How very cool! I spent most of last summer editing a book, Campus Calm University, by Maria Pascucci, who self-published it in the fall. About a week ago, Maria learned that the book won a Gold Gold Medal in 13th Annual Independent Publisher Book Awards!

If you have a child in college or know someone who has a child in college, I highly recommend Maria’s book. Not only is it superbly edited (heh, heh), but the subject is one near and dear to my heart. Maria wrote the book (and started her company, Campus Calm) to help students relax and live emotionally healthier lives while in college so that they set themselves on a lifelong path of fulfillment and success (which each person defines for herself). The book includes chapters on learning again how to love learning, being creative, focusing inward, thinking big, and just plain having fun. Pascucci doesn’t advocate being irresponsible and/or partying for four years; she advocates embracing the college experience by slowing down enough to figure out what you really love to learn and to do and then pursuing those things.

As you might imagine, the book’s stop-and-smell-the-roses theme resonated with me. Many of the things Maria writes about, from anxiety-ridden, over-scheduled students, to kids who take courses only to check off graduation requirements, to students who care only about their GPA and not what they’re learning, reflect perfectly what Mr. Enigma and I hope our children can avoid by being homeschoolers. They have the time to follow their interests and the environment in which to truly know themselves. We don’t ever want to hear them ask, literally or figuratively, “Will this be on the test?”

Seriously, I know I’m biased, but Campus Calm University is a great book and a great read for anyone — even us old folks out in the so-called real world — who has found him- or herself caught in the rat race and who feels stressed out and stuck. If you need some calm, on campus or off, check out Campus Calm University.

Tags: Campus Calm University, Maria Pascucci, Independent Publisher Awards

What do you get when you cross a kid with a broken lawnmower? A take-apart project, of course. (That was too easy.) We’ve had the lawnmower since last fall when a neighbor put it out on trash day. My son, who likes to pick stuff out of other people’s trash, saw it through our bay window, and I knew what had to be done. We knocked on the neighbor’s door and asked if it was really trash. Yes, it is. Chip down the street tried to fix it but couldn’t, so it’s just best to get rid of it, she said.

Can we have it so the kids can take it apart? “Sure, have at it!”

Mr. Enigma spent some time late last fall emptying the gas and oil tanks and removing the engine from the chassis. He covered it up and left it near our shed, where snow promptly buried it for a couple of months. Over the long winter, the kids forgot about it. Then I mentioned it a couple of nights ago. My daughter wasn’t terribly interested, but there was no holding The Duke back.

The next morning, we peeled back the tarp and unveiled the hardware. As I lifted the engine to move it to the grass, The Duke said, “Hey, that’s a spark plug!” It was — I didn’t know he knew what a spark plug was! When, exactly, did he acquire that knowledge?

[What’s behind curtain number one?]

Before any project, it’s important to gather the right tools. The Duke has his own toolbox, complete with several screwdrivers of differing sizes and heads, an adjustable wrench, a hat, and measuring tape, which he apparently thought he’d need but didn’t. I also brought out my toolbox in case I had some tools he was missing. (I’m not sure which we have more of in this house, tools or books.)

[Carefully choosing the right tools.]

The Duke patiently examined the engine from all angles, planning his attack. We agreed that he should remove the plastic engine cover first since it was covering so much. It took us a while to get the sockets on the handle, but once I figured out we needed a pesky little adapter, the Duke was all set.

[The first piece came off easily.]

The socket set was our friend today. The Duke removed a lot of bolts surprisingly easily. Others required a little more oomph and some better leverage. My inner (and outer) feminist was not going to be happy if neither of us could budge any bolts and I had to ask big, strong, manly Mr. Enigma to loosen them for us.

[Gaining some leverage.]

Occasionally, a less, um, refined tool was needed. Did you know that when a part is really stuck, you can sometimes smash it off?

[Descendant of Thor swings his mighty hammer.]

Overall, I was impressed with The Duke’s careful attention to detail, his patience, and his use of different tools to do different jobs. He even grabbed a very small, thin flathead screwdriver and used it as a lever to bend some metal flashing that was blocking two bolts.

After about an hour, which included a couple of short breaks on the swings and zip line, The Duke announced, “That’s enough for today.”

