The Zoo

For the Scoob's birthday, Daddy-O took a day off and we all visited the beasts at the massive Toronto Zoo. The world's third largest zoo does its thing with a heavy emphasis on conservation and public education.

Unfortunately, this day fell on a Sunday, so it was, well . . . a zoo . . . (sorry)

Watching the Vast Herds of Humans was almost as interesting as watching the beasts, though.



While I share the distaste for seeing beautiful creatures, who should by rights be Free and In The Wild, hemmed in and goggled at by chattering apes in Nike shirts, I also see the wonder in the Urchin's eyes when they really, really get how big and strange and real an Elephant, or a Rhinoceros is.



Even the adults, most of them usually consumed by their own Get Aheadism, seem a little sobered by the decline of the tiger, when confronted with a billboard of Sad Tiger Facts and the awe inspiring power and beauty of real ones, five feet away. Maybe, for ten minutes, they will think about it, care about it.


We learned that Giraffes have a heart the size of basketball, needed to pump blood all the way up that long neck, and that they give birth standing up.



Of course, we had to visit Scooby's totem, the Mighty Lion, King of Beasts.

I thought this would be the pinnacle of the day, but she just peered at him, clucked "Yup!" and wandered off.

Had to resist an urge to drag her back and point and yell "Lion! Lion! Look! You LOVE lions! Remember?!!!"

Sigh.




There are some cool 'research stations' and examples of how naturalists and scientists past and present lived/live when studying wildlife.


Had to capture this heartfelt tribute to Owen. Rest in peace, Owen.

Entering a mind bending Butterfly Garden was like falling down a rabbit hole into Wonderland.

Hummingbirds and zillions of butterflies flitting about in a technicolour garden.

(Pic above) you could view them in various stages of metamorphosis, much to the fascination of the Scoob.




We made it to the seal enclosure at feeding time, and were lucky enough to observe the very playful seal flipping around on the rocks and hurling himself into the pool with apparent glee.



Scooby knew this was a "Reticulated Python" as opposed to just a "Python."

Hell, how about "as opposed to just a 'snake'!"

Tell her something about an animal once, she's got it. Gotta stop making stuff up.




The Ostrich Family made an impression with their sheer enormity.

Seems obvious that birds are dinosaurs, when you see an ostrich. Makes you feel stupid for not having thought of it first, really.

The mother stood over her babies like a great tree, providing shade.

Then she sat on them.

Speaking of dinosaurs, the big show at the zoo right now is a pile of realistic, actual size, animatronic dinosaurs, emitting terrifying noises, swishing tails, mouths roaring open, claws scrabbling for you.

The roaring of the absolutely gigantic Thunder Lizards, combined with the shrieking and sobbing of terrified children, made for a truly head splitting time. Neat though. Nah, Scoob and Baby Man weren't scared....


Until we got to this little one . . . just a bit bigger than the kids, this one was freakishly agile, had some seriously monsterish claws and a really, really scary noise.

How do we guess what sort of noises dinosaurs made? Even though we don't speak Dinosaur, we didn't need a Dinosaur-English dictionary to fully understand he was saying "I'm going to eat you now, and it's going to hurt."

Even my dinosaur lovers wavered and blanched just a little...



Cool bones and cool science education thrown in for good measure...




Who's watching whom?

Wrapped up the day with a Round The Zoo ride on the Zoomobile, which was so unbearably exciting for Baby Man that he immediately fell asleep and missed the whole thing.

We'll go back on a weekday, when the Human Herd has thinned, and do it again, in a more leisurely fashion. Happy Birthday Scooby!

HW

Who Knows...Where the Time Goes...Who Knows Where the Time...Gohohohoho'sss

My tiny little Baby Firstborn Thing is Five. Observe above how she looked last week.


Second birthday, PAF, baby brother! Woo hoo!


Third birthday. So this is...two days ago?


Fourth birthday. Yes, the cake on her dress has three candles. They didn't make them with four, ok? She was four, really. So this is yesterday.


And suddenly, today, somehow, she is five. Riding her new two-wheeler.


Don't blink!

HW

Dissection

One morning, the kids discovered a large, very dead grasshopper had chosen our Trusty Red Wagon to expire in.

Scooby came running into the house in great excitement, cradling his wee corpse and showing it to me with shining eyes.

She asked if he was dead.

She asked if he "had any feelings" now.

She asked if she could "look inside him."

Reassured, and leaving me glowing with Science Nerd Pride, she beetled off and gathered some dissecting tools - a craft stick and a twig.


