s probably because I am listening to a funny podcast. I love to listen to podcasts and while I run is a good time to try keeping up with them all. Lately I have been listening to  The Moth, RadioLab, This American Life, Fresh Air—Love NPR!

Recently I listened to House On Loon Lake on This American Life. The story takes place in the 1970′s –back when I was a kid. The main character, Adam,  and his friends are pretty  young-I think the story begins when he is about 10. (I listened to this several weeks ago so I forget the exact details but have been stirring up this post in my head ever since)  Adam  and his friends discover an abandon house during their summer vacation. To quote from the website:

Adam Beckman tells the first part of his story, about how, back in the 1970s, he and his friends broke into an abandoned house in the small town of Freedom, New Hampshire. The home turned out to be a perfect time capsule, containing the furniture, letters and personal effects of an entire family … abandoned for decades. It seemed like the family just vanished one day, leaving salt and pepper shakers on the table, notes on the bedroom mirror, and a wallet with money still inside. Adam and his friends read the letters, saving some as clues, and never forgot.

The thing that really struck me about this story is the fact that these young boys spent their summer vacation-unsupervised, sifting through this abandon house for an entire summer.They were having an adventure of a lifetime. But the fact that they were actually having this adventure is what is so cool to me. Their time was their own. It was their summer vacation. It wasn’t over scheduled with sports  practices and games and camps and mini-classes and summer gym to free up an hour during the regular school year to cram in more credits for real classes. Nope–no schedules. It was summer vacation.

I too grew up in the 7o’s with this same sort of “supervision”. “Where you going? Be home by dinner time ” mentality. My parents weren’t any more permissive than other parents. They weren’t driving us around and taking us to see every cool thing that came through our town. We occupied ourselves. We rode our bikes, played in the woods and in fields. We went to the pool and ate candy and ice cream and drank pop on a regular basis.  There were few parents at the pool and even fewer at the park. We weren’t obese, we weren’t hovered over, there weren’t too many expectations of us other than maybe 1 practice and 1 baseball game a week, don’t leave your bike behind the car or in the sun because your kick stand would melt into the hot asphalt( and my Dad didn’t like that.)

We ran the neighborhood and beyond. On Friday or Saturday nights my family would gather at my cousins where we would eat steak ,baked potatoes , baked beans and salad and then run their neighborhood, sneaking into the golf course and playing kick the can across all the neighbors yards until well after the 11 o’clock news when  Hoolihan and Big Chuck would start.

I would often spend the night at my cousins and in the morning we would get up and have our “cherry bread” for breakfast. (white bread dunked in cherry kool aid–it was awesome!) Then we would get on our bikes or skate boards and ride down the big hill and hang out on Euclid Ave and in Coulby Park for the day. When we got too hot we would head over to the library for some AC. If it rained we played in the garage. We didn’t have cell phones and we didn’t keep ID in our pockets “just in case.”  There was no talk of  “stranger danger”  or Mean World Syndrome. (it’s a real phenomenon- I didn’t make that up! But why would we be surprised by this–there is fear and distrust everywhere). And kids today are missing this  freedom.

They are missing spending their childhood in a child like way. Kids are tagged and numbered and scheduled and carted around. They are safely delivered to their destination that is well with in walking or biking distance. They are helmeted, sun-screened and not allowed to trust their instincts. Don’t walk in the woods, check for ticks,  watch out for poison ivy, stay out of the mud, call as soon as you get there and wash your hands. Don’t talk to strangers, don’t dill dally and who are you talking to on the Internets?  Parents are making sure to cover ALL the safety bases these days! Kids have so many rules and regulations that when they do get a little bit of free time they don’t even know how to handle it. Let alone how are they going to handle life with out Mom and Dad breathing down their necks and telling them what to do. Can you say–go crazy with all the new found freedom?!

I will not and do not live like this. I want my kids to do daring and dangerous stuff. I want them to know their world and have a handle on it. Go–be independent and figure stuff out with your friends. If you need me I am here. ( But funny thing is, they don’t need me too much for that kind of stuff. They are self reliant and self confident in their world. ) I am a hands on parent but only to a certain degree.  And I think living in the real world where they are making real decisions makes all the difference.  I am not scheduling their days or their play dates  or their bed times. I want them to go into the world, the park, the woods, the bus,  the mall, the library, to restaurants and stores by themselves without me there controlling what they buy and how they spend THEIR money.  They are perfectly capable to interact with kids and adults and make most of their own decisions.

