The home schoolers go indigenous with the Caribbean Indigenous Arts and Crafts Museum on St. Croix!

Today, we had the pleasure of going on a field trip to the Caribbean Indigenous Arts and Crafts Museum at Cane Bay! Whew, what a mouthful! This trip, although open to all ages, ended up being all elementary kids. There were three girls and three boys - what a great group they were too!

The kids arrived and were instantly captivated by Kelly the Parrot who sand Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, some opera, and cried like a baby!  She was really cute and hates to not be the center of attention.  Anyway, after talking and interacting with Kelly, they all went over to the open air picnic area and took their seats.

The children learned all sorts of fascinating things about Tainos. Tainos were the indigenous people who lived here on St. Croix from PreColumbian times up until shortly after Columbus "discovered" the Virgin Islands.  They were one of the most populous groups of Native peoples in the Caribbean. They farmed, hunted, gathered, and created beautiful works of art.  It is thought that their farming techniques were so far advanced that they only had to dedicate 2 hours a week to gardening. They produced such food stuff as pineapples, cassava(or yucca), peanuts, and sweet potatoes. They also grew cotton. Apparently when Columbus came by he noted, as did other explorers, that the island of St. Croix was heavily terraced and farmed with cotton plants.

Some of the islands in the caribbean still retain their Taino names. Some of these islands are Jamaica, Cuba, and Haiti.  It is thought that St. Croix's name was AyAy which means The River. Now, why would St. Croix be named The River? There are no rivers or flowing bodies of water here! Well, way before the plantation industry got going here, St. Croix was FULL of rivers and streams and guts. With the advent of plantation farming, all the trees were either burned or cut down and it stopped raining here.  Once the rain stopped, guess what else stopped? THE RIVER!! Salt River is named just that because there was a river of water that flowed out of the hills and into the ocean. When we have tremendous rains, our guts fill and flow into the old path of our ancient river. I wonder what St.Croix would look like today if those plantation owners hadn't deforested our island - don't you?

ANYWAY back to some facts that our group thought was neato:

1. There were between 20 and 30,000 people living on St. Croix at the time of Columbus' arrival
2. A Taino woman shot one of the Spaniards with bow and arrow when Columbus' men came ashore
3. Columbus never actually set foot on St. Croix
4. Tainos had parrots
5. Tainos used blowguns
6. Spent a lot of time making very cool art
7. They wore feathered hats
8. Taino Indians were some of the first Indians to live on St. Croix
9. Many words came from the Taino Arawak language

So folks, if you get a chance to go visit Brian and his wife Jill at the  Caribbean Indigenous Arts and Crafts Museum at Cane Bay, please let us know what you think.  This is a great resource for artists, collectors, and children to learn a bit about our history here on St. Croix before the European conquest.

The Sea Turtle Lapbook!

LOVE the paint job, A!

In April we went to watch the Leatherback turtles nest at Sandy Point. It was an amazing experience and if you want to read about read my earlier post.  In response to that experience, A and I started working on a lapbook about Sea Turtles. At first, I thought we might just make it about Leatherbacks, but then I decided that we might as well study all of the sea turtles out there. Not in depth mind you, but at least a brief overview of each type of sea turtle and their habitats, appearance, etc.  At some point, the lapbook got completely away from us and took on a life of its own.  I had to run away screaming and A lay hiding under the bed for about a month before we took it out again. To our relief, it had calmed down(oxygen deprivation maybe?) and we finished it. That experience went to show us how we could really get into a project and how it could take over. At one point I was up until 2a.m. looking up turtle anatomy….. Craziness!

A created all the pages on her own. She came up with the game page, and learned how to make holes and set eyelets.  She painted the turtle, cut, pasted, etc.  My favorite part is when we recreated a leatherback hatchling and made it weigh an average weight of a real hatchling.  We used Math, Reading, Geography, Social Studies, and Science in this project. We created Turtle poetry, measured a real turtle, read a science book on sea turtles, basically lived and breathed sea turtles for what seemed like AGES.  I think that a few of the pages might need some captions or some written explanation on them yet, but you know what? That’s OK, it’s her work of art and her work, so even I think it’s missing something I’m going to leave it the way it as. I can hope that she looks back in years to come and enjoys reading her very own Sea Turtle Lapbook!

