Urchins at Play

Here at Free Range we've been having a lot of fun over the last few months figuring out how to structure the environment to create an "Old Fashioned Childhood" for the Urchins.

When we were kids we had the freedom to roam around alone, in pairs, and in little gangs, exploring the neighbourhood, meeting friends, having adventures and coming home in time for dinner.

Even if The Good Old Days are gone, thanks to a system that locks entrepreneurial Pot Heads up but allows Psychopaths at High Risk to Re-Offend to roam free, I think there's a lot we can do that falls between the lost land of childhood freedom and just plunking them down in front of some screen with a bowl of Hydrogenated Mock Lard Flakes.

Even inside, The Great Outdoors can be celebrated and integrated into everyday play. We discovered to our great delight that the simple toys made from natural materials we craved did exist, but we discovered it a couple of years into our parenting experience, so we are still phasing out the plastics and phasing in the beautiful warm woods, play silks, sheep skins, Waldorf dolls and other natural, open-ended, imagination provoking playthings.

I've been spending a lot of time scouring the Universe for these Very Hard to Find natural playthings. Many of them are handmade, so you're looking for little family cottage industries, and it's tough to track them down! (The best ones I've discovered are now listed in our Groovy Links, for the delight of other Just Starting Out homeschoolers.)

Most of the sources are in the US, and although they are really fantastic, it gets expensive and customs likes to rifle through the boxes looking for tiny Pot Heads or something. We'd prefer to avoid the customs charges and support Canadian family businesses, so if any of you Canadian Waldorfers have secret Canadian sources, please share!!

One of the really great US sources I just discovered is a family-run business called "Three Sisters Toys". One of the owners, Dana Johnson, was a child play therapist before opening her natural toy business, and has written a wonderful article on the decline of real childhood play:

http://www.threesisterstoys.com/parenting/philosopy.htm

Check out also The Alliance for Childhood:

http://www.allianceforchildhood.net/

Now go outside and get some fresh air! G'wan! Shoo!

HW

Letters! We Get Letters!

We are proud to announce that we have received our first Official Piece of Mail!

Thanks to Island Sarah for her lovely and thoughtful package!

The Nature Table...er...Mantle!

Ok, so we established The Nature Table, which, due to current space constraints, ended up being The Nature Mantle.

We're feeling ambivalent about the Tree though and might demote it to "Christmas Decoration" -- replacing it with a grapevine tree.

We liked it because it had a sort of "Black Forest Fairy Tale" thing going on, but the plastic branches, albeit hyper-realistic, are sort of irritating our auras...the Winter Fairy has also expressed her dismay.


Tune in again for another thrilling installment of.......The Nature Mantle!!!

Will they replace the tree?

How will they justify the wastefulness of this act??

Will the Winter Fairy punish them for this mistake???

Will they ever have room to put the tree on a table????

Is this how the Urchins will learn Fickleness?????

THE NAAATUUUURE MAAAAANTLLLE!!!!!

Baking Bread (Take 2)

Simple Bread Recipe

The kids can do almost all of this by themselves, with a little bit of help with measuring and "finishing off"...

1-2 tbsp dry yeast
1 tsp organic honey
2 cups warm spring water, divided
1/3 cup organic honey
1/3 cup organic safflower or sunflower oil
1 tsp salt
6 cups organic whole wheat flour, divided

Mix together yeast and 1 tsp honey and 1/2 cup water in a small glass bowl and let sit until frothy.

Mix together remaining water, honey, oil & salt in a large bowl.

Add yeast mixture and 3 cups of the flour. Stir well.

Add remaining flour a bit at a time until dough is stiff enough to turn out onto floured work surface.

Knead for about 10 minutes, adding flour as needed until dough is smooth and elastic.

Place dough in a greased bowl, cover with a clean tea towel and let rise until doubled (about 1 hour).

Punch down and shape into loaves (2) or buns and place on greased baking sheets.

Cover and let rise again (about 1 hour) Bake for 45 minutes (loaves) or 20 minutes (buns) in preheated 350 degree oven.

Baking Bread (Take 1)

Whew.

