REBLOGGING

I haven't blogged in over three months. When that happens, it's always harder to start again.

I feel compelled to apologize or explain, even though I know no one minds but me. Actually, it might even be me that I feel like apologizing to - to my concept of myself as a blogger, maybe. Bloggers don't just disappear for three months. I feel like I need to legitimize myself with promises for the future.

The thing is, five years or more in (I don't really remember) I still don't know exactly what this blog is about. I think I worry about my audience too much, which is funny, because I hardly even have one since my last address change. I worry about being a mommy blogger and then writing something scary about Dark Rituals. I worry about being a "serious" blogger and then boring people with pictures of my kids. Mostly I just worry about not posting for three months, and then I don't post anything because I'm worried.

A lot has been going on for me recently, in a mostly good way. It's nothing super huge, but it's felt kind of chaotic. I'm not great at focusing, or juggling. Sometimes I feel like a super lucky unschooling mom, sometimes I feel like a serious artist and sometimes I even get around to thinking deep thoughts. Rarely two or more at the same time, though, not to mention things like having a sudden whim to learn to program, keeping my hand in at natural medicine or having a house that anyone can ever see, ever. Five years in, I still have no idea how these things are supposed to work together. It's kind of like my blog.

CROW PRAYER FLAGS

I'm really excited to be sharing this project, because it's something I've been thinking about for over ten years. Actually, when I started thinking about animal prayer flags, it was seahorses... but now I couldn't really imagine choosing anything but crows.

Anyway, I drew these crows and made them into a Spoonflower design, which people can order and use to make their own DIY flags. You get twenty different combinations of crow and color per yard, which makes a banner about thirteen feet long. (That's pretty long. It's hard to photograph.)

In case you don't feel like sewing, I'm also offering ready-made banners at Etsy.

STREWING: MINECRAFT

So, we've been playing a lot of Minecraft around here. By we I mostly mean River, but it does rub off on everyone. Violet really likes to sing the song TNT, for example.  There is a fair amount of staring at the computer, but it's not just staring at the computer (it pretty much never is). We get huge murals of the Minecraft creatures on a near-daily basis, for one thing. We've also delved into Minecraft papercraft, and James even helped River make a couple of creatures from wood.

Since everything in Minecraft is made of blocks, lego is another very compatible medium. There is an official lego Minecraft set, but because the price went up so quickly, we've decided to stick with simpler lego tutorials for now. River even made a video of his own to show his creations! (We've discovered that you can buy legos by the piece if there are particular blocks you're missing.) River also likes to create things in the game itself. He's used tutorials like this one to teach himself to build epic sculptures of mobs like the skeleton, which involve a lot of memorization, digital navigation and general spatial skills.

Since the blocks in Minecraft are perfectly regular it's pretty hard to avoid the math implications, beginning with measuring length, width and height in block units. River often comes up with multiplication questions based on problems like "how many blocks do you need to make four legs that are three units tall?" As my mom pointed out, they are a lot like the cubes often used as manipulatives in math classes. I wanted to link to some Minecraft math demonstrations, but there are so many that it's hard to choose. Here's a search for "Minecraft math" with some interesting links, but the best bet would probably be to search for a topic of particular interest like addition - for example, this addition gate combines Minecraft, math, and basic programming concepts.

There is actually a lot of computer and tech stuff in Minecraft play. River has built some pretty impressive double-switched gates and similar machines, which I don't even completely understand. James likes to point out that he (River) has learned most of what he knows about Minecraft from other kids, both in person and on Youtube videos. Just last week we logged on to a server with other local homeschoolers, who were able to help us figure out the rules of the social game, while River was thrilled to get a  chance to share some of his technical knowledge. We're thinking of checking out the Snap Circuits Jr. kit to see if he has any interest in exploring similar concepts in three-dimensions.

In the meantime, there's a whole world to explore, full of different biomes, cities, people and materials. A world which is, apparently, larger than the whole earth. No wonder it's taking a while.