Each scute has a vocab word under it with it's definition.

Leatherback Turtle Watch at Sandy Point

Aerial photo of Sandy Point taken
from stcroixtourism.com

When I was a little girl, I remember going with my parents to see the Leatherback turtles come and nest on Sandy Point.  I tried to take A about 2 years ago to do the same, but the group we were with decided to leave at 10 and we didn’t get to see anything. So, in the spirit of homeschooling and experiencing the island I decided to give it a go this year. 

Let me just tell you, it was AWESOME, AMAZING, INCREDIBLE, and COOLIO!!!!

This was our group minus a few adults because
taking pictures in the dark is near impossible!

So, here’s the lowdown. Anyone can go see these amazing animals come up on shore and lay their eggs at Sandy Point as long as you have reservations and the turtles cooperate.  You need to get a hold of the Fish and Wildlife personnel to do this. If you have a large enough group (15-30 people) it’s like your own private tour, if you are a small group, they might be able to sneak you into another group.  Oh, and it’s FREE.  Of course if you want to make a donation to a great group you can pay St. Croix Environmental Association to make your reservations for you as they block off certain dates in advance.  Anyway, you need to make your reservations, confirm your date, and then on the day of gather at the Refuge entrance at 7:45 pm. Bring bug spray and PLENTY of it.  I brought drinks and snacks for my kids, but we ended up not needing anything but drinks. 

photo from simonsen.photoshelter.com

This is how it went for us. We got there, all the homeschoolers who had signed up for the field trip were there. We listened to Jennifer from the FWS talk and tell us the rules. We got back into our cars and headed into the refuge. After driving down some amazingly well paved roads, we got to our beach spot.  Then we waited – it was POURING for about 30 mins.  Eventually we got out of our cars and this is what happened according to A:

            When we got out of the cars it was wet and damp and I could smell the wet sand and the sea and it smelled wonderful. Then we went on a path to the ocean and there was a bridge that we had to pass. We went to a spot on the beach and we stayed there for an hour and a half until we got the first call on the radio and there was a leatherback sea turtle! When we got the call I was so happy that we were going to see a turtle nesting.

photo from thew2o.net

After getting the call on the radio, we packed up all our stuff and moved back to the road and booked it to the next parking area where we walked/ran to get to where the turtle was.  All this time, we were only using the light off the moon and the stars to navigate by. It was amazingly cool. We could hear the surf the whole time too because it was a rough night.  Once we got down to the beach were the turtle was, we had to walk along it until we actually found her.  The beach sand was a luminous white with ribbons of black seaweed all along it, so walking was a big difficult, but not bad.  All of a sudden, there appeared before a huge, hulking, black mountain that hardly moved at all but was quite substantial.  It was our leatherback momma.  She was in the process of laying her eggs. The researchers had started to collect her eggs as she was laying then in the area of the beach where the waves broke and could potentially have been washed out to sea if it had gotten rougher.  After being able to touch her carapace(shell), back flippers, shoulders, and even sides we got to see the researchers measure her from the front of her carapace to her back, measure her width, and put in new tags.  She did NOT like the new tag bit – can’t say I blame her. Then she disguised her nest for a bit before “the mother sea turtle clumsily slid into the black ocean.”

The kids named her Friday as we saw her on Friday the 13^th! She measured 164.5cm from the front of her carapace to the back. If you added her head into that she was at least 184 cm long if not longer.  She laid 132 eggs that night. Can you imagine doing that?!

Sadly out of those 132, probably only 1 will survive to sexual maturity and come back to nest. 

photo from youthgo.gov

If you have never been to a turtle watch before you NEED to do this. Email the Fish and Wildlife Service, call SEA, find a group, sell an arm or leg to do this. It is an AMAZING experience. It touches you in ways that you didn’t know possible. It makes an impact on kids. I REMEMBER each and every time we did as a child, I remember helping hatchlings on other beaches find their way back into the water. I remember being so amazed at these turtles size that I thought it was as big as a VW Bug when I was little.  This event only happens between April and Jule/July so if you are here during that time, it is well worth the effort to go and see these animals up close and personal.