I was REALLY looking forward to writing up and sharing this bit...I had been imagining baking bread with the Urchins since they were little bawling slugs, and was bristling with excitement about transmitting this ancient and beautiful Human Art.

I had visions of them in cute aprons, with their little floury hands, a little dab of flour on their button noses, all of us laughing and kneading, with the sun streaming onto the oak table...

I hadn't anticipated that explaining the yeast was alive would result in quite so much consternation, or that flour, on the wings of toddler hands, would rise into the air like an Organic Whole Grain mushroom cloud and block out the sun.

I hadn't thought they would lose interest in kneading so quickly, preferring instead to take little handfuls of dough and squish them in secret places all over the kitchen.

I would have poo-pood you and shoo'd you, had you told me that everyone would need Hosing Down with Full Scrubbage afterwards, or that I would spend the rest of the day scraping down the kitchen and gouging dough out of cracks, cursing the Winds of Fate that have inexplicably arranged for me to have no Servants whatsoever...not even One Scullery Maid.

I would have thrown back my head and laughed in a teeth-flashing way, had you suggested the whole experience would be so Grueling I would find myself absently Googling local Waldorf schools and daydreaming about becoming a Cocktail Mom...

Deep Cleansing Breath......In....and....Out............

Hurray! We made bread together!

Apparently, according to something I stuck on the wall, we're making it every Monday from now on!!!

PS. Must admit it smelled fantastic as it baked and tastes great. The Tiny Terrors were busting with pride as they presented our friends with a Loaf the next day, and that alone was enough to help Gird My Loins for the next onslaught. I mean baking day.

HW

Welcome to the New Blog!

You made it!

Hi guys, due to a Flawed Template which Botched our ability to receive Comments, we've had to start over.

We will eventually transfer the whole archive over and delete the original blog, so please update your bookmarks!

www.freerangekidshomeschool.blogspot.com

www.freerangeacademy.com will forward to this New Blog shortly.

Please note you may now leave and read comments.

Peace,

FREE RANGE KIDS HOMESCHOOL

Hail King Winter!

Behold!

Snow!!

Observe the Tiny
Snowman!

Enjoyed a first real public "Waldorf Mom" moment as the Itty Bitties spontaneously stretched their arms up to the snowy sky and began yelling "Hail King Winter!!"



It was hilarious and beautiful, too!

HW

Venison & Serendipity

Scooby, whose sparkling mind is Drenched in Fairy Tales, spent a happy day last week as a forest dwelling witch, hunting and killing her toy goats and reindeer and roasting them on spits.

At dinner time, she casually asked me if we could have Venison.

"Well, er, not tonight...we're already having Octopus Stew!"

"Seriously Mom, I want to try Venison! Can we hunt some?"

"Hunt some? Er...we don't really...I've never...well, honey, we don't really hunt very often, that is, you know, we've never hunted..." I trailed off, hacking at the Octopus... "You know Venison is deer, right?"

"Of course!" she scoffed.

"Well ok, honey, if you really want to try Venison I'll try and find out where we can get some, ok? I hear it's delicious."

Just then, in one of the strangest turns of Serendipity and Synchronicity and Just Plain I Can Not Believe This, in waltzes Daddy-O, who has spent the afternoon helping one of his friends fix his computer. He flings onto the table a large bag, stuffed full of (wait for it...) VENISON!!!

As I stared, thunderstruck, at the neatly wrapped packages of Deer, personally hand-hunted and prepared by Daddy-O's friend, Scooby turns to me with shining eyes and announces triumphantly, "There you go!"

Daddy-O says casually, "There's also some Moose!"

"Aha!" yells Scooby.

Now I'm reading her a lot of stories about greedy fishermen wishing for gold.

HW

Thought Police!

Well that didn't take long.

The Thought Police have found us already!

Now, as a general rule, there is nothing I enjoy more than passionate, pointless debates on the exact definitions, origins, intentions and vagaries of Words.

I grow weary, however, of explaining my bad self to everyone.

So here, in a Nutshell, are Our Thoughts on the Matter. I find it hard to imagine we are the only Whackos throwing together an Eclectic Thingie-Bob, so this is a blow for freedom for all of us!

