Screen-Free Week? Not Here!

All I've been hearing lately is about this "screen-free week" and all the "research" about how watching too much TV, playing too many games, and being in front of too many screens is bad for child development. Parents are encouraged to restrict screen time for kids, encouraging them to seek their information fun elsewhere. 

Now, I am all for learning from a wide variety of sources, but I can't imagine restricting screen time with my kids. They use the Internet and television every, single day, and I encourage it. They learn so much from the Internet, from Netflix, from You Tube, from Minecraft, and from Google, that to take away screens would be to take away learning. 

I have seen what kids do when they are screen-restricted. They use the little time they do have on fun games, and they don't bother with anything even remotely educational. If I restricted screens with my kids, they would only watch their favorite shows, not branch out and watch documentaries, because that would eat up their "fun time." They would be electronically stunted. Some may say that's okay. I disagree, especially in the age of information our kids are going to inherit. If I limited their screen time, they'd be on Facebook, not looking up the stability of bedrock. They'd be glued to the Sims, or Candy Crush, or whatever game they were playing, not playing with Scratch to build websites. ALL of those are okay, and that's actually my point: Why limit it? It's ALL okay, and ALL good, and ALL purposeful!

In the past twenty-four hours, here are some of the many ways screens have been used in our home:

• Bay's taking a math course online (I don't even think this "counts" as it's SCHOOLish, and I don't think that even the staunchest supporters of screen-free week would take math away from a child). Still, there it is. 
• Bay's recently discovered new music love, Hoodie Allen. Bay spent some time reading lyrics, watching videos, learning his music. FOLLOWING HER PASSION. Hoodie Allen is NOT available in any book. If I kept her off the Internet, she never would have found him. She has since turned her friends on to Hoodie Allen. 
• Tuna's Minecraft account. She just loves Minecraft. She studies it. I mean really, really studies it. She watches tutorial videos and learns new techniques just about every day. She really does learn things from Minecraft. The other day, we were walking through the concrete and stone section of the local nursery and she asked me if bedrock was unbreakable. I mean, I have no idea! So I told her I don't know (I don't know are three of the best words I can use with my kids. It tells them I am not all-knowing and I am in it to learn with them) and encouraged her to Google it and let me know. When we got home, she Googled it. The answer: Bedrock is unbreakable! P.S. Stay tuned! Tuna is getting ready to start her own Minecraft Tutorial You Tube acocunt!
• Tuna and I watched some really cool documentaries on Netflix. It's kind of out nightly "thing" we do together. Last night, we watched Ultimate Predator and Feeding Frenzy. We learn SO MUCH science and history through the documentaries we watch. I can't imagine getting rid of them. It's fascinating stuff and we both enjoy it. 
• Today, Bay and I watched the documentary, "Secrets of the Body Farm" on You Tube because she's fascinated with forensic science. We learned a lot about human decomposition, blow flies, coffin flies, cadaver dogs, and the investigatory processes involved in finding a homicide victim and figuring out time and cause of death. 
• We plan to go on a hike tomorrow, so we're looking up how to do geocaching, because we've never done it. We figure it's worth a shot. The Internet is teaching us how to do it AND connecting us to geocache clues. 
• Later, Tuna and I will watch more documentaries. Bay will probably memorize more lyrics. Tuna will play Minecraft. I will be online. 

We love screens. They teach us a tremendous amount of things. Being screen-free would feel, to us, like intellectual prison, limiting our personal growth and boxing us into a world that has limits. We prefer to live with none. 

Imagine life without screens. You wouldn't be here, reading this. And that would be a bummer. ;)

Feral Children

(No, not my own.)

Let me show you an example of how child-led learning happens. 

Tuna's favorite section at the library is the weird true stories section. She brings home several different books each week on the topic. Last week, she brought home Spooky Mysteries You Wouldn't Want to Know About (Top Ten Worst), and has kept it in the car to read while we drive around. 