Mangrove/Wetlands Lapbook

I have been much inspired by the recent trend towards lapbooking for homeschoolers. I think it’s a great idea to get your kids writing, drawing, creating, and recording their experiences from various subjects.  We just finished our Mangroves/Wetlands lapbook. It was a project – only because we had so many holidays and breaks during the last few weeks in trying to finish it.

Here it is:

Cover of book

Inside pages, you can see there are multiple pages in the book.

A had to cut, color, paste, write, think, define words, look at maps, etc in order to finish it. I think she did a pretty good job and I am proud of her.  We did pull pictures and drawing from the net where we could, but she also drew some things on her own.

Journaling and a flat diorama of animals in the mangroves.

More photos from her field trip

We are currently working on two others – the Middle Ages, and Sea Turtles – specifically Leatherbacks because we are doing a turtle watch this Friday.  The turtle one is going to be very artsy fartsy and it will require a helping hand from Mommy at points, but will be primarily put together by A.   I will post photos when we are done with the Sea Turtle lap book. It should be pretty cool.

St. Croix Environmental Hosts the Homeschoolers.

 I am not sure if The St. Croix Environmental Association (SEA), knew exactly what they were getting into we started speaking on the phone about doing a field day with the homeschoolers….. Whatever they expected, I hope that we surprised and impressed them with our kids depth and breath of knowledge.  Then again, maybe our kids were duds? Hmm, I will have to find out. 

What I do know if this…..We were on time, all the students were either wet or muddy, every single one of our students had big smiles on their faces at the end of the day, and the kids that I talked to thought it was neat and that they learned things.  I think that is a successful field trip.  SEA did a fantastic job of putting together activities for each of our age levels (K – 11), getting the kids to run around, touch, smell, and think about things that I am pretty sure most had not done before, and it was super well organized. 

I can only mention what I saw the kids doing, but the kids in K – 2^nd went on a beach scavenger hunt, talked about animals living in ponds and looked at pond scum. The 3^rd – 4^th graders waded into the wetlands, looked at what lives in the wetlands, learned about mangroves, how to tag and observe turtles when nesting, and talked about marine conservation. The 5^th – 6^th graders did a wetlands activity, bird watching, and beach exploration.  The 7^th – 12^th graders went seining along the shore for fish.

A was well prepared and was able to answer questions and ask her own intelligent questions – which made me proud but also a bit embarrassed. Especially when she asked how Turtles reproduce. I will give the presenter credit though because she didn’t bat an eye and answered her with a simple explanation of how male turtles have hooks in their flippers and actually hook the females “shoulders” which is why sometimes females have scars in that area. New factiod for us all.  A also brought me a black mangrove leaf that was covered in salt and we licked it to taste the salt. It tasted –salty.  I can’t see harvesting salt that way, but next time I’m at a beach and need salt for my sandwich I know which mangrove species to use.

 

One of the older girls thought it was cool that she got to catch baby barracuda and other fish. Since she had never held a barracuda before it was interesting. She did say that the lecture got a bit boring since it was so long.  At the end she told her mom that she wanted to go home and shower since she felt slimy. I love high school girls! She didn’t seem too upset by it though and she was smiling; although she is one of the nicest, smiliest girls I know as it is. 

If you ever get a chance to participate in one of SEA’s activities, do so. They are a great organization and they do a lot of good for our little slice of paradise.

I also want to thank VINE, the Virgin Islands Network of Environmental Educators for turning out on this field day. We look forward to doing many more things with them :) Check out their blog.

Altoona Lagoon revisted.

 Tuesday, we hauled ourselves down to Altoona Lagoon again to do some exploring.  Last week, as you can remember, we had a great time bike riding, fishing, playing around, etc. This week, my wonderful friends brought their Kayaks, and 3 inflatable Stand Up Paddle boards. Yes, you read that right, INFLATABLE SUP boards.

When the kids and I got there there was a group from See Through Kayaks starting their tour and it looked like it was ll tourists. Yeay for St. Croix, more tourists :) The kids and I beach combed while waiting for Tammy, Doug, and J to show up.   Once we all got to the launching site and got everyone ready to go we divided up the toys.  Seeing as I had the little guy with me, I grabbed a kayak, A and J grabbed SUP boards, and Tammy and Doug grabbed the other kayak and SUP board respectively.