She hunkered down outside at the picnic table and spent over an hour very carefully inspecting and dissecting this grasshopper.

She spread his wings out carefully, and gently detached his head, showing an interested Baby Man everything as she did.

We did some basic anatomy and talked about compound eyes.


We all learned that grasshoppers have five eyes! Two compound and three simple. Who knew?

HW

Watch Out!

We are now receiving International Recognition.

Thanks to Cami over at Full Circle for Le Pat on Le Back.

I'm gonna share the love with my faves...

Where the FuhKaui?

Following the adventures of this light-hearted American unschooling family-on-the-road is very, very inspirational.

A Small Corner of Nowhere

Audrey is....Canadian, Marxist, farming, pagan, good at cursing, what's not to like?!

Yellow House Homeschool

She rocks in a sophisticated, reserved, intellectual sort of way, but never let it be said, that Penny does not rock.

Those Crazy Stevenses

Their computer might be dead, but we're still waiting for them, few homeschooling folks are perched quite as far on the edge as Breezy.

Mom in Madison

Creative, treading lightly on the earth, organically fed Denise is homeschool comfort food and yes, the Mama rocks.

HW

Tall Ship Festival in Halifax!

If, like us, you were kicking yourself around the room because you couldn't get to the Tall Ship Festival in Nova Scotia this year, then you have come to the right place! Thanks to our East Coast correspondent in the field, Equestrian Julie, we feel like we were there to witness the splendour of the Tall Ships. Enjoy!

HW


Ahoy!

Although a land lubber myself, the sea runs thick in the veins
of my kin, so I headed down to the harbour, feet firmly planted on
boardwalk, to pay homage to the sails and sailors.

The Tall Ships have been visited by over 500,000 people in the last
couple of days, as part of the Tall Ship Festival in Halifax. Although
I didn't get a boarding pass - no time - I managed to snap a few
pictures.

Go here for a closer look at history of each Tall Ship gracing our docks.

Cheerio, mates!

Julie

"We're Really Hikers Now!"

"We're really hikers now!" Scooby kept exclaiming on the march last week, as we explored yet another conservation area we've discovered in our area - the incredible 650 acre Heber Down.


Although we've hiked quite a bit, on this day, the Urchins seemed to assume a new air of confidence and self-reliance. They were independent explorers, discussing things with each other, running ahead, naming species of trees...


Similar to Greenwood, this conservation area is full of amazing groves of cedars and ferns.



Glaciers dragged themselves through here, thoughtfully leaving behind lakes and ponds big and little, and well-placed lookouts for enjoying them.




Water striders and tiny fish seethed in this rocky creek. They could have spent the whole hike right here. We'll go back so they can do just that.



Found a pretty little lover's bridge...



Off they go...



We climbed this rocky path up to see the glacial lake bed of Lake Iroquois.


The forest opened up into this panoramic view...



...and then we heard this ominous rumbling and the sky started to turn black...I snapped this picture and we started running!


We got caught. There was no avoiding it. We still stopped to watch the pretty horses in the pelting rain. We just can't help ourselves.

HW

Waldorf Playroom - Welcome to The Tree House!

Here is The Tree House. Sort of a screened-in porch, this leaf green room has windows stretching along three walls that overlook the forest out back, and a sliding glass door on the fourth that opens into Free Range Academy Central Office.

We get a lot of queries, and a lot of hits from folks searching for information about Waldorf toys. The basic idea is that toys should be simple, (relatively) few, made from natural materials, handmade by humans if possible, and 'open-ended'.

'Open-ended' means the toy encourages imaginative play - the child needs to 'complete' the toy using their mind.


The classic illustrative example is the Silk Play Cloths. Squares and rectangles of coloured silk, of different sizes, become doll clothes, dresses, capes, hats, mermaid costumes, flags, rivers, mountains.... Scooby stuffed a white one into a bucket once and proudly announced she had finished milking her cow.


The Waldorf dolls, which I've already raved about, have simple features so the child can imagine them to be having any emotion. We had ours made by the delightful Joy at Joy's Waldorf Dolls, and I can't say enough nice things about her and her work.


If I may shamelessly support another family business, these are the specific elves that Helen made for us, over at Kinder Dolls. She uses this picture of them on her "about the artist" page but they live at our house and are much loved.


These are Tree Blocks, nice and rustic, sanded smooth and precision cut so they stack properly. All the sensory input of real natural materials, all the safety of modern crap.


Another great open-ended toy, the sack of Herbal Bean Bags, each one a different nasal sensation, used as pillows for toys, furniture for dolls, food for stuffed animals, thrown around like hacky sacks, sniffed...