At a conference I attended John Taylor Gatto talked about how when Richard Branson was young his Mom took him for a drive and then stopped the car and asked if he knew the way home. He said he did and she told him to walk. He did and said it was one of the greatest learning experiences of his life. Extreme-yes.  But following your kid around with an appointment book and a bottle of water and a protein bar is also ridiculous.  Let them go. They crime rate in this country is at a 30 year low!!! For goodness sake–turn off your 24 hr news updates and quit reading all the bad news in the newspaper.  Read this article about how CSI Changed Parenting.  Don’t be so afraid to let your kids play outside and maybe even unattended! Let them have adventures. Chances are more than good that they will be unharmed and fine!! And the chances are even grater that they will have fun and learn more real life stuff  than you could ever artificially  schedule for them.

So who is going to join me on  Saturday May 22 for TAKE YOUR CHILD TO THE PARK AND LEAVE THEM THERE day??? Maybe this could be a small step for those who fear the reaper…leave your kids for just a short amount of time until you can get used to the idea that they will be fine with out you. And they can realize just how powerful they are to be able to navigate the playground on their own. There is still time. Summer break is still about a month away. You have time to wean your self from each other just a little bit so that kids can have real, unsupervised adventures this summer!

And don’t send them with water–send kool-aid–they like it better and chances are–that’s not gonna kill them either

Where to start?! The media is, well the media. They are a business.  They feature stories that will boost ratings.  They use shock value  to stir up attention and in turn receive more viewers.

So why we are surprised by  both the Good Morning America and the  Discovery Health reports on Unschooling?  They are typical examples of  biased reporting.  Both were short segments filled more with shock value than facts and true glimpses into real unschooling.

Mainstream America just doesn’t get Unschooling. They aren’t going to.  For heavens sake only about 25% of American adults have a face book account. I thought everybody was on face book! So imagine how the majority of the world could possibly understand Unschooling?  Especially with the shows that Discovery Health and Good Morning America put out. Yet, it is so easy for me to forget that we are radical. It is so easy for me to forget that my family is so different than almost everybody else.

Partly because I don’t reflect the mainstream and haven’t for so long.  I have my own  fairly large community that I identify with. I belong to a food co-op and rarely shop at Kroger and I love my public radio station where they don’t play anything you have ever heard of. —–That’s weird…… Yeah, I guess.  I recycle, compost, use cloth napkins, shop at the thrift store and line dry my clothes—-Oh, your one of those hippies!….. OK.  My kids don’t go school—-Oh, you homeschool? Will you always do that? Do they socialize with other kids? ……No,we Unschool—— Huh?????? Like those crazy people on TV? Did you see that, they let their kids eat donuts for breakfast—– That is main steam media for you!

I don’t sit round and think about how different we are. We just live. We aren’t purposeful in every move we make. We aren’t living for “the unschooling movement.” We don’t look different. We don’t walk or talk differently. (well maybe a little differently   ) Our daily life is pretty uneventful to the outside world. We get up and go about our day just like everyone else. Only we have learned a little secret that seems so unfathomable to the rest of the world.    Choice

We all have them. Really we do have  choices in everything we do. Yes, some choices make life harder than others but  we have choices in life. And as Unschoolers we have made many, many unpopular choices.

Kids don’t have to go to school–gasp! They don’t have to get up at a certain time of day to be productive—gasp! They don’t even have to be told to learn!  No, really, it’s just automatic. Adults may think they have control over what kids are leaning but kids and adults everywhere are learning ALL THE TIME!

I googled learning and Wikipedia gave me this: (from a very mainstream source even!)

Learning is a process you do, not a process that is done to you. Traditional education focuses on teaching, not learning. It incorrectly assumes that for every ounce of teaching there is an ounce of learning by those who are taught. However, most of what we learn before, during, and after attending schools is learned without it being taught to us. A child learns such fundamental things as how to walk, talk, eat, dress, and so on without being taught these things. Adults learn most of what they use at work or at leisure while at work or leisure. Most of what is taught in classroom settings is forgotten, and much or what is remembered is irrelevant

1. ^ Russell L. Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg (2008), Turning Learning Right Side Up: Putting Education Back on Track (pdf) HTML. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
2. ^ Greenberg, H. (1987), “The Art of Doing Nothing,” The Sudbury Valley School Experience. Retrieved February 18, 2010.
3. ^ Mitra, S. (2007) Sugata Mitra shows how kids teach themselves (video – 20:59). Minimally Invasive Education, Retrieved February 18, 2010.

These choices we have made are hard. And Unschooling is a journey of sorts. The vast majority of unschoolers did not wake up one day and decide to make all of these radical choices in one day. But it is easy to forget that.