We started up the river and it was AMAZING! It was quite - except for C complaining that he was getting wet.... he really and truly is a Crucian kid - he kept saying the water was cold. Sheesh, what will he ever do when we actually go somewhere cold that snows?

Anyway, the whole trip was amazing! I am using that word a lot aren't I? We saw a pair of West Indian Whistling ducks, that were moving too fast to get a good picture of; upside down jelly fish, pelicans, frigates, snowy white egrets, blue crabs, minnows, and an iguana. We talked about why mangroves are important, what types of mangroves we have, how mangroves propagate, and what it would have been like to be a Taino or Carib paddling through this gorgeous place and paddling from St.Croix to St. Thomas. We did decide that we wouldn't have cut it, as after 45 mins our arms were tired....

I can turn any fun filled time into school - it's quite impressive, even to me ;)  Part of the reason that we did this mini field trip is because we had a St. Croix Environmental Association sponsored field trip to the Southgate Pond Wetlands on Friday. I wanted to prep our kids a bit, and get them to see wetlands more than once in order to be better prepared for what they were going to see. Plus, at least in my opinion, seeing something twice helps it to stick.

After returning to the beginning, we played on the SUP boards, the kayaks, and C got to throw rocks and feed the fish.  A and her friend J played around on the SUP boards, and practice doing jumps off the bridge that connect the road from Gallows Bay into Altoona.  Us old folks, sat around, played on the SUP boards, and just chatted.  Since playing on the SUP board, I have become obsessed. I feel the need to own one of these wonderful boards. I can take both kids on one board, they are easy to maneuver, can be inflated and deflated easily, and are a great way to get exercise in the guise of fun times.

Anyway, if you want to do the same things that we did you have a few options.  You can take your own kayak or SUP down to Altoona and take a gander by yourselves or you can get in touch of Virgin Kayak Tours or See Through Kayak Tours. I have heard that both groups do a fantastic job and both offer alternate tours to other locations around St. Croix.

Just do it, you won't regret it.

Altoon Lagoon play date

 The other day another home schooling mom and I were talking about how we wanted our kids to get out and do MORE exercise.  Don’t get me wrong; both of our children are active. A swims 4-5 days a week, plays in the bush, participates in all the kids biking, running, swimming races, etc; but I just don’t feel that she gets out there and is active enough.  Apparently, my friend feels the same so we decided that we would get together once a week and let the kids, bike, run, or whatever as long as they were outside and DOING.  During this time, we get visit and C has a friend over to play.  We decided to meet at Altoona Lagoon because it is between both our homes, it is flat, and where they hold most of the kids’ races.

Altoona Lagoon is another one of our undiscovered St. Croix areas for many reasons.  There is a whole fishing community of old time Crucians who grew up swimming in the inlet to the lagoon, jumping off the bridges, fishing, and generally having a good time there.  It is a great place for walking, running, biking, limin’, and generally just enjoying the views of Christiansted from a different angle. Altoona Lagoon also has a GREAT playground and fun exploring beach for little ones.

Our day started early with us in the car, the trike in the trunk, and the bike(new big 26” bike) racked on the back of the red SUV. Water, and snacks were packed in the reusable shopping bag, and I had had at least 2 cups of tea by 7:30! We were set. Once at Altoona, and unloaded – I really do think we are related to Gypsys since we cannot seem to go anywhere without the entire contents of the house and the kitchen sink ---- Oh wait! It’s because I’m a Mom not related to Gyspsys!!!  ANYWAY…. A got con her bike and as soon as her friend showed up away they went. The two kids did about 10 loops, which I think translates to just about 2 miles! Then they took a break to go explore the beach, whereupon they stuck their heads together and decided that they needed to go fishing! Crazy kids!

