Days in Our Lives

Welcome.

I've gathered a posy of days in our homeschooling lives to share with you.

Here are some days you can visit:

"Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once," Matisse (6) recounts of her time travels back to Caesar's time.

Mati now has matching windows in her mouth, having lost her two lower lateral incisors. The tooth fairy arrived on schedule last night, bearing an Eisenhower dollar and two polished stones: an agate and a lapis lazuli. The girls have been chanting "I like Ike" and building the coin a Lincoln log shrine.

Morganne came in and said that Mati is lucky because she has two lapis. "Does she?" I asked, thinking I'd confused the tooth fairy rocks.

"Yes. She has one lapis lazuli and one lapis that isn't lazuli. 'Lapis' means 'rock,' you know, and 'lazuli' means 'blue.' In Latin."

"Why is 'adversary' pronounced differently from 'adversity?'"

Mati and Malcolm spent much of yesterday constructing letters, numbers, mandalas, and erupting volcanoes out of pattern blocks. Malcolm also built an Age of Empires town out of pattern blocks.

This morning, Mati explained tooth loss to Malcolm.

The girls have figured out a way to play Age of Empires so that they can focus on civilization-building. They pick a scenario and set all the computer opponents to allies. Then they build their civilization and win the game by constructing a Wonder.

Our big family lesson this last week is learning to work things out cooperatively. We had a problem with Mati's softball coach (he was being really negative with the girls), talked things over with many different people, offered to help with the team, and noticed a dramatic improvement in both his manner and his attitude.

On the playground at the practice today, Morganne had a similar experience with a couple of three-year-olds. They were trying to kick her off the play equipment, so she used her negotiating techniques to find a game they could all play together. They had a lovely game of Monster and a good time was had by all.

We're also big on the sibling curriculum. Our kids learn more from working with their siblings than they could learn in a thousand years of school. They do projects together, inspire one another, and help each other. It's a real blessing to watch their interactions. I never imagined that siblings could enjoy one another so much.

We're also gearing up for another play with the former homeschooling director (who is now in her early 20s). Sam Shemitz has been in several of her productions. Morganne played Ivy in _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ in December and both girls are looking forward to acting in the director's (and playwrite's) spring play. The director is an inspiration to Morganne — she's an unschooler who has followed her passion straight to success.

Summer has come to Boulder Creek this week, with temperatures in the 80s and 90s and the Madrone children undressed for the weather. Water play has featured largely all week, as have picnic lunches.

Today, Morganne and Matisse have been recreating the world of Brian Jacques. They've constructed a large, muddy ocean with Salamandastron above. The Badger Lord and Long Patrol guard the coast. Searats' ships populate the ocean. Nearby, lizards and toads infest the marshes.

A ways away sits Mossflower Woods with the Moss River, logboat shrews, squirrels in trees, and Redwall Abbey (constructed of brick). The abbey badger tops the wall, a sparrow sits on the roof, the Joseph bell hangs in honor. In the abbey grounds is the trout pond, an otter, foremole, and several monastic mice.

The brick refuse pile is the quarry, home of the adder Asmodeus.

Morganne is adding more vermin as I type. .

A few days ago, I wrote about the girls' play Apollo's Falledy. This week has continued to be a week of wonder in unschooling for the Madrone family.

I no longer journal the children's educational activities, but I thought I'd list some of the highlights for y'all.

Morganne (10.5) has done the following:

Matisse (6.5) has done the following:

Malcolm (3.75) has done the following:

During the summer, we cut way back on activities and events. Other than going to the park, we didn't do much away from home. I spent all my time feeding the baby, so we did read out loud an awful lot, but we didn't do many big projects or go on many adventures.

Now that the baby's a little bigger, we're getting back into a rhythm.

We celebrated Malcolm's fourth birthday with a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and Dennis the Menace park. We had such a lovely time at the aquarium that Morganne decided to celebrate her birthday there, too.

We're spending Wednesdays at Camp Joy, a local organic farm. This Wednesday, the children discussed the solar system and made papier-mache planets, as well as feeding the goats, visiting the honey room, and doing some farm chores.

Morganne has been visiting Camp Joy since she was 3. This is our fourth year in the Camp Joy homeschoolers' program. This year, 4 Camp Joy folk are working with 16 children. The Camp Joy day has a lovely rhythm — a group discussion, split up into groups to do some chores, gather for snack and some play time, split up in groups again for a different activity, and then gather for a picnic lunch under the rose arbor.

Moms and younger siblings are welcome to hang out and explore the garden. Malcolm, Merlin, and I spent some time wandering, some time in the greenhouse, and a lot of time with the goats.

After a day at Camp Joy, we're all happy and relaxed. It's a perfect middle-of-the-week activity.

Our other semi-regular activity this fall is an outdoor program at Camp Campbell. We're doing rock-climbing, boating, archery, and swimming.

Powerglide German has arrived and we're going to start doing that each night before story time.

Morganne (almost 11) is still doing a lot of reading and a lot of writing. Over the summer, she wrote a lot of plays. This fall, she's returned to writing adventure stories. She's also writing a lot of poetry. She keeps her poems in a blank book that she bought at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Morganne's also doing quite a bit of sketching, both black and white and in color. She spends a fair amount of time in the back bedroom with the door closed, listening to music. She also goes out in the yard and paces, thinking out poems and stories.

Iris (almost 7, formerly known as Matisse) continues to make steady progress on reading. She enjoys comics (Calvin and Hobbes, Tintin, the Far Side). She likes to dress up in wild costumes and enact complex fantasy scenarios. She also plays horses a lot with Malcolm. She's also been drawing quite a bit. She likes to write words and dictate her stories.

Iris likes The Cartoon History of the World. She prefers her history interactive, and so spends as much time as she can playing Age of Empires. This involves a certain amount of reading practice and typing (she has learned to spell several cheat codes).

Malcolm (4) still enjoys sorting things. When he lines his horses up, they are always in a straight line and usually ordered by size and color. He can read the names of most of the civilizations in Age of Empires and enjoys reading and spelling words. He invents his own games using the playing pieces from other games.

Merlin (3 months) likes to chat with people. He's a smiley guy who can roll over and is working on his second tooth. Naturally, we all think that he's the most brilliant baby in the history of the world.

Lately, the children have been building block cities, creating complex duplo civilizations, serving meals at a play dough restaurant, and adventuring in the yard. .