1. Why do you call yourself "Homeschool" when you say you are "Delight-Directed"?

We decided to use the term "Homeschool" because it is simple and not confusing to the people in our lives who are NOT homeschoolers, and are therefore not familiar with, or passionately concerned with, the word choices available.

2. So you don't intend to do "school at home" ?

No, there will be no bells, no tests, no desks, no little setup in the garage, no, no, no.

3. You can't be unschoolers if you're doing Waldorf!

Cha! Can too!

I use the term "delight-directed" actually, to avoid this whole conversation...but OK!

Yes, we unapologetically Impose Our Will on our extremely young children by deciding what food choices will be offered, by restricting access to electronic media, by deciding what the home environment and rhythm will be like, by deciding they will not be walking billboards for Nike and so on. This has caused a particularly opinionated unschooler to call me "Mother Superior", a "dictator" and a "tyrant", which drove me straight to my bean bag chair for a double chamomile.

I maintain that the Unfriendly Unschooler is confusing "Freedom" with "Maximization of Choice" -- to my way of thinking, my toddlers do not need to be burdened with the responsibility of making decisions about things they don't even realize are options at this point! (The sun comes up, we eat organic cereal with bananas, not Fruitish Loops, it's just how the world works...if that's tyranny, then start painting the 40 foot posters of my face, baby!)

When it comes to my philosophy of Learning, it's a free-flowing glorious ribbon of connections leading from one fascinating thing to the next, supported, encouraged and facilitated by us. They are learning while they set the table, while they play outside, while they act out their endless stories, while they have a bath, while they look at books, when we go to the museum to see the Canoptic Jars because Scooby is obsessed with Ancient Egypt...

4. You can't do Waldorf if you're unschooling!

See above, then... I actually find Waldorf and unschooling to be very compatible. We are also "Waldorf Inspired" -- and are not trying to exactly replicate a Waldorf classroom in our home. If we were, we would just enroll them, you know ... in a Waldorf School.

Most of the home educators I have encountered during my years of research and preparation have been warm, open-minded, creative and thoughtful folks who can grip eclecticism.

I've been pretty surprised by the few who seem consumed with dividing us all into cliques.

Some divisions, like the one between Religious and Secular education, may be large enough to wish to clarify your "position" but beyond philosophical differences this profound, hey kids, can't we all just get along?!

HW

Cracking the Code: Scooby Teaches Herself to Read

One of the dealy-o's with Waldorf is "delayed academics".

The idea is that Play is the work of childhood and the time for formal instruction comes later.

I wholeheartedly agree with this and always felt really good about it, with one exception ... a teensy wriggling worm of self-doubt chewed on me when I thought about whether I was doing the right thing by not actively teaching Scooby to read.

I spent some time trying to remember being three and four, and I'm pretty sure that in addition to a book-loving home environment, Sesame Street played a large role in teaching me, and countless of my peers, to read.

Without the day being brought to her by the letter "J", I wondered if I should be energetically replacing that influence with something...

Scooby had a massive vocabulary very early, enjoys word play and is extremely verbally precocious (she has a toy goat named "Educated Guess" and spends much of her time as a Lion named "Spectacle"). She also has a terrifying memory, and if you read a book to her once, she knows it off by heart, word by word, and can "read it" to you. If you skip a word or change a word while reading a book she's heard before, she will call you on it!

By 15 months, she was identifying the written word "Baby" everywhere. She would spend her bath time ignoring her toys and studying the words on the soap bottle, pointing out the word "Baby" (yelling "Baby!") on the front and back of the bottle.

We have been singing the "ABC" song right from the start, and it has been interesting to hear the phonetic imitation of sounds turn into 26 distinct letters over the years.

We have books all over the place, and a formal "Storytime" every night, during which we try to satisfy the literary tastes of both kids, who are 18 months apart in age. This is harder than it sounds, as Scooby is into Aesop's Fables and Hans Christian Anderson, while Baby Man still rightly prefers his books to have peek-a-boo flaps and involve a lot of sing-songyness!

I explain things and sound out the words and do "on the spot" relaxed teaching whenever it seems natural, and very gently and organically Scooby began to just start figuring it out. She collected a large "know by sight" collection of words, including her name, Baby Man's name, "The End", "Thank you", etc.