The two kids, my wonderful mom friend and her equally wonderful hubby walked down with C to the inlet by the bridge. Once I got there, which was about 15 minutes later – I had to re-rack the bike, put stuff away, etc. I found both kids wading through the inlet, with fishing nets in hand, HUGE self satisfied grins on their faces and COMPLETELY, soaking wet.  During the course of the day, they caught Lizardfish, Coral Banded shrimp, regular shrimp, and Blue Crabs. We saw Blue Herons, a Great Snowy Egret, fishermen coming in with their catch and then it happened… the kids spotted a Lionfish! Turns out there wasn’t 1 Lionfish, but 3.  They were hiding in the Mangroves.  My friend’s hubby shucked down to his shorts and got in the water and caught 2 of the three. At first we though maybe we could eat them, but they were too little. What actually scared us was that the Lionfish were in the Mangroves, which are breeding grounds for other fish, and we all know Lionfish eat EVERYTHING so they were in the worst place possible for our native fish. Not, that having Lionfish anywhere in the Caribbean is good, but in a breeding ground it’s like an A bomb ready to go off at any moment. 

Photo by Jill Updyke.

One of the things I really liked about this day, was that both kids ended up wading around in only their shorts and never even batted an eye. They are the same age, and look exactly the same chest wise and for them it was super natural and not embarrassing to be that way. I love that our island still allows our kids to be kids and doesn’t make them aware of the opposite sex until later.  We are able to keep our children innocent of the societal pressures that other children face elsewhere in the world. 

We decided that the kids had such a good time – even C, that we are going to make this a weekly occurrence. We hope to go kayaking into the Lagoon next week. I’ll keep you updated J Sorry for the lack of personal photos but we were so busy having a good time that I didn’t think of taking pictures until the end.

I’ll leave you with a word from our kids: "Lionfish.. they taste like Chicken."

Science outlook: Echinoderms

“Eekino… whats? Huh? What in the world are you talking about? “ Oh, you mean you don’t know what those are? It’s pretty fun to teach A the Latin name for random things.  If you are interested, Echinoderms are Sea Urchins. 

Aren’t we all fascinated by those guys? Covered in spines – some short, some long, white, black, or striped; those guys are just neato.  What is better is when they die, they leave behind the prettiest skeleton. It can be teeny tiny or extra large super combo sized. However, both end of the spectrum are pretty hard to find unless you know where to look. 

I remember snorkeling with my parents and seeing them grab up a long spiny sea urchin and cut it open to attract fish – the fish around here LOVE those guys, I also remember seeing people “harvest” them – especially the bigger ones and take them home to dry out and put on shelves.  I never thought about the ethics of that until now, but would I do it….. umm, maybe.  Shoot me ok, get mad at me for that statement, but I just might – especially if it was HUGE.  I think though, that a part of me would feel really bad about doing that, so rather than go with my baser instinct, the kids and I went on an echinoderm hunt the other day.

Add caption

We started off the day going to a beach near the north side where I had heard there were a lot of them(of the bigger variety) that occasionanly washed up on shore, we found one and it was big, but C was unhappy and kept whining the whole time, so I packed us up and went to another beach on the South Shore.  We found some tiny and medium ones, but our real find on that beach was a Helmet Conch.  Those conchs are rare – I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in the wild! Finally we went to our last ditch beach where I knew I had seen some monster big ones feeding – SCORE!!! We came home with at least 10 in semi perfect condition.  Some still had a lot of meat in them as I think they had just died and were literally washing up on shore. The car got really stinky on the way home even thought the windows were down, and we have them sitting on various ant piles right now, but once they are all clean, we should have some nice dust catchers on our shelves.

Here are some random facts we learned about Echinoderms before we went hunting (it was after all a science lesson):

• Echinoderms means spiny skin
• Some Sea Urchins can live to be over 200 years old
• There are red, black, blue, brown, stripped, white, pink, and green urchins
• Urchin eggs are a delicacy in Japan
• There is a whole industry around harvesting Sea Urchins
• They are NOT endangered
• When Urchins reproduce, the male lets his sperm float out into the water, then the female releases her eggs and if they chance to touch – BAHM! A baby Urchin is born.
• Sea Urchins have 5 teeth that grow continuously and they have to eat all the time to grind them down (like Beavers)

It was fun, educational, and fit the bill for a perfect science trip. 

Tilapia and Sheep

How do those two go together?  Usually they don’t – unless of course you are doing some sort of kooky fusion dish, but even then, it might be bit odd....