Beginning with following your heart and letting go of what other people think. It’s your life –who care’s what other people think.  Really–let that go and be the real you. We only have one this one life to live. Live it the way you want to.

Then giving up  the ” should do’s”  and the  “have to’s”.   Really question why you are doing things. Do you really want to? Or are you just doing them because you should do them? What will really happen if you don’t do them? Can you live with that result? Can you make a different choice to get the end result you want?  Then make your decision based on that. It  is a process.  These choices we have made seem so normal and automatic to us now that sometimes we forget how the other 99% of the world is living.  There really are so few have to’s in our lives but we assume that we must do way too many of them. Don’t follow blindly. I want to make my life just what I want it to be. And fill it with what I want. You can to. You have a choice.

So to the outside world our life may seem uneventful but really it’s just the opposite. Really we are choosing to exercise our choices. We aren’t living lives full of have to’s. We are living fully everyday. Not just on the weekends or when we go on vacation. Not just when we have time. And you can too. You have a choice–to put your kids in school or homeschool or really trust yourself and  live your one life freely and Unschool.

Did you ever wonder what those little watercolor cakes are made of? Well I am sure the factory makes them out of something different than these but I must say I was very impressed with the way these turned out. The colors are so bright and beautiful—and custom designed!

We doubled this recipe and it made a ton. You definitely need shallow little containers–I happened to have some empty paint trays that I picked up at a recycling shop and some empty film canisters which are a little too deep but worked OK-just took longer to dry.

Mix the following together:

3 Tablespoons baking soda

3 Tablespoons corn starch

3 Tablespoons white vinegar

1 1/2 teaspoons light corn syrup

Pour into your containers —bottle caps, pill boxes, any tiny, shallow container will do.

Add food coloring. We used both neon and regular colors of food coloring

Be sure to mix or shake well

Now let the cakes dry—this takes a while. We let ours sit for about 30 hours.

But look—–totally worth the wait!

These magical bottles are filled with different oils and/or corn syrup and/or water. Back in my school teaching days we called these waves in a bottle or ocean in a bottle— Oil and water and corn starch and water don’t mix but they sure do make pretty “waves”.

3 warnings before you go any further! 1. This is a messy project perfect for outside.  2. Make sure you have enough bottles and oils to make several of these. It becomes addicting-trying different mixtures together! 3. BE SURE LIDS ARE SCREWED ON TIGHT–you can even glue them closed-because if they open, believe me-it is a HUGE mess!

What you need:

several empty bottles with tight fitting lids, food coloring, water, funnels, mineral oil (I like to use mineral oil because it is clear), veg oil, corn syrup, treasures and glitter to put in your bottles.

Here is a closer look at our treasures–marbles, sequins, dice, little plastic animals or people, beads and buttons—anything non absorbent that will fit in the bottle.

I know there are actual directions for these but I just let my kids figure it out on their own–like what happens if you add water first vs. oil first what happens if you color the water or just the oil etc… Have fun there is no right or wrong way. Any way you do it your discovering something! That’s why it’s great to have several bottles and lots of supplies on hand.

You can do just corn syrup and because it is so heavy when you turn it upside down the treasures slowly float back to the top.

You can mix oil and water food coloring and treasures-shake it up and watch it separate

Or move the bottle slowly and watch the wave move around in the bottle.

We discovered if you add too much food coloring it gets too dark to see what’s going on inside the bottle.

We have made these several times and now have a collection of about 15 or so magic bottles. I often pull these out and put them in a sunny window. They are so pretty!!

Aren’t they?!

I would love to say I thought up this beautifully bright activity but I saw it here. I love this blog-I could spend hours looking through all the bright, sunny, beautiful photos.

Start with a shallow bowl or container (check the thrift store if you don’t have one).Cover the bottom with charcoal (pet store), then a layer of sphagnum moss (garden or craft store) top with potting soil.

Next plant (sprinkle) easy seeds of your choice-grass, clover, chia, sprouts etc…  We used clover and Kentucky Blue Grass-of course we would choose this over Shade Turf-how boring! You can plant in a design or all over-you decide.

We picked out a few little plants at the nursery but with the weather changing I bet you could dig a little something up in your back yard.

Now on to the best part…..The decorating……colorful gravel, glitter, feathers, colored craft sticks, marbles, pretty rocks, anything that glitters

After planting spray with water frequently-keep moist-and wait for your garden to grow!  We can’t wait to see what our garden will look like when our grass and clover sprout.

On a final note-after I took these photos Ginger tripped and dumped my garden and part of Molly’s. But we tossed everything back in the pot and sprinkled a few more seeds on the top and another handful of gravel-all while breathing heavily. ugh accidents happen!