I bought her an alphabet stamping set and she has spent a lot of time naming the letters and stamping them for fun. This Christmas she asked me to spell her friend's names so she could stamp them on cards. I spelled the names out loud, and she stamped them. I realized she knew most of her letters. She was muttering to herself "E...that's the one like a comb..." When she didn't know which letter I meant, she would ask me to write it down on some paper for her.

The latest breakthrough came this Christmas, when Grandma gave us a beginner's Boggle game. It involves cards with pictures and 3 or 4 letter words on them (boat, lion, car, etc.) and a bunch of large dice with a letter on each side. You prop the cards up in a little tray and match the letters to spell the word. Scooby was playing with it, and then suddenly just started to go at hyper speed. "Mom! Lion!" (have I mentioned she's into lions?)..then "Mom! CAT! BUG! KITE!"

I said "What are the letters you need for the next one?" and she yelled "S, H, O and E!"

It was amazing.

I'm feeling a wave of confidence about the decisions I've made. We made the materials available, we answered her questions, explained and showed her new things when she was interested, stopping when she began to drift away, modeled a love of reading and KAPOW! She's breaking the code. No lessons, no frustration, no Sesame Street!

A little bit more sounding out and I'm guessing she's only a few months away from reading her little books all by herself. Now I just have to find a copy of The Snow Queen in large type...

HW

Regenerating in The Pod

Gentle Readers,

We wish to thank you all for the many supportive and amusing emails we have received.

This month a flurry of interest around Humble's Pod has rather surprised us.

While we feel confident this simply means most of you have too much time on your hands and may also require immediate Essential Fatty Acid Supplementation, we nevertheless feel an obligation to respond.

Below we have answered your questions, and we've also provided some snaps of Humble's Room.

1. The Pod is not something Humble works on or is building, it is where she regenerates her tissues at the cellular level.

2. Yes, the Pod is in fact made of hemp and can be composted when its lifespan of 2000 earth years is over.

3. No, we do not live in some newfangled energy efficient adobe straw bale mud igloo filled with naked hippies, although that would be nice.

If you have any further concerns about our use of the word "Pod" please strive to suppress your impulse to contact us about them, and thank you again for your support!

Criss Cross Days

I can't remember where I first heard this charming term for Diurnals Horribiluses, but it has stuck...

Criss Cross days are those days when the forces of entropy combine with the Malicious Sprites of Rotten Luck to make you bang your head against the suddenly empty can of coffee and weep bitter tears of regret for the time you've wasted when you could have been luring rich, childless old men with failing hearts to the Caribbean...

These are the days when all your good intentions fly out the window and you put on your "I YELL BECAUSE I CARE" t-shirt. The days when you open your mouth and strange words come flying out..."Well, who ever told you life was fair?!" and "Sure it's a democracy! Until I say it's not!"

Maybe you haven't had days like this.

I don't know how to make them stop, but I've collected a few ideas for picking up the pieces after all the tantrums have subsided and the plumbers have gone.

1. We have Full On English Breakfast...for dinner. This is my way of symbolizing that one can always start over again, no matter how late in the day it is.

2. We talk about it. After things have calmed down, before or during Storytime, I will say something like "Boy, we had a rough day today, didn't we?" and if I have been yelling and turning purple and hopping on one leg, I will apologize for that. I make sure everybody knows I love them before they go to sleep and we agree to have a better day tomorrow.

3. I refuse to beat myself up over it. Being a role model doesn't mean I've lost my right to be a Right Git once in a while. It just means I also have to show them how to recover from it, and how to take responsibility for it.

4. I look at adorable pictures of the kids. They've been cute before. They will be cute again.

I hope.

HW

The Kingdom of Childhood

When I first tripped over Steiner's evocatively titled book, I had a good feeling I was about to find the missing piece of my homeschooling puzzle.

"When the pupil is ready, the master appears."

I was in the park with the Itty Bitties, scribbling in my "idea" notebook, (as opposed to my "lists" notebook) when another mom beetled on over. We discovered we were both considering home education, and I showed her my "nature-centric" and "old-fashioned childhood" ideas. She said "Oh, you're doing Waldorf!" to which I replied, "Er....I am?"