[A day’s work.]

Tags: take apart, learning by doing, lawnmower

Holly over at Unschool Days asked if we could describe, in ten words or less, why we homeschool. My answer: So my kids can grow from the inside out.

It’s so good, it deserves a trademark, doesn’t it?

Too bad it’s not my phrase. I plagiarized it from an acquaintance who was explaining why she enrolled her daughter in a Friends school: she wanted her daughter to grow from the inside out, and not the other way around. That’s it, isn’t it? This mother felt, as many homeschoolers and parents who chose nontraditional schools for their kids do, that conventional schools don’t allow children to grow naturally, that they spend essentially all of their energy trying to squeeze all those young, excited, unique individuals into the same small box. It’s not that the people in the schools are big, bad, kid-loathing meanies; obviously most of them love kids and love teaching. It’s that the system itself is designed for just this purpose, to turn out legions of young people who think alike, behave alike, and know the same body of information (which they often quickly forget).

Our family came to homeschooling after a few years of thinking and learning about what homeschooling really means. We ended up with a laundry list of reasons for taking the plunge, some more pressing than others. But I can honestly say that “growing from the inside out” perfectly encapsulates the entire list. Each item points back to respecting and loving our children for who they are today and for giving them the space and time to grow and develop with as little outside/institutional pressure as possible — especially while they’re still so young.

My hope is that my kids will never feel pressure to give up an interest because it’s not considered “cool” enough, that they’ll never have to spend time on meaningless assignments just to pass a class (I’m all for meaningful assignments, if there has to be an assignment at all), that they’ll never care more about a letter grade than about what they’re doing/learning and why. I want them to follow every interest to see where it leads them, regardless of what other kids their age and/or gender are doing. And I want them to be happy, content kids (and later, adults) who feel loved and respected and free to follow their hearts.

Jeez, this is getting high and mighty, isn’t it?

But it’s true. That’s really what I want for them. And it’s happening. Yesterday, The Duke (son, 8.5 years) said to me, “I really like my life. I get to do so many cool things.”

Growing from the Inside Out™. That’s why we homeschool.

Tags: homeschooling, why homeschool,

Like most kids, my kids love to make things. They especially like to make something new out of something old. Sometimes their projects involve power tools and lots of dust-making in the shop with Mr. Enigma, and other times they just require simple materials.

The constant state of making means that we throw almost nothing away. That old egg beater would make a perfect laser blaster on a space ship, dontcha know! Of course, that means you must keep a lot of parts lying about just waiting to be recycled into something cool.

It also means we have to keep our eyes peeled for treasures wherever we go. In fact, my son, The Duke, has become quite the diamond-in-the-rough finder. “Mommy, look what I got!” is a common phrase here on Sundays, the day before trash pickup on our street. Just a few weeks ago he came home with a nice, old, rusty, electric double burner.

“What do you want that for?” I asked.

“I’m gonna take it apart.”

You can’t argue with that, but you can argue with keeping someone else’s old, rusty, food-encrusted burner in your house. So we put it on our “3-season porch,” and the Duke agreed that after he took it apart, we’d throw it all away. So couple of nights ago, he took it apart, and we’ve tossed the sharp and nasty bits. But even the grownups realized we couldn’t throw it all away. Look at these burners. Can’t you see them on a robot? Danger, Will Robinson!

I love the kids’ projects not only because every one of them is unique, but also because the kids bring so much excitement, creativity, and joy to the table (or backyard, or shop) every time. The result is a creation straight out of their imaginations.

Take this contraption, for example. It’s a DNA scrambler, but I’m sure you knew that. And I’m sure you knew it wouldn’t work without the hat.

Basically, you use the scrambler to turn yourself into another creature. You select the creature (some animals, some magical, some mythical, some newly imagined) from the table of creatures. Next, you use the blue dial to set the size of the creature, and then a bunch of other stuff happens with lights and menus and stuff like that (use your imagination, please!), and then you turn into that creature.