Our Group with Ms. Smith.

They do go together if you do a field trip to UVI to learn about aquaponics, tilapia rearing, and meat sheep raising.  That is exactly what we did with a bunch of other home schooled children.  I didn’t do a head count but I bet we had about 20 kids from C who is 2.5 to some older kids of about 14.  Yes, that was a big age difference but they all seemed to absorb information, and the presenters were FANTASTIC (Thank you Sarah Smith and Sue Lakos)!

Aislin took what she learned and did a photo journal where she glued down pictures and then journaled about what she learned.  She also added some graphics about interesting things such as a fish life cycle, a map of where Tilapia and Dorper sheep come from (Africa), how fish reproduce, and how sheep mate.  I didn’t pick the topics – she did and I am more than comfortable enough to let her research them.  I am also going to let her tell you, in her own words about what she learned.

So, without further ado, here is Aislin’s story:

I think the field trip was interesting because I learned about the Tilapia and Sheep. The  way Tilapia reproduce is interesting because the Mother Tilapia  carries the frys in her mouth.

Journal pics:

She has written and written on this field trip so I think she is a little burned out and just didn’t want to write anymore.  Plus hunting and pecking just doesn’t make typing fun, does it?  I have included pics of her journal.  She did a really good job with it, and I can’t wait to do another field trip so she can add to her journal. It was fun to create.

The younger boys looking at St. Croix Sheep.

Monk’s Baths, St. Croix

One of my earliest memories of growing up here is going to see the Monk’s Baths in Frederiksted. I clearly remember going down the incline of death, and stepping into this HUGE pool of clear, warm water that I was going to drown in. I also remember the GIGANTIC waves that splashed over the baths and soaked my Dad and Mom.  I remember the feeling of being somewhere magical, somewhere where no one else was around, and somewhere that just had discovered. 

In reality, was that how the day went?  Probably not - I was younger than 5 and older than 3.  Somewhere in my childhood mind, this memory stuck. It actually faded into the background quietly for a LOONNGG time, but recently it has been popping up and nagging me. I think it was telling me that I needed to do it again and I needed to do it 1. soon and 2. with my kids.  So, since there is no day like today, I called/texted a bunch of my friends, my kid’s friends, and even some distant acquaintances to see if I could get a group to go with us. 

What are the Monk’s Baths you ask? Good question. They are not on any tour of the island, no reference is made to them in any literature that is given to visitors, they are not talked about, and there are only obscure reference made online to them. 

Aislin and her friends clowning around.

Here is what I remember my parents telling me.  WAY back in the 1600s, the Knights of Malta (click on the link for an interesting look at the Knights of Malta – a group still in existence today), a group of French monks who were commissioned by the King of France, lived on St. Croix and they had two “outposts”. One in Judith’s Fancy; and one in Frederiksted.  These monks, being cleanlier than regular people (cleanliness is next to godliness, maybe) decided that rather than bathing with fresh water – which was hard to get here - they would carve out some “Roman” types baths in the hard coral outcroppings along the beach in front of their monastery.  So with much hard work, and I am sure “praises” to God, they carved two rectangular baths into the hardened coral outcroppings, carved stone steps into the sides of the baths and “Viola! Zey had a baz for warshing!”(say it with a French accent, it’s quite amusing).

A few interesting side notes that I stumbled across when looking up the Knights of Malta: 1. They still exist as an organization and were created in 1085 to protect hospitals, not for fighting in the Crusades, 2. They made St. Croix profitable and used mainly Catholic indentured servants as slaves and then used enslaved Africans, and 3. It is thought by one historian, that they brought the Ark of the Covenant to St. Croix and hid it here. My Dad would have liked that last factoid.

Pretty cool, n’est pas? I mean, this stuff should be mentioned to tourists, it should be on some sort of guided island tour on cruise ship days, and it should at least be marked so that the intrepid tourist or newbie islander could stop and say: “oh, what’s this?” This is history that is accessible to everyone, the location is free for everyone to use and admire as it is on the beach, and all our beaches are public property, and it is really super neato (if for nothing less than the history alone)

We meet outside Rainbow Beach in F’sted at 9 and caravanned out to where I thought the Monk’s Baths were, we only had to stop once before I found the right spot. Went down the incline of death (JUST as I remembered!): 

After walking about 5 minutes north, this is what we found:

Beautiful!

