Computer epiphany

I am finally finding my peace with TV/computer games in my home. I think. It's really just fallen into place in the past week and may all fall apart again, but here's my epiphany...

Children cannot be expected to self-regulate without having the tools they need to self-regulate. Some kids are naturally gifted in the self-regulation department and need few tools. Other kids need plenty of tools.

My own kids, all of them from the looks of it, have a tendency to get 'locked in' to certain activities. They have difficulty with transitions and tend to get so focused on whatever they're up to that they lose complete track of time, nutrition and sleep needs, the needs of others, etc. etc..

For years we've had a wonderful system for TV. Anyone can watch anything, so long as they choose in advance what they're going to turn the TV on to watch, and when they're going to turn it off. No limits, no parental controls, just this simple procedure. What this does is makes TV into a legitimate choice rather than a default activity. That's all that's been necessary.

This system has worked brilliantly. The kids watch TV extremely selectively and make (IMO) extremely wise decisions about what and how much to watch. Weeks often go by when they don't watch anything at all.

What I've torn my hair out over is the computer use. Each of my three kids are on one of the three household computers for between 3 and 8 hours a day during an average at-home day. As computer use has escalated, creativity, physical activity and social interaction has dropped. While I certainly appreciate the educational and social value of Runescape, there is no doubt in my mind that the outdoor play, social time, community activities, musical, imaginative and artistic creativity that would otherwise fill 8 hours is more valuable. My kids agree wholeheartedly with me about this and complain that they "forgot to go outside" or "didn't get around to calling Bob about skiing" or "keep forgetting to work on the loom." Still, they love their computer time.

Then last week I had an epiphany -- they have good intentions, but they don't have the tools they need to self-regulate computer use. I can trust them to self-regulate, but *only if they have the feedback they need, in the form they need it*. What they need is a system similar to our TV system. Perhaps even more robust, because they need to be able to document and track the progress they're making with this issue. I was reminded of this essay by Donella Meadows entitled "Give Me Feedback and I Will Change the World (Or at Least my Own Habits)". Feedback is probably the most important tool my kids could use ... non-judgmental, non-coercive feedback.

So we now have a little applet called UserTime running on everyone's desktop. It quietly clocks everyone's computer time so that we can print out our individual computer use each week and see how we've done. We have a whiteboard beneath a clock adjacent to the computer desk, and the only rule is "when you sit down at the computer, mark down the time you're going to get off."

Computer use has dropped to under 2 hours per person in the past few days. Kids are writing haiku and stories, working with the electronics kit for hours at a shot, doing math for fun, playing card games with each other, composing music, enjoying readalouds, seeing more of their friends and of each other, playing outside, helping out around the house more and as a result of all this feeling good about themselves.

A Home Library

We live what is basically a library-less existence. For a couple of years Erin had piano lessons in Nakusp, and we were able to purchase a membership to the tiny but nicely-appointed library there and use it regularly. For the past four years piano has been in Nelson, and the library there is rather difficult for us to use. It isn't open before piano lessons, we're not thrilled with the fees, the borrowing limits, the selection and quality of the books and the lack of user-friendliness. Sometimes, if piano is rearranged or if there are no lessons for a week or two, we can't get books back, and there's no on-line system for renewals. We also find that we are so exhausted by the end of our other Nelson errands that we just want to start the long drive home rather than browse at the library. So while we had a membership there for a while, it just didn't work well for us.

There's the library at the local public school which we are welcome to use, but honestly we just haven't put the effort into this that we should. My kids don't like being there while classes or parts of classes are using the tables because they feel like intruders, and it's hard to predict when the library will be (relatively) empty. It is of course only open on school days, and only during the school year, and with the school having fewer than 150 students K-12 the selection is small.

There is a tiny 'reading centre' that serves some of the functions of a local library here, but the children's book selection is so limited that we found we quickly exhausted the entire selection at each child's level. It's only open 8 hours a week at best, and not at all lately because the heating system went belly-up.

One of our favourite things to do if we have time to kill in a larger city is to visit their library, and we dream of that kind of access, but it just isn't here. So we do other things instead.

So we raid our friends' bookshelves and they raid ours --- though it's important to keep lists of what you're lending and borrowing! (Actually, building a sign-out system is a great project for a kid...)

I have wishlists at Amazon.ca and Chapters.ca and have fun researching books, filling my wishlist, refining it and spending money. This is the only kind of shopping I actually enjoy. I try to buy books we'll really treasure, that are worth owning for the long term ... for their literary merit, depth, beauty and/or reference information.

We've put a fair bit of focus on video documentaries. We subscribe to Zip.ca for the winter months and get access to thousands of esoteric DVDs.

We browse and buy used books wherever we can. Prices are often very good, so I'll buy books here that "might someday appeal to someone". And our local donation store and freecycle book nook are often productive places to not only pick up books but to cycle those we no longer want back into circulation. As you can imagine, our many bookshelves tend to be full to over-full!

We enjoy audiobooks. Audible.com and iTunes both have great libraries of audiobooks for download that can be burned to CD or transferred to portable players (iTunes only to iPods, but Audible works with scores of devices).

We re-read books a lot. It helps to have filled our home library with books that have real literary merit or lots of depth of content for reference.

I still dream of a local resource centre that would combine the functions and collections of the school library and the reading centre, as well as serving as a location for the sharing of other community resources (kitchen, garden and home-improvement tools, toys, baby equipment and games). And someone who won a lottery would donate a million bucks or two to expand the book collection. But until then, we make do... with enough books in our home library to serve as the backdrop for photos of the kids many times over.

A unit study

We have been studying the flu. Chuck, who was vaccinated due to his work in the nursing home, was spared, so he headed off on a continuing education course 4 hours away. The rest of us have been completely down and out for the past 8 days.

There are two strains of Influenza A in our community of about 1000 right now. I'd guess about 80% of the non-immunized population have been sick. Public school attendance has been 30-50% for the past two weeks. Alas, homeschooling has not spared us this time around. Sophie managed to contract the flu at community orchestra 12 days ago.