A few weeks ago, The Duke made the scrambler over the course of a couple of evenings. Mr. Enigma was working in the shop, and the Duke went in to check it out. The next thing you know, he had decided to make his own project. (A common occurrence when Mr. Enigma is noodling around in the shop.) The first night, the Duke planned out what he would make and started drawing the different creatures on the hardboard. He finished about half the grid that first night. Then he put it down and came back to it another night, when he asked me for some ideas for other creatures he could add to the grid. Once he had finished the grid, he and Mr. Enigma put the finishing touches on the hardboard, and then they made the hat.

And there you have a new, handmade, unique toy. Lots of imagination went into it, and lots of imagination is required to play with it.
Keep reading… »

Tags: making stuff, projects, kids projects, big stuff

In case you haven’t heard, we had an election here in the U.S. last week, a historic one. Either we were going to have the first female vice president in our history, or we were going to have the first African-American president in our history. Some thought the outcome had a larger significance than either of those two firsts, though, given the state of our economy and foreign policy.

We were among the people who saw all the layers of meaning as equally significant. So we invited some friends over with their 11-year-old son, and we set up our living room to track the results as they came in.

How do you unschool an election?

First, you need a map of the United States. A big one. Then you need some red and blue markers.

Next, a TV. And some kids to mark off the states as they get called. When Pennsylvania goes blue, you need kids to celebrate.

And when your blue markers start running out of ink, you get some blue tape.

We marked off the red states, too; we just didn’t jump around the living room.

Of course, you also need pizza, wine, and champagne to have a proper party.

Champagne is for celebrating. We were happy that we were able to open our bottle when the West was won.

The final results — well, except for three states — told the whole story.

Our friends agreed that last week’s election was too important to watch alone. We wanted our kids to understand that we don’t just go to parties and hover around the TV on Super Bowl Sunday, that once in a while we get our priorities in order and commemorate contests that have true lasting effects on our country.

Here’s to Barack Obama, the first African-American elected to the highest office in the land, who promises to point our country in a new direction. What an night for our children to witness.

Tags: 2008 presidential election, U.S. election, Barack Obama, unschooling

Me: “How’s it going?”

8-year-old son: “Great! I have a bigger brain now!”*

*Said as he was playing Spore.

UPDATE: Second quote of the day: “Oh no, not another lover!”

Tags: Spore, big brain, evolution

Yeah, yeah, I know it’s July, but I’m still trying to catch up with my blogging. In any case, back in April, after spending too much time at home during the winter months, I went a little field-trip crazy and signed the us up for a grand total of 12 field trips or activities — out of 20 weekdays in the month. By the end of the month, as you might imagine, I was hearing things like, “Where are we going this time?” and “Do we have to go?”

We’re going here and yes, we have to go, because I already paid for it.

Hey, I was a homeschooling rookie this past year. Now I’ve learned my lesson: take it easy on the spring activities, no matter how eager you are to get out of the house.

Luckily, Walden Pond was one of our first trips early in the month, so we had yet to succumb to field-trip malaise. The weather was mild (for April) and sunny. Our tour guide did a nice job of summarizing Henry David Thoreau’s life in his Walden Woods cabin.

Of course, you can read all about Thoreau’s two years there, sometimes in excruciating detail, in his book, Walden. One detail he left out — I know, because my 7-year-old asked the tour guide — is where he read the Sunday paper, if you catch my drift. Apparently, Thorough avoided writing about such unseemly bodily functions in Walden. But if you’re into famous-people quotes, Walden is the book in which Thoreau penned the “live the life you’ve imagined” and “march to the beat of a different drummer” lines, except that’s not exactly what he wrote in either case, but most people don’t exactly care as long as the gist is right, and it is.

I understand why Thoreau wanted to live near Walden Pond: as you can see from the photos below, 160 years later, the pond is still beautiful, even before the leaves on the trees around it are in full bloom. Unfortunately, my photos don’t show just how sparkling blue the water is. The pond was formed by receding glaciers from the last ice age, and the water is still absolutely brilliant and blue.

Makes me want to jump in, now that summer is here.

In the summer, this is where you find the swimmers.

During the two years Thoreau lived in Walden Woods,
he measured the pond’s dimensions and depth,
and amazingly,
more recent measurement with modern tools have shown
Thoreau’s to be accurate.

Tags: Henry David Thoreau,, Walden,, Walden, Pond