This deceptively simple thing is All The Math You Need. The latest thing is to count out beads to show how old various people are, and marvel at "How Many Beads Someone Has Been Alive For."


Of course there are puppets, hand puppets, finger puppets....lots of story telling going on...


...and although Waldorf is anti-plastic, and I usually agree, I drew the line at the incredible, anatomically correct German Schleich animals, which were just WAY too cool to ignore.


Imagination is King in the playroom, helped along by little props like this gauzy canopy which becomes so many, many magical things.

HW

Lazy Days of Summer

It's either blistering hot or pouring with rain, but we've been having fun, just kickin' back and soaking up some summertime.

The Urchins have been hangin' by the pool in between thunderstorms. It's amazing how long a simple little plastic pool can keep them cheerfully occupied. I've even been reading a book! Can you imagine.


We've been exploring the neighbourhood, finding and trying out the best parks.


They love puttering in their garden, and Playing in the Mud. Oh, how they have been Playing in the Mud. One must be made of stern stuff to observe this form of play at its pinnacle.



They've been taking care of their garden, watering it, weeding it, raking it, fixing the little twig fences that are trampled down every morning by some mysterious, as-yet-unidentified force or being...


We added some tomato plants, kindly donated by the lovely lady next door.


It's a relaxed and lazy summer, and that's alright, baby.

HW

Canada Day

On July 1st in Canada, we celebrate the day the white man officially stole this great land from the aboriginal people. First we bounce in Bouncy Castles to represent the trampling of ancient cultures....


Then we play "Knock 'em Down" which I believe is self-explanatory. The winner walks away with a smallpox infected blanket...



Then it is traditional to cavort with strangely shaped balloons, the exact historical purpose of which escapes me, but I find them.....fascinating!


Then we release our balloons into the sky, amid much wailing and gnashing of teeth, which represents the sorrow of the elders....


...and in a humourous, self-deprecating way, we acknowledge our imperialistic cruelty by playing "Dunk the White Man!" It's a crowd pleaser.


The day is concluded with glorious fireworks displays, and if you squeeze your eyes tightly shut during the explosions, you can almost hear the rifles mowing down the native women and children as they run screaming from their homes.









Lots of activists trying to make a difference, toiling in the quagmire of poverty and social issues that continue to plague Canada's disenfranchised, original population. Aboriginal populations and cultures worldwide continue to be ground under the wheels of big business. Organizations like Survival International are doing some good work, check them out.

HW

The Graveyard

In true unschooling style, we are seizing the opportunities that happen to bristle around us at any given time.

We live close to a Graveyard.

I've been thinking about this trip for a while, trying to anticipate questions, and mentally preparing answers to them. The wee ones are three and four, so I didn't want to freak them out with awkward, blurted answers. On the other hand, I don't have comforting religious fairy tales to offer them, so I tried to work my own understanding into an age-appropriate Tale of the Circle of Life.

A thoughtful talk was prepared, involving our return to Mother Earth, to the biosphere - our bodies transforming back into energy, into soil, into the grass, trees and sky... I was thinking about using The Boom Tree as an illustration...


Turns out, I was over-zealous in my preparation. They ran from stone to stone, Scooby spelling out the names, Baby Man running his fingers over the carved letters. At the graves of children they looked at the toys left by grieving mothers.



There was a sign reminding us we will all walk this path one day. Or...not walk it....


There's always one.


Lots of Scottish folks here.


We introduced ourselves to the twinkly, chatty, BMW motorcycle riding, sailboat owning Graveyard Keeper Guy. He showed us these stones on top of one of the gravestones and said each stone indicates a visitor, which we thought was beautiful. He also told us his work in the Graveyard keeps him very aware of his mortality and has caused him to change his life in many ways. We were sorry when he hopped on his motorcycle and drove dangerously off, waving.



The gravestones that bother me, are the ones for the Living. Those stones where some much-too-organized person has pre-prepared their marker, carved on their Date of Birth and left a little blank spot for their Date of Death.

I think this conveys a truly shocking lack of optimism...


This, at least, was a bit more positive!


Found a "pauper's grave", an old man in his eighties. There was an honest simplicity to this grave that made it much more touching than the giant glossy granite stones. I hoped this man didn't die alone and forgotten.

We talked about rituals, and memories. We talked about why people leave things on the graves, about the much older graves hidden in the forest behind the main graveyard, and about the pioneers whose bones lie here.


And I counted my blessings and reminded myself not to take our time together for granted.

HW