So, if you live here and haven’t been or are visiting, or planning a visit, the trip is well worth it.  To get to the Monk’s Baths you go out of Frederiksted going North, pass Spratt Hall, pass Butler Bay plantation, go around the curve (look out for the random pillars on the right hand side on the curve), go a bit further, and look for the sign on your right that says “Northside Valley”. Stop there just after the orange house on your left.  If you look carefully, you will see a 4X4 with ropes leading down the incline of death. 

Here is a video of the Baths both outside and in, as well as a review of what the girls thought of the Monk’s Baths. Listen to them, they are after all the experts on what is cool.  Excuse the choppiness of the video, I was trying to keep my balance. There is also some weird banging noise going on, no idea what that is from, but you will get a general idea of what the Baths are like.

Have a great week!

Attempting Unschooling.....

UnSchooling?!  WWHHAAT???  

I know, that was my first thought, when I heard about unschooling.  I will admit, I thought, “Oh those parents are too lazy to try to teach their children. They just let them sit around, watch TV, and do nothing." and "How are they ever going to be able to do anything with their lives?”  Yes, I was biased, and too immature of a homeschooling parent to even consider the benefits.

Let’s back up a second here.  

Homeschooling is teaching your child at home what they might learn while at a public or private school. IE: Reading, writing, math, science, social studies, etc.  It is taking their education in hand and teaching them yourself instead of having someone else do it.  It has its benefits and its drawbacks. It allows you as a parent to see exactly what your kid is learning and help them to learn in a way that works best for them.  That said, there is the potential to abuse homeschooling, and not teach your children what they need to know, or to do such a bad job at it, that they are way behind because you just didn’t care enough to do it right.  Of course, the flip side is that you are the most awesome teacher in the whole world and  your child turns out to be a genius and grows up to be a mad scientist who speaks 10 languages, reads, writes, and dreams in dead languages, and discovers that the origin of man was truly as it is written in the Bible because he got to interview God.  I like to think that I am an awesome teacher, but that my child is normal and that she will just be smart and happy enough to be comfortable in her own skin and will know how to help herself learn new material in order to be able to pursue her own dreams to the best of her ability.

Aislin has been prospering as a homeschooled student. Her reading and comprehension levels are WAY up, her math is up, her knowledge of science (chemistry and biology) are up, etc.  So why change a good thing?

Well, we decided a while ago, that if we ever got to opportunity to put Aislin in school again, we would make her the eldest in her class rather than the youngest, as she had been.  So, going with that thought we made the decision that since she has completed all the second grade work from last year, and is halfway through her third grade work, we would give workbooks, and 3^rd grade "lessons" a break and do real life experiences.  Some of the experiences she wants to learn from are pretty interesting, and all her own choices.  She wants to see how Jan Mitchell makes her glass plates, volunteer at the animal shelter, figure out how to classify corals, understand our local history and why chaney is what it is, "do" marine biology as it pertains to our marine environment, learn more about sushi and cooking in general, learn about rocks, crystals, and minerals, learn about farming, etc. 

I figure that unschooling is about letting kids learn about what interests them, and providing them with as many primary sources as possible to make that learning successful. So, with that in mind, I am going to set up interviews with key people, field trips, find books on those topics, and really get down and dirty with Aislin and what interests her.  Of course, since I am slightly A type, when I want to be, it will be planned, and it will be in an orderly manner.  She WILL keep reading and doing math; and she will learn about stuff that many kids her age do not get to explore in an in depth manner at such a young age.  Hopefully this will serve her well later in life, and give her some good memories of the fun side of learning.

I will have to keep you all posted as to how it goes, but if you are reading this, and you have any skills that can help us in any of her topics of interest, email me :).  If I know you have those skills, never fear, I will be calling you!  It could be as simple as lending us a book, or talking to Aislin after she reads some books on the topic, or hosting a field trip, or even putting her to work to give her hands on experiences.

Let the Unschooling begin!