We spent most of the time watching DVDs as even reading aloud demanded too much of us/me. The big hits have been "All Creatures Great and Small" (12 episodes watched, some of them multiple times) and Leonard Bernstein's wonderful "Young People's Concerts" series (6 episodes watched). We did manage to get through a couple of novels as readalouds. But little else happened.

I spent a lot of time dreaming of an angel who would come and wash the dishes, split some kindling, bring in more firewood, empty the garbage, bake bread (or at least bring us some store-bought) and cook meals. But we managed to get through. By yesterday afternoon we were all feeling human again, and Chuck arrived home last night before the indoor supply of firewood ran out again.

Creativity fell to negligible levels this past week, but today it has resurfaced. Yesterday the kids wrote a silly song together. Erin is working with our new-to-us 4-harness table loom to create interesting weaving patterns. Noah is back at work building his website. Fiona and Erin have been watercolour painting, and the kids are pulling out their instruments again today for the first time in a week.

Erin's Osprey Chair

About three years ago the second violinist in my string quartet ("the Osprey String Quartet") was no longer able to travel to New Denver for rehearsals. Our quartet owned four nice hardwood folding chairs, for use in small-town venues where the only other option was uncomfortable stacking chairs. The fourth chair has been empty for the past three years. We made ourselves into a trio (my mom on violin, me on viola, and a cellist friend rounding things out), and grasped for repertoire among the much more paltry body of string trio repertoire. We kept performing our regular recitals, but wished a second violinist would materialize in the area -- there's so much great quartet music!

Three weeks ago I heard Erin practising her Beethoven Romance and realized what a huge leap she's made in technical and musical ability in the past 6 months. I talked to my mom about maybe giving Erin the chance to try playing a quartet with us for the experience. They thought that would be lovely, a great opportunity for her, and kind of fun for us. We handed Erin the first movement of a Mozart quartet in a friendly key and told her to look it over. My mom, who is Erin's official violin teacher, even thought that we might be able to perform it with her at some point, though she thought we'd have to be patient with her over stylistic and ensemble issues. She worked with Erin on the music a bit at her lesson.

This morning we had a trio rehearsal scheduled and told Erin we would run through the Mozart with her at the beginning of the rehearsal. We started reading through it ... and never looked back. We did the first movement. The blend of the quartet is terrific. Erin's 3/4 violin (the new one, with a huge sound) holds its own just fine. There were a few stylistic things up until the first repeat... but by the second time through the first section, she'd absorbed the weighting-and-unweighting stuff that we were all doing on the syncopated motif and had adjusted her bowing style to match ours. Her solo passages were confident and beautiful. She was doing so well, we decided to sight-read through the third movement. Erin played as well as the rest of us, I think. And then the more challenging last movement. Same deal. Our cellist said "Well, it sounds like we have half a recital here. Erin you're hired. Let's figure out what we'll do for the other half." So we started talking about romantic quartets.

Our quartet is whole again. And it's my kid who has suddenly blossomed as a born-and-bred chamber musician who has filled the empty Osprey chair. I am awed. I am proud. I had no idea her musical maturity had grown so far.

She was thrilled. She knew how well she was doing. She knew that in the space of an hour the equation had shifted and she had become part of the quartet, and not "some kid we were doing a favour for."

When we came home, she spent almost three hours delightedly playing with playdough. What a bundle of incongruities she is!

Growing up and moving out

Erin has moved into her own place! Over the holidays, with the weather unseasonably warm, and the resurgence of "issues" concerning her pre-bedtime routine and how it ostracizes Sophie from their shared bedroom, Erin decided to move out to the cabin.

It's a 140 sq.ft. log cabin situated about 30 ft. from our back door. The guy who homesteaded here 35 years ago built it his first summer here and lived in it for a winter while felling and seasoning logs for the main house. Two years ago we turned it from the storage shed it had become into a nice little three-season guest cabin with a proper subfloor and floor, some basic furniture and a new roof that doesn't leak. But it's unheated and basically unwinterized. The plan had been to put in a heating system and to double-glaze the window and fix the ill-fitting door this spring and turn it into a bedroom for Erin. That would give Fiona a bunk in the "girls'" bedroom and possibly encourage her to relinquish the family bed she inhabits now. It's a beautiful but simple little space and I was feeling quite envious -- the dark trek through the sometimes forbidding weather between bedroom and the rest of the living space (including the indoor plumbing) seemed a small price to pay for the serenity and space.

Erin decided to grab it early. It seemed a decent solution to the turf issues in the shared bedroom, and appealed to her sense of adventure. She moved about ten blankets and a space heater in and set about making herself comfortable. If the weather gets really cold again (below, say, minus 10 Celsius), she'll probably have to spend a few nights inside on the pull-out couch, but for now she's so happy.

For her birthday earlier this week she was given an electric blanket (to supplement the electric baseboard heater) and a wireless networking card which enables the old clunker of a laptop to grab basic internet content. She's begun writing stories again with a vengeance, and doing music composition projects. She's reading lots and basically enjoying a level of independence that is safe and comfortable for her right now. On the whole I think she's happier and more gracious in interacting with the family when she's inside with us too.

She is having fun working with me to plan furniture and décor. We will order a proper double-glazed window and build a properly-fitting door once spring comes. The heating issue is the big area of indecision right now. The clearance needed for a woodstove would eat up a lot of the floor space. A propane heating stove would be very pricey to purchase and install. And I can't stand the idea of using electricity to heat it. I'm leaning towards propane ...

Featherpuff Bread

I've been dropping little hints for a couple of years about how nice it would be to be able to grind our own grain for bread. Last fall when we went to the Menno Relief Sale / Pioneer Festival at Black Creek Pioneer Village in Toronto (big family event for Chuck, and we just happened to be around Ontario at the time, so we took the kids) Chuck got totally entranced by the miller and his obvious passion for his mill and for the benefits of fresh-milling flour.

So it wasn't exactly a huge surprise to find that my Christmas gift was a Family Grain Mill attachment for my KitchenAid mixer. (Supposedly you're supposed to have the 'big', 325W KitchenAid to use the grain mill, whereas ours is the 'small' 250W model that we got free on points a few years ago, but we'd been told it works just fine, so long as you keep the speed slow and give the machine breaks after every few cups of flour.)