With this blast of Serendipity, it all started to fall into glorious place.

"One of the things that sets Waldorf education and indications for early childhood apart from common educational practice today is the active protection of the first magical dream-like phases of consciousness which are natural to the child until around the age of seven. This runs contrary to the majority of programs and influences acting on the child today which try to prematurely "awaken" the child to the adult conceptions of time, space and cognitive thought. An understanding of the child's unfolding consciousness can help parents to support the experience of early childhood rather than hurry their children through it, with unanticipated negative results." (from http://www.waldorfinthehome.org)

This idea of providing them with a childhood sheltered from Intrusive Media, Marketers, Wars, Clock Punching, Pressure to Achieve, Modern Monsters and General Mayhem was exactly what I had been attempting to implement. Steiner breaks down childhood development into three "seekings" -- from birth to approximately age seven is considered the age of "Goodness" -- the idea is that children are looking for indications that the world is a good place to be, and the experiences that support or deny this will lay the foundations of their temperament for life.

There are those who believe this is a form of overprotection, that will ultimately result in a "shock" when the children realize what a crummy place the world is...I would argue that a distinction can be drawn between one's entire experience of being alive in the Universe, and the often barbaric and unconscionable Affairs of Men.

I want my kids to have a permanent sense of Wonder, unabashed curiosity, passion for learning, and love for the world and her creatures. I can't imagine how to begin to nurture that without ensuring they have as long as they need in The Kingdom.

Deep connections forged in childhood with good people and the natural world will, I hope, allow them to eventually view the Plunderers and Barbarians with an eye that doesn't despair of the whole universe because they exist.

Oh, and yes, that's a real castle. Rejoice! The world IS a wondrous and magical place!

HW

Ok people, the party is over.

It's January, the youngest cub will be turning three this year and Humble's Mojo is slowly returning now that everyone is weaned and largely housebroken.

It is time to roll up our homeschooling sleeves and firmly establish Rhythm and Order, without sacrificing Creativity, Freedom and Joy. It's a tall order, but we are up to the task. We are strong. We are invincible. We are Mamma.

Here is The List for January:

1. Launch the Nature Table: We have the miniature tree, now we just need to dedicate a small table and officially open The Nature Table for business. For those who know not, the Nature Table is a small table dedicated to the joyous display of acorns, stones, leaves and other wonders collected by tiny hands. A miniature tree on the Nature Table reflects the seasons and is decorated for special occasions. Doll house miniatures can be used to make seasonal tableau's and tell stories about family events.

2. Obtain a large wall calendar and mark down all Special Occasions, from Groundhog Day to Midsummer's Eve to Pancake Day...celebrations and festivals old (May Day) and new (Martin Luther King Day) all offer great opportunities for learning and having Big Fun. They are much more fun if you realize they are coming more than 24 hours in advance.

3. Organize Meal Plan: It's impossible to think when everyone keeps getting hungry all the time. The plan is to institute a rotation - Indian on Monday, Roast Beast on Tuesday...this sort of thing. Friday will be "New Recipe" night, Sunday will be Full On Family Dinner, and the day anyone can invite anybody they wish for dinner without asking first.

4. Organize Hearthkeeping Plan: It's also impossible to think when faced with the relentless forces of Entropy. The plan is to institute a rotation here too, just like the song says, Washing on Monday, Baking on Tuesday, Dusting the Chandeliers on Wednesday, Returning the Empties on Thursday, this sort of thing.

5. Family Night: Friday night will be designated "Family Night" and Humble will start compiling a file of ideas - board games, candle making, seasonal pursuits, star-gazing...

6. Designate Arts & Crafts Cupboard: The art supplies are a serious threat to Order, and may soon spill out of our home and begin taking over society. So a Large and Gorgeous Cupboard will be located to become Home Base for all these tiny bits.

7. Treading Lightly: The kids will begin participating in recycling & composting activities, learning about what happens to stuff you "throw out." We will start using the reusable shopping bags Santa brought us, and will pay a lot of attention to the example we are setting.

8. Humble Maintenance: New this year, Humble will be spending a little more time in her pod, regenerating.

That's all! Go Forth and Organize!!

HW

Happy New Year!