Snavley Freebirds

This week has been somewhat of a quiet week. It has been a gray, drizzly week and it kind of makes you feel like hunkering down, which is exactly what we have been doing. I went and bought a bunch of polymer clay and we have been projecting away. We have been mostly covering tins and jars with it but it is quite addicting. The one directly above is Calista's.

I have mostly been blogging about the "surface" things of our lives and not much delving in to the more "inside" things. I thought I would start blogging more about what learning looks like in our family and a little more about the unschooling side of our lives. My sister, Ren, talks a lot about connections and how everything is connected, one thing leading to another. This is what it looked like for us this week...............................We met an individual who was transitioning from male to female and when we got in the car the conversation started out with how you could tell that she used to be male ( facial hair, big hands, and her "adam's apple"). From there it went to why an adam's apple is bigger on a male than a female (yes, it does cause a man's voice to be lower) and then talk about our bodies. That somehow went to talk of calories and what exactly does that measure (approximates the energy needed to increase the temperature of 1 kg of water by 1 °C.) A lot of our conversations and questions happen in the car which is why I keep a pad of paper handy to jot things down so we can look them up when we get home.

Something that was said in church this week led Kevin to wonder about the Dead Sea and why it is called that (there is no life in the Dead Sea, although scientists have found 11, I think, bacteria that live in the Dead Sea). And how cool is it that there is so much salt in the Dead Sea that you can float! Calista has spent much of the week with her Leap Frog learning her sounds, because she wants to learn how to read. She also wanted me to buy her a couple of workbooks, which she has been working on quite a bit. Her and Rylee have also been playing "store"; buying, selling, and dickering. They add and subtract on the calculator and use the Leap Frog for the cash register.

For me this week it started out designing a myspace site which led me to music, to Reggae (because I love Reggae), to Bob Marley and researching his life (11 kids and some interesting beliefs, a very interesting life), to Jamaica, to forms of government and some world history........................I will let you know where that leads to.

So many think that if you don't coerce a child to do these things that they won't do them on their own but my children (and lots of others) have proven that is not so. My children seem to learn some of these things much later than your public school kids but they are learning them on their own terms and without any coercive methods that are so prevelant in the public school system. They also don't associate learning with a chore. For them learning is all tied up with simply living; you can't be breathing without learning every day, it is an inherent part of our being. Discovering the world around them is fun!!

The other thing that is so fun for me to watch is some of the things that they dive into that public school kids don't have the time for and don't get in school. Kevin spends hours on his computer and it amazes me some of the things that he can do. Some people go to dozens of classes to learn what he has learned simply by tinkering around because he is passionate about it. They are learning the things that are relevant to THEIR lives and not wasting a bunch of time and energy on things that they don't need to know for their lifes journey. I am thankful every day to be living in that kind of FREEDOM.

Off that subject, Kevin is now counting down the days until his 14th birthday. He has two reasons for being so excited; he can get his learners permit to drive and he is able to get a job. He has been wanting to get a job for a while but the government doesn't allow it until 14 so he is ready to go!! He wants to apply at Coldstone Creamery; I think he just wants to be around all that ice cream all day :) ! He loves being a teenager and I just want to scream "STOP!". I have to admit though that I love a lot of things about the kids growing older. We can play with them and do things that we were limited on when they were little. They are fun to just hang out with and not quite so dependent on us. It is much more relaxing than when they were toddlers. Every stage has its blessings I suppose and I can't say any stage was my favorite. My favorite stage is whatever one they are in!!

My favorite quote for the week: Happiness is not a destination, it is a method of life.
This is something that I have learned over this past year and it has brought so much contentment into my life!!