I ordered a book about whole-grain bread-baking that I'd been hearing about on the Home-Ed list for a long time. It's "Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book" and it arrived a couple of days ago. I'm really impressed with it. It's a veritable bible of whole-grain bread-baking, but it's not so crunchy that it doesn't discuss things like breadmakers and store-bought flours, yeasts and additives.

The 'finesse' touches, which I'd been ignoring because I didn't understand whether or why they are important, are explained simply and thoroughly. For example, how and why to rest the dough, how to test for the right amount of rise, how to know when you've kneaded enough, etc.

Lately I've been on a sourdough kick, making dense, dark breads with thick chewy crusts. With Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book in hand I decided I wanted to challenge myself to bake a loaf of light, elastic sandwich bread out of fresh-milled whole wheat. I followed the recipe in the book for "Featherpuff Bread". It was everything I expected and more! It rose almost four-fold on the last rise and the consistency was consistent and, as promised, feather-light. Yum Yum Yum, the first loaf probably won't make it through to tomorrow morning (it's now 10 pm here).

Math again

Unschooling or not, I took the bull by the horns. Erin had written "completion of Singapore 'New Math Counts' Level 1" into her Self-Design learning plan, quite voluntarily, back at the end of the summer. A term went by and we were encouraged to revisit the plan and what's happened, learning-wise. Erin had not opened the Singapore book. I asked her if she wanted to set that as her goal for the next term. Surprisingly, she said "okay" without complaining.

Erin finished Singapore's primary program (nominally Grade 1-6, but more like 1-7 by Canadian standards) before her 10th birthday. She's now almost 12 and she hasn't really touched formal math in the past two years. Perhaps if she hadn't written it into her learning plan I would have convinced myself to let it lie. Maybe I shouldn't have been quite as eager when I saw the door was opened a crack. But whatever. She seemed to agree it was time to get back to formal math.

The next day, I grabbed the proverbial bull horns and said "okay, time for math."

She rolled her eyes, but came willingly.

Gosh, her computation sure is rusty. And she's having a hard time getting focused on the review work we're doing, as it's hazy and half-remembered. We had a few good laughs over it, actually, which shows how relaxed and comfortable she is with our math work, I guess.

"Okay," I prompted, "so you'll need to take half of eighteen too...."

Erin smiles guiltily, opens her mouth, looks blank and says ... "um, six? or, eight?" and starts laughing at herself.

"Erin," I say, laughing too. "You have this look on your face that says 'My brain is not present, but my mouth is open and I'm going to speak a number anyway.' You nut. Now, when your brain returns, maybe you could let me know what 4/18ths is."

She laughs a bit more and then it occurs to her that it's 2/9ths.

Three days in and it's flooding back and it's apparent that intellectually she's well beyond ready for this stuff and it will come really quickly. She's finished two (of twelve) chapters, and is agreeable and cheerful about our daily work together. It's almost enough to make me start to believe that there really are families that use a parent-directed curriculum without necessity of coercion.

Sophie is blasting through the end of Singapore 2B this week after having taken a several-month break. Noah has started plugging away at 3B again. I wouldn't be surprised if Sophie overtakes Noah some day before too long. She is so enthusiastic, and doesn't seem to have any trouble with the concepts. Noah doesn't have intellectual trouble with concepts either, but his perfectionistic defeatism gets in the way when he encounters something he doesn't get intuitively at a first glance.

So things feel kind of mathy around here all of a sudden. Fiona, on the other hand, is working on reading and writing right now. Today she learned to spell her name, verbally, on the computer, and with pencil and paper. Sophie taught her - what fun!

Fionisms

Me: "Fiona, you're playing in the pantry with the door closed. Are you sneaking treats?"
Fi: [while scarfing Christmas toffee] "Yes. ... I mean no. I'm sneaking snacks. I mean no. Not sneaking, just eating. Healthy snacks."

...

Me: "Fiona, no running, okay."
Fi: "I'm not running, I'm prancing."

...

[while bouncing rhythmically on the couch]
Fi: "Please! Do! Not! Jump! On! The! Fur! Ni! Ture!!!! Please! Do! Not! Jump! On! The! Fur! Ni! Ture!!!!"

Fiona

Fiona is growing up, and I'm looking at her moving out of toddlerhood with a certain wistfulness. She will be three soon and she's grown up faster than her older siblings, I think, because she drags herself relentlessly forward trying to keep up with them. She's also more verbal than any of them were, and more sociable.

She still calls her forehead a "twohead." I think 8 or 10 months ago she mis-remembered the word, and the rest of the family took to her little slip with delight. But aside from this developmental anachronism and occasional overgeneralizations of grammatical rules, her speech is remarkably grown up. She has a whole lot of 'ketchup' adverbs ... words that get added as a condiment to various complex sentences. Words like "apparently" and "actually." A typical sentence: "Apparently I enjoyed the blueberry candy cane that I got at the Silverton Christmas Faire." She truly speaks in paragraphs, this child.

At the aforementioned Christmas Faire she met Santa. We've done next to nothing to hype the Santa Myth, since the older kids have never believed in the literal truth of it. But Fiona is at a wonderful age for wonder and excitement, and still isn't particularly interested in teasing apart the real and the imaginary. When we arrived at the Faire and she spotted the man in the bright red suit, her eyes got very big and a smile lit up her face. This particular Santa had a real bushy grey-white beard and was just milling about in the crowd, greeting children. Very unintimidating. Fiona walked up with her big round eyes and he squatted and had a few quiet words with her. She shook his hand. She told him she was all ready for Christmas. She was delighted by the whole encouter and so was I.

Lately I think I see flashes of the Future Fiona. When she plays her tiny violin, she bursts into tears when a note doesn't sound right. She sits on the couch with a needle and thread and a bin of 1/4" beads and spends 45 minutes silently stringing the longest necklace I've ever seen a child make. She painstakingly works to copy out her name in every colour marker she can find. She knows how to turn on charm to serve her wants and needs. She is curious about complex issues like death, war and family relatedness. She has a very complex understanding of time and tells me, for example, that she now goes longer and longer between breastfeeding, and after she turns three she'll stop breastfeeding altogether -- and I almost believe her.