(post image from the Paradise World blog)

NOCTURNAL (LEARN NOTHING DAY)

Learn Nothing Day started today at 12:00 AM (I know, because I was there). Less than an hour later I had totally blown my chances for the year by watching a detective show, from which I accidentally learned a few things about guns and submarines.

Meanwhile, River was teaching himself things about how to build better lego monsters. Seriously, they were much more realistic than the last ones I saw. Is that technically learning? I'm not sure. It was a demonstration of knowledge acquisition, but it's hard to say exactly when that learning took place.

That is kind of like one of the biggest things I'm learning right now, too, which is that we need to be more flexible about sleep around here. It has been sneaking up on us for a while. Really, we are all sort of nocturnal. Before kids and regular employment, James and I used to go to bed around 4:00 AM. When we had little babies they adjusted to our schedule pretty easily, though it was somewhat earlier than it used to be.

They're not little babies any more, though, especially River, who has aometimes been wanting to stay up later than we do for about the past year. It's been a gradual thing. at first the rest of us would lie down and watch a movie and he would stay up to watch a video or two of his own before joining us around when we went to sleep. Eventually we noticed that it was getting more extreme, though. Sometimes he seemed full of energy at night, while at other times he just seemed determined to stay awake in the face of exhaustion. Since early spring, he has often been staying up most of the night.

Some part of me would like to say that we supported this right away, but we didn't. Instead, we tried pretty much everything we could think of, from a structured night-time routine to installing a program that cuts out melatonin-reducing blue light from River's computer. On the few nights we did get him in bed early, he still lay awake tossing and turning, sometimes for over an hour. Mostly we tried waking him up in the morning (with his consent) for the many day-time activities he enjoys. This went on for a surprisingly long time (weeks?) without any noticeable night-time effect. What we did notice was that he got more and more exhausted - droopy, grumpy, and eventually nearly impossible to wake up.

And so, after many conversations and consultations, we've decided to let him sleep. Today was a pretty average day, and he got up around three. most nights now James and I trade off staying up with him for at least a couple of hours after our usual night-time routine. It's certainly not an ideal schedule for us, but it may be the best compromise at the moment - and there are benefits for all of us. When River is well rested, he is much more cooperative, engaged and affectionate. When I stay up with him, if I'm not too tired, we have fun drawing, building with legos, and talking about all kinds of crazy stuff. In the mornings I get some alone time with Violet, too, when we can have a leisurely breakfast, play toddler games, and get some housework done. It is a big adjustment, though.

There are plenty of unschooling truisms like "you can have structure without having rules" which, while technically accurate, leave out the dirty semi-secret that this structure often has a way of occurring in the wee hours of the morning, and we've struggled more with this than with any other unschooling issue so far. Wouldn't it be better to just put River to bed over his objections, for his own good? The thing is, he seems to be doing just fine as long as we let him sleep enough, even if it is usually during the day. And although it's not what we might have chosen, the rest of us can be too, especially if we concentrate on meeting our own needs (for down time, getting out of the house, and so on).

I guess it comes down to the fact that we believe in unschooling not just politically (it's rarely right to force another person to do anything against their will), but also pedagogically - much like you just can't force someone sleep if they're not tired, you also can't force someone learn something when they're not open to it. On the other hand, even on learn-nothing day, there doesn't seem to be any way in the world to stop anyone from learning.

ZODIAC (IN PROGRESS)

DRAWING LAB #8: DIRTY BIRD

I've had a crazy couple of months - maybe I'll write a post about it some day. Short version: I'm really behind on sketching and blogging.

Today I got back on the Drawing Lab train. I was supposed to make some random watercolor squiggles and then find an animal in there. While I was working on my three attempts, I kept waiting for this exercise to become my favorite like the others kept doing, but it just wasn't happening.

This was my favorite piece, though...I found a bird. And actually it did get pretty fun once it was time for charcoal, which I don't use often.

KALI YOGA

 

This thing is giant in person. Giant! That's probably why it took me a month to finish :)