The mother of invention

Noah has been hankering after a webcam for use with his viola club of friends on MSN. He's made a few noises about wanting to buy one, but hasn't done the research yet, and I confess I haven't been in a big hurry to facilitate this for him. But last week he managed to tweak our QX3 Digital Microscope into believing it's a webcam. He unplugs the microscope, starts MSN, and then plugs the microscope in while the window is active. He can then send a webcam invitation to whomever he's chatting with at the time. He needed to add some ambient lighting because the USB-powered webcam light is insufficient at a distance of a metre or so, but he discovered that he could get identifiable blurry moving images of his face on the 'net.

Then one night before bed, when he seems to think laterally the best, Noah said "That digital microscope is near-sighted. I wonder if I could make the focus better by giving it glasses. Your old glasses might work, mom -- you're nearsighted."

The next morning, thanks to a lot of sticky tape, he got the microscope wearing glasses, and I'll be darned, the quality of the webcam image he's getting from it has improved two- or three-fold. If I'd been on the ball, I would have offered to order him a cheap webcam weeks ago with his allowance savings. Because I wasn't, he's learning all sorts of things, and now he feels like a successful 'inventor'.

A Patchwork Weekend

I spent the weekend fitting together colourful squares in patterns. First, I got a good start on tiling the kitchen backsplash (finally). Paradoxically it takes a lot of organizing and trial and error to make something look random! Fiona passed me the right size and the right colour squares upon request. This project yielded pretty quick results. This half of the kitchen looks so different. Grout on Tuesday!




I also spent the weekend piecing a quilt top. Last weekend we started tie-dyeing squares for a quilt we're making Fiona for her third birthday. The kids did most of the tying and dyeing and lots of the ironing. For some reason I didn't generate too much interest in the sewing, so I did most of that with Fiona's (un)help. I haven't opened the whole thing up for Fiona to see and don't intend to. Most of the rest of the work can be done in secret. We've been talking about working on her "Q - U - I - L - T," and she is delightedly talking about how we're all sewing her "Q - U - I - L - T," not having the slightest inkling (we hope!) of what that is.

It's alive!!!

We are new sourdough addicts. A week ago, based on my request many months ago, my friend offered to help me learn to bake sourdough. We ground some fresh rye wheat into flour. To a pinch of commercial yeast we added water and rye flour. Each day on four subsequent days we added another dose of water and rye flour. We left it in a warmish corner of the kitchen, open to the air for the first day, and then lidded. By Day 4 the stuff was bubbly and decidedly sour-smelling. The kids were alternately curious, disgusted and helpful.

On Day 4 we had a fully-formed sourdough 'chef'. Late that evening we pulled out a cup of it to make a sourdough starter, replenished the chef and tucked it in the fridge. By morning the starter was vigourous. It worked beautifully, just like regular yeast, though it didn't need sugar or anything else to encourage it to action. We made our first loaves then and as soon as they disappeared replenished the breadbox with more. The chef seems like it's going to be pretty low-maintenance, just needing re-feeding once a week in the fridge, and by setting up the starter at bedtime, the time required for producing the sourdough isn't particularly onerous and fits nicely into a morning at home.

It's so much fun to learn something new and find out that it's not as complicated as you thought.

A Basic Sourdough Chef:
Day 1: 2/3 c. rye flour, 1/2 c. water, 1/16th tsp. yeast
Day 2: 2/3 c. rye flour, 1/2 c. water added to previous day's mix. Cover.
Day 3: Same as Day 2
Day 4: Same as Day 2 -- should double in bulk within 8 hours.
Evening of Day 4: Remove 1 cup of mixture to make a starter (or discard), and replenish chef with 3/4 cup of rye flour and a little over 1/2 cup of water. Tuck in the fridge.
No more than a week later: same as Evening of Day 4
Repeat ad lib.

Sourdough Starter:
1 cup of chef
1/2 cup of water
1 cup of rye flour
Mix in a bowl, cover tightly and leave in a warm place overnight.

Sourdough Bread:
There are zillions of recipes. One we've liked adds to the starter 3 cups of lukewarm water, 2 tsp. salt, about 7 cups of wheat flour (about 1/3 of which is whole wheat), and a cup or two of carmelized onions. Mix, knead, let rise for 2 1/2 hours. Deflate, knead, shape into loaves, let rise for 1 1/2 hours. Bake very hot (400F+) for 30-40 minutes. Tossing 1/3 cup of water into the bottom of a very hot oven a couple of times at the outset of baking helps make a wonderful crust.

I said to Chuck "don't throw out the grey stuff in the fridge -- it's my sourdough starter." He said "when have I ever thrown out grey stuff in the fridge?" :-D

Radio Free KitchenTable

For the past couple of weeks we've been getting together with another unschooling family to plan a radio show. It will be part of a 16-week half-hour series on Kootenay Co-op Radio devoted to "Homeschooling Families: Pursuing our Passions." We're slated to do two shows, one, collaborating with this other family, about GRUBS and one about, well, I initially thought we'd do it about our music. More on that later.

We've had three sessions. The first was just a regular GRUBS meeting where we were putting the garden to bed and planting garlic. I took my minidisc recorder and caught a half hour or so of "ambient sound" of hoes and chatter and giggling and humming. When I reviewed the recording later it was kind of funny to realize that while there was lots of noise of kids playing and giggling, and my kids were generally one half of any group or dyad, they spoke about half as much as their playmates and at about half the volume. I could hardly ever hear them!

The next time we got together it was a planning session where we talked about the kinds of things we'd fill the show with and how it might be organized. That went pretty well. Everyone contributed ideas. Some prodding was required here and there, but it was relatively easy to keep the kids focused and the ideas flowing.

Then today we got together to do some recording. The kids were supposed to have thought about one activity the GRUBS had done that they'd found particularly enjoyable, and to be ready to talk about it. I was pretty sure it would be a stretch for my kids. And it was. Their verbal reticence had them smiling and looking away and mumbling "someone else can say." But all the kids found it hard to speak "as if to someone who didn't already know what they were talking about." I could probably have jumped in and done the 'teachable moment' thing, but I knew that was only going to make my kids more self-conscious about speaking. We just meandered around various topics for a long time, and Erin, Noah and Sophie did speak up a few times when things seemed to be turning into a real conversation rather than some seemingly artificial communication. Some of that stuff will no doubt be useful for splicing in here and there.

The outcome of that mostly-unsuccessful attempt at laying down some useable audio for the show was that the kids unanimously asked to be more formally interviewed by myself and the other mom. They wanted questions to set the scene or topic, to prompt them and lead the conversation where necessary. I'd sort of been hoping to do the whole show with children's voices only, but we definitely need to concede to the kids here. They need the guidance. And that's what we'll do at our next session, after next week when we go for our studio tour and orientation.

The funny thing is that afterwards my three were talking amongst themselves about a hypothetical Euwy Radio Show. Euwy World (a.k.a. Planet Egypt) is their vast imaginary world. I asked "would you like to do an Euwy World radio show?" They gave me a resounding, unanimous, enthusiastic "Yes!!" Erin said "That would be fun, because we could be silly. It wouldn't be serious and stilted like the GRUBS show." The ideas started flowing.

So now I'm beginning to envision a radio show called "Homeschooling Families -- Pursuing our Passions: Imaginary Play." About a third of the show would be a monologue by me, talking about the role of imaginary play in our family, and the remainder would be illustrative chatter about that imaginary play by my kids. I could explain how enchanted I was to read about The Doll Game in Nancy Wallace's "Child's Work: Taking Children's Choices Seriously" back when I was just researching homeschooling. And now I see something similar, if not more passionate, played out in my own family. I could talk about how homeschooling has given the kids the time to have this rich tapestry of imaginary play. I could explain how easily this play is shared among these three children of disparate ages, ages that would be separated all day in a school situation. I could talk about how there Euwy-based learning has ignored subject-area boundaries, how it has grown up with the kids, how it now encompasses technological tools like websites and digital video cameras and computer graphics programs. I could talk about the psychological / developmental purposes this play seems to serve in their lives. And the kids... well, they could just talk delightedly and in their typical rather silly fashion about Euwy World itself. Erin has written little radio-plays filled with ridiculous and often fairly random occurences. They can endlessly recount the geneology and history of the important inhabitants of Euwy world.

We might try this.

Time to quit

Here's a letter I wrote to Noah's piano teacher last weekend. It explains where we were at and what we did. Noah read most of what I wrote over my shoulder and felt okay about it.

After much discussion over many weeks, and a few long heart-to-hearts this weekend, we've decided that Noah will not be continuing with piano lessons. As you know, he's really struggled for the past year or two. Not musically as much as emotionally.

His perfectionism is at the root of the problem. I had hoped that piano would be an arena in which he would be forced to work through some of his perfectionism. Alas, it seems he's mostly entrenched himself in a kind of 'perfection paralysis'. He has Erin out there as a model and because of his musical perceptiveness he knows exactly how far he has to reach to attain the level of competence he's striving for. And his mechanism of coping with the vast gap between where he's at and where he wants to be is to put off doing the hard work that reminds him of all the learning that lies ahead, and then have huge sobbing meltdowns over the fact that he doesn't feel prepared for his lesson, or isn't 'ready' to practice with my help, or whatever.

I have tried so many, many approaches to help him and myself deal with this. Leaving him alone, helping him practice, insisting on a certain task list, leaving him to noodle around, letting him coast, coddling him through, problem-solving together, playing the heavy. Nothing seems to be able to jiggle him loose. He's miserable at the piano so often that I'd do almost anything to help put an end to it. I've suggested a break from piano many times. In the past he's seen this as punitive (if you don't practice, your mom will take away your lessons!) or as an acknowledgement of failure (you're not progressing, so you might as well quit) and so he has resisted
the idea. I've suggested that maybe a change of teachers would give him a fresh spin. He's refused to consider this. And so we've continued on. He's made some progress on the instrument, but has continued to struggle emotionally.

This summer he had a thrilling Suzuki viola institute experience and followed it the next week with the VSSM week with T___ G___. He really liked her, a lot, but felt just as "yucky" about piano at the end of the week as he had at the beginning. He commented that he often felt totally psyched about viola, but never ever felt that way about piano.

And then at the end of September he managed to quickly learn a couple of more advanced piano pieces and felt a nice sense of competence from that experience. He didn't get a sense of joy and accomplishment, but he was reassured that he was capable. I think that these two experiences have allowed him to see that (a) the piano is not giving him joy the way the viola does and (b) he's not a failure at the piano. Those two things have made him feel okay about leaving piano. His sense of relief was almost palpable, actually.

So that's where we're at, and why. We've come up with some ideas for tackling the perfectionism in other arenas -- it's certainly a pervasive character trait -- and I think he's feeling quite okay about himself.

We'll come at our usual lesson time this week unless I hear otherwise from you. I want to make sure that he and you have a sense of closure and that he is comfortable and not feeling ashamed. I know he is worried that you will be disappointed in him or that your feelings will be hurt and it would be helpful if you could reassure him on that count. I guess we can then work out what would be best for you in scheduling Erin's lesson.

As the above letter attests, it was difficult to get him to the point of accepting "quitting" as an option. I had to take the initiative in raising the possibility and helping him look seriously at it. I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing. But a couple of days later, it's seems clear that it's a good move. He's happier. He's more passionate about his viola. He's sat down a few times at the piano just to play for fun, something he hadn't done much of in a long time.

His teacher was wonderful when we went to talk to her before Erin's lesson. She made him feel happy and comfortable with his decision. She told him that the door is always open, and that things may get rusty but never forgotten, but that he's absolutely made the right decision for now at least. She talked about her (now grown) boys, all three of whom studied piano, only one of whom didn't quit. "And," she said "I love all three of them. The piano worked for one of the but not the others. They're all still wonderful, intelligent, compassionate young men."

She gave him a little gift, just a party-favour-like thingie that she had on hand, and he was quite smitten by the fact that she made this gesture.

About an hour later, out of the blue, he said "I think I might want piano lessons again someday. Maybe next fall. That's not too far away." Whether he was just feeling a bit wistful or actually meant it doesn't matter... time will tell, and for now he's happier.

A fall rhythm

I suppose I haven't blogged in a while because things are just ticking along. I actually feel like we've got the overscheduling under control for the first time in many years. I have time to think about what we/I should be doing at home. It's a great feeling. I have to resist the urge to take on new 'projects' to fill the space in my life. Not that there's really space. Just that it doesn't yet feel like my life is full to bursting with committments.

The kids' weekly activities are as follows:

• Monday: Piano lessons, public swim
  
• Tuesday: Afternoon playdate, Violin Group Class or Community Orchestra (alternating weeks)
  
• Wednesday: Violin/viola lessons during the morning, art class in the p.m.
  
• Thursday - Sunday: nothing!

My weekly activities fit around theirs, mostly on Thursdays and Fridays:

• Monday: grocery shopping while we're in Nelson for piano, once-a-month evening clinic
  
• Tuesday: I lead group class and community orchestra
  
• Thursday: morning clinic alternate weeks, afternoon teaching
  
• Friday: afternoon teaching

Our weekends are completely clear, and even our weekdays are pretty sane. For now, at least, there's no choir, no skating, no soccer. There are no impending concerts or recitals. GRUBS is pretty much finished for the year. My volunteer committments are under control. I'm not in the midst of rehearsing for a chamber music concert. Our kitchen renovation is pretty much complete. The pace feels terrific right now.

My only problem with all this is that I'm having moments of panic regularly over not seeing the kind of self-directed productive work and play that I'd like to see from the kids. I'm no longer too busy to care that they're not doing anything.

Noah and Sophie agree with me that they are happier when they are filling their days with tangible things, things that feel like "fun work" or "hard fun" or just "worthwhile". Even though they have great difficulty motivating themselves to actually start, they feel good about themselves when they've done stuff like dishes, working with the dog, exercising, writing or math. So I have some justification for strong-arming them into things -- they are grateful at the end of the day to have 'done something' and they ask for similar structure or guidance the next day. The fact that they often exhibit a fair bit of resistence in the moment is just an annoyance. Erin, on the other hand, would never admit that she feels good when she's accomplished things that she knows I approve of. So 'encouraging' her to pull her weight in the family is very difficult to do. Likewise, strong-arming is highly counterproductive. She does practice both her instruments, fairly diligently, every day without reminders, and I'm certainly grateful that this is no longer an issue for us. But the rest ... ahh!!! It is a challenge.

An hour in the life

Something got me thinking today about the little tiny details that creep into our lives just as we live them. I looked at my "Day in the Life" posts and realized that although they seem very detailed, they don't do the various and sundry unschooling moments justice. So for about an hour this afternoon I observed the details. It was a transitional hour between two activities for the kids, and not enough time to really get into an activity in much detail ... one of those fleeting hours where nothing much seems to happen, one that doesn't tend to get written into my memory. A lot actually happens, though, as it turns out:

Fiona noticed that the laundry airer isn't as heavy on the pulley coming down as going up... because the clothes are dry! She folded pants, along their line of symmetry. "The same on both sides," she said, making a neat fold.

Sophie helped Fiona practice on her new (real! not a box any more!) violin. Guided her bow-hold, helped her mimic the Twinkle Rhythms.

Fiona learned some names of the parts of her new violin. From Sophie.

Sophie learned that when the bridge on Fiona's violin shifts, the A and E strings go flat. We talked about why Fiona's bridge shifts so easily, while those on bigger violins don't (because the tension on the strings is lower, the strings being shorter but tuned to the same pitches).

Noah and Sophie worked on some invented origami patterns for a while. They had to do some problem-solving with planes and directions to figure out why their two figures were turning out differently when they were apparently doing the same things.

Erin looked through a newly arrived Latin book. We browsed through it together and decided to work on a little bit of the first chapter together this evening.

She read from "The Deluxe Transitive Vampire", a book about grammar.

We all watched a bit of a puppy training video and discussed why the puppies responded the way they did... trying to see the experience being portrayed through their canine eyes. The kids made observations about how this applied to our puppy Freya.

We discussed the difficulty inherent in having five self-motivated self-directed people co-existing all day long who all occasionally (but rarely at the same moment) want to do particular things together as a group. How can we make those collaborative ventures happen when we all have such difficulty making transitions? No brilliant solutions reached, but plenty of food for thought.

Noah and Sophie prepared a snack to take to art class.

Noah and I talked about how he felt about sharing a sketch he'd done this week with his art teacher. He'd rather not, though he's proud of it. We talked about his need for privacy when doing work that's important to him.

We talked about whether we wanted to give our surplus mat board to the art teacher. How much will we want to keep for bookbinding projects?

**********************

I suppose this is a typical hour. It's amazing how much happens when nothing's happening.

Renovations

When we started the kitchen renovation I had visions of involving the kids in the process, getting them to help install cabinets, mud drywall, paint and so on. They did a little of that, and a lot of adapting and contributing to coping with the mess and inconvenience, but it turns out that the most useful lesson may have been a metaphorical one.

"Sometimes," I told Erin today, "when you're in the middle of making some really nice changes to your house, the mess and chaos are almost overwhelming. Sometimes you wish you could just forget it and go back to the old way, but you realize that it'll be worth it, because the new kitchen or family room or deck or whatever is going to be great. It's just a fact of life with renovations... things get a lot worse while they're getting better.

"The same thing happens with the insides of kids (and adults too sometimes). They're growing up, maturing, becoming more responsible or more capable, preparing for a change for the better. But it's like their insides are renovating. It can be a big mess in there for a while.

"Sometimes it's easy to forget, or not realize, why the mess is there. Things inside you just stink, big-time. And it spills out, like with snits over borrowing Noah's Heelys. And it drives your mother nuts to have seen evidence of all this growing up but then to be hit with the metaphorical equivalent of washing dishes in the rain with a garden hose. Lousy stuff, stubbornness, irrational behaviour.

"Probably we both need to remember that you're in a process of renovating. It's going to be messy sometimes.

"Here... have a chocolate."

Things are better this evening between us.

Day in the Life -- Saturday again

Today we all had a lazy start to the day. Erin was up at 7 (late for her) and the rest of us around 9. Chuck installed his new weather monitoring system, so the kids were curious about that ... the barometer, the windspeed and wind direction measurements, the rain guage, humidity and temperature sensors, and how it uses all that information to "predict" weather. Very excited when it began raining a bit.

Then we (Chuck especially) did "Saturday" sorts of things, which is a bit of a coincidence (and only a coincidence) in that it actually is Saturday. Split and stacked firewood, cut down some overhanging limbs and burned them, split and stacked more firewood, did some laundry and hung it on the laundry airer, washed some dishes, organized some wardrobey stuff.

The kids spent some early afternoon IM'ing their friends (they're now hooked up not only with each other but with two teenaged friends, both excellent kids). They took photos of each other, some silly, some not, with the digital camera and resized them and used them as their personal photos on MSN. They had fun figuring out how to transfer files and images on MSN. Erin took a picture of Noah into PaintShopPro and turned his skin yellow and gave him a green spotted rash.

Noah and Sophie worked together glueing up the Viking longship model from Noah's birthday gift. They really enjoyed this. They also spent a long time with the posters of Viking life and mythology and the map of Viking lands / conquests / explorations. Noah put this up on his bedroom wall and then found a world map to mount above it; he was pleased that he was able to compare the two maps and understand what he was seeing.

Some unschooling friends of ours run a café and were selling off their summer supply of gourmet gelato in a 2 for 1 sale this weekend, so we hopped in the van and headed down there and browsed at the café and socialized with them and others who came in and out for a while. Noah was wearing and showing off his new Heelys and Erin had a seriously huge fit of Heely Envy and refused to come into the café. Every once in a while I forget how incredibly stubborn, spirited and tenacious she is -- and then we have a day like this to remind me. She wanted to wear Noah's Heelys when we arrived at the café and he had every right to wear them. She wouldn't budge on it, even though Noah offered many concessions, and so she hunkered down in the back seat of the van, hiding under a blanket, crying and yelling rudely at anyone who attempted to talk to her, and didn't come out from 2:00 until 7 pm (at which point it was dark and cold and she was very hungry). Although she rarely has meltdowns these days (maturity works wonders!), the severity -- a five-hour tantrum, in essence -- is typical for her.

With our lump of black fury in the back of the van, we drove by the community garden to check on our plots and harvest some tomatoes. Then home and parked Erin in the carport. I went out to our home garden and dug up the rest of the potatoes and jerusalem artichokes. The three younger, good-humoured kids played with the Viking longship and then played SodaConstructor for a while.

I went out to the minivan in the carport, taking Erin a candle, when we were ready to sit down for our late supper. She was a little surly, but ready to come inside. She cheered up once it was clear we were all willing to let the whole incident pass without comment. She ate all her supper (a rarity) and we all had left over birthday cake for dessert.

She practised piano for a long time after supper, sight-reading through anything interesting she could find. Her sight-reading skills astonish me. She can sight-read almost fluently right up to her current playing level (i.e. the easier Chopin Waltzes and Schubert Scherzos and even wild atonal stuff by people like Aleksina Louie and Robert Starer). Noah had his turn at the piano; his playing has taken a huge leap in the past month and he is really enjoying his newfound sense of competence. He worked pretty hard on some fussy details. I complimented him on some musical details he'd thrown in on his own (ritards, crescendos and the like) and for once he seemed pleased to hear my positive feedback. The kids did their violin/viola practising after being given the choice of practising or dishes. Dh and I did the dishes together, which was nice. But I didn't hear the violin/viola practising. It turned out Noah was practising without his sheet music, while his assignment this week had been specifically to use the music to sort out and memorize the bowings of his concerto movement. Oops. Tomorrow I will be sure to practice with him to get him back on track. Sometimes he's diligent and responsible on his own, but sometimes he needs a nudge or a reminder.

Fiona and I unloaded the laundry airer. The kids put their laundry away. I'm finally through the backlog of vacation laundry! It takes quite a while when it's raining outside and I have to wait for a load of laundry to dry indoors before pushing another load through.

We read aloud. After we finished our three chapters from two books, Erin went off to do her journal writing and reading-aloud-quietly-to-herself routine while Noah and Sophie and I had an informal family meeting. We talked about maybe setting aside evening time for independent reading, about starting to read aloud and discuss again chapters from Stephen Law's "Philosophy Files" (a.k.a. "Philosophy Rocks" in the US), about investigating semi-private swim lessons, about whether the kids can afford to buy a domain for their hypothetical Euwy World website, about whether they miss spending their before-bed time doing math at the kitchen table while sipping hot chocolate (they do!), about whether we should pay for a library membership in Nelson ... and other stuff.

Three millimetres of rain had fallen by bedtime. Wind is negligible from the northeast. Temperature: 5.2 degrees Celsius. Barometer is steady. Still, I checked the internet weather forecast to be sure: it says precipitation should stop this evening and it will be partly cloudy tomorrow. Good news -- it's Harvest Festival!

Day in the Life -- Friday again

Friday was a good day for music. Everyone did lots of good practising, and both Erin and Noah did some entertaining / showing off on the piano during the evening. The kids had decided that they were going to work double-hard at their practising today, and they did just that. Piano lessons start next Monday, so it's nice that they had a hard-working day.

Friday was also a day of instant-messaging. Noah was jealous of the IM capabilities Erin's been enjoying on the Wondertree Homeschooling Village. He's feeling a sense of regret that he didn't sign on with the program too. But he doesn't want the learning goals and reporting and interaction with liaison teachers, so I think it's good he didn't sign up. Anyway, it was his birthday celebration day so I figured I'd set him/us with MSN to give him some fun.

I signed myself up first. Then I typed in the address of an 18yo friend of the family who is away at college this fall. She was on-line and thrilled to chat with me and the kids. They were instantly hooked on this form of chatting. I busily went to the other computer and got Noah and Erin set up with MSN and then abandoned the bunch of them to their chat with Rosie. She's a wonderful friend and mentor whom the kids have been missing a lot. She's also Erin's touchstone with the world of teenagehood ... a sensible and down-to-earth girl who has given Erin a model for gracefully coping with all the social and emotional stuff of adolescence. We know her through music; she's been the only violin student in the region at/beyond Erin's level, and Erin especially is missing her. She talks to Erin like a peer, and yet understands her age and emotional maturity. So that was a very nice connection to re-establish. We'll see her in real life in another week when she comes home for Canadian Thanksgiving, but we'll have more contact with her before and after through MSN. The kids spent piles of time chatting to her. Erin is a lightning-fast touch-typist and gifted writer. Noah is a hunt-and-peck kid with relatively rudimentary writing skills. His spelling and punctuation and typing skills seemed to improve even in the course of the afternoon. Erin and he chatted between our two computers for a while.

I made lasagna for dinner.

We had the birthday celebratory dinner. Last year Noah hosted a bonfire on his birthday... his first experiment with a party with invitations outside the family. It was wonderful. He asked for no gifts, but donations to the Heifer Project in lieu, and he was able to buy a goat with the money he received. Kids came with their families, and we roasted marshmallows in the dark, the kids played flashlight hide-and-seek and ran through the forest. We ate cake, looked at the full moon through the telescope, etc.. He really enjoyed it. But this year he was feeling more like a homebody after our holidays, and less like a big energetic gathering, and decided to go back to just a family birthday. So we had a nice supper with my mom in attendence. He opened his gifts. He got a nice swiss army knife and a pair of Heelys (very extravagant compared to our usual birthday fare!) from his parents. Erin gave him a watch she'd found on the beach that he'd wanted but she had claimed as her own. When his watch fell off while kayaking last month, she secretly decided she'd give this one to him for his birthday. He was thrilled. And he got a Viking activity / exploration pack from his grandmother, something that will no doubt become part of the Euwy world, since many Norse gods and goddesses already have alternative existences there.

I forget (already) what else happened throughout the day.... The kids did some dishes. There was talk of renting a video (we almost never watch TV, but it seemed like a fun special thing to do on a birthday) but the kids totally forgot to follow through on this. The Heelys got lots of play; Erin and Noah have the same size feet, and we just renovated our kitchen/dining area, giving the kids a good 15-foot-long expanse of glossy smooth rolling room. So even though we have no pavement near our home, they managed to become pretty capable on them. Noah and Sophie worked together to start building a cardboard model of a Viking longship. Noah read jokes aloud to us for a while. Erin cooked porridge and macaroni & cheese for us for breakfast and lunch.

A nice, family-centred day. Noah thought it was a brilliant birthday, and the 'gift' of an MSN Messenger account was his favourite, with Heelys and mocha semifreddo cake a close second and third.

I'm finding Oppel's "Skybreaker" a thrilling book to read aloud. Unfortnately I was dropping off to sleep before we finished our chapter, as were the kids. A big, long day.

Day in the Life -- Thursday again

Dreary unproductive day. Last night after I logged off and went to brush my teeth, Chuck realized the water pump was cycling, and cycling. There were no taps open. He couldn't figure out where the problem was. He eventually flipped the breaker to shut it off.

This morning I woke up knowing we had no water. Fortunately we have a back-up gravity-fed system, so we switched over to that, but it bypasses the filter and doesn't get enough pressure up to the shower for it to be useable. So I had to forgo my morning shower.

Erin was up and on the computer, making lists of names for fiction works she'll someday write. Fiona woke up. I made breakfast for everyone. Sophie and Noah awoke just before I left.

Then I headed out to work at the hospital. I'm not really sure what transpired during the morning. It was cold so they built the first fire of the season in the woodstove together. Erin played piano. Sophie and Noah tidied, cleaned and vacuumed their bedrooms (weird!). Erin cooked eggs, toast and veggies for lunch.

I got home at 1:30. I checked my e-mail and message boards and did bit more unpacking and laundry. I started some pizza dough. I had brought home the tablet PC from work to get it to do some voice recognition training. I did that. The kids were very interested. Noah set up a profile for himself and went through all the training stuff. It entailed reading aloud for about 10 minutes while the computer "learned" his speech patterns. I was very impressed with his fluency with the pretty advanced, technical text he had to read. Then the kids played a 21st century variant of the old "Telephone" game. They spoke a sentence to the computer and let it do its voice-recognition thing. It has about a 15% error rate early on in the process, so there were lots of inaccuracies. They would then read back to it what it had transcribed, and of course there would then be errors on top of the errors. And then they'd read that transcription. And so on, until the sentence was totally unrecognizable and quite bizarre. Very fun. Lots of hilarity.

Erin went on the Self-Design Virtual Village and discovered she was getting chat requests from other students. She figured out the chat module on her own and chatted away. Noah and Sophie read over her shoulder for a while; then she shooed them away.

Then I let Noah log in as me on the other computer and he and Erin chatted back and forth for a while, from a distance of 5 feet. Noah got a lot of writing/typing practice. They were very silly, laughing and sending each other insults and crazy stuff.

I made pizzas. We had supper. After supper Chuck tackled the pump issue. Bled off the pressure tank, installed a new pre-filter that we'd been waiting for an opportunity to install, and then tried to figure out what's up with the pump. He called a plumber friend who was too busy to come and do anything, but suggested that the problem, as we had guessed, was likely in a backflow valve. He helped Chuck figure out where the backflow valve was and what it looked like. We will try to replace it very soon, but it may take a week or more to get the part. We switched to a "manual electric pump" regimen, where we open a valve and turn on the pump to pressurize the water supply every time we notice water is barely dribbling out of a tap, then shut everything off again.

Erin was back chatting. I logged on and she and I chatted for a while, doing tag-team silly story-writing while Sophie and Noah read over our shoulders and laughed their heads off.

It poured rain all day, and I felt like I had had little productive time at home with the kids, so I decided we should just vegitate for the rest of the evening. Sophie played with hinged locker-mirrors and pattern blocks. Noah answered some e-mail and phoned a friend (using the phone for personal calls is a new thing for him). Erin read. Lazy evening which finished with the standard readalouds and journal-writing.