Today, she read the section about the Wild Child, and asked me if I'd ever heard about him. I told her that I recall some vague details, so I must have heard about him at some point. She read me the section about the Wild Child of Aveyron, Victor, and we decided we'd google him when we got home. 

So, we did. 

We found information about Victor on Wikipedia, and more information about a movie about Victor, and that led us to search for the movie. It's from 1970, and it's in French. Tuna is hunting for a version with English subtitles, but here's the one we found:

We found information on another feral child, called Genie, and found a Nova film about her. 

Tuna told me she learned that Victor was abandoned by his parents because of mental retardation and that they left him for dead. This opened up a conversation about how parenting has changed over time, and what we thought of that situation. We also talked about how he learned to adapt and survive. 

It was a fascinating experience for us both. We both learned a lot and had a great time, together, doing it. 

All of this happened naturally, no worksheets, no textbooks, nothing forced. I simply provided her the search engine and we explored the rest ourselves, until we were done. We have not finished. We plan to reconnect later tonight and look at some more footage. 

I love learning this way with my girls!

'Learn Free' (an unschooling documentary)

Rock Candy, Anime, and Dreams of Australia

The girls made rock candy. It took over a week for their crystals to grow to a reasonable size, and today, they took them out of the syrup  with admiration. 

One of Bay's passions is drawing, and she loves to draw anime. She practices a lot and is getting quite good!

And finally, our latest adventure. Bay wants to go visit Australia. We've got feelers out in the unschoolish world to find her a host family to stay with. We have to raise funds and work on legal requirements. If anyone has any advice or ideas, please share them with me. We can't do bake sales in Germany, so that is out. Bay tutors, but has just one client, and that brings in only $20 a month. I need ideas. If you're reading, no idea is too small. Please, I need input. :)

Wood Shop, Agriculture, Physical Education, and Culinary Arts

If schools can give fancy names to their courses, so can I. Today, we had wood shop, agriculture, phys. ed., and culinary arts.

Wood Shop

I'm in the process of renovating some furniture I don't love. I bought this table at The Salvation Army thrift shop five years ago with the intention of stripping it down and repainting it.

 

I'm finally getting around to it, and I'm enlisting the help of my kids. They learned how to use my sander today, and they learned that it's hard work to sand corners by hand. We didn't even come close to finishing this project. It'll take  couple of weeks. When it's fully sanded, we're going to paint it grey and white stripes. We have a new knob for the drawer, as well.

 

My kitchen table is a touchy subject. Once upon a time, in a land far, far away from here (in Georgia, precisely), I let my bully mother-in-law convince me that my husband needed a new kitchen table and chairs for his birthday because my high-top bar table and chairs (solid cherry wood, and I loved it) was unsuitable for company. So she bought me a chintzy table and chairs that looks like it has toes. Granted, it was free. But I miss my old table. The wood is bubbled up and the fabric on the chairs is hideous. So I'm going to sand it and paint it bright cherry red. The chairs' fabric arrived in the mail yesterday. It's red and cream chevron pattern duck cloth. The kids will help with the sanding, painting, and reupholstery work. They're pretty excited about the final product.

Of note: the in-laws are coming for a visit this summer. I wonder what monster- ..I mean mother-in-law will have to say about my project.


Also, I bought a three-drawer chest for $5 at a used furniture sale. It's solid wood, very sturdy. It was a great bargain. But the pattern of the staining and the hardware on it make it look like it stepped out of the eighties. New hardware and new paint (same white and grey stripe job, as it is going in the same room) will breathe new life into it. Another thing my kids are learning: Buy cheap, buy used, and transform your bargain into a masterpiece.

Agriculture

Spring has arrived in Germany! Today, we planted our carrots and lettuce, and started some more lettuce and some parsnips in starter pots. Later this summer, we're going to have some good eats! The kids helped plant and learned about fertilizer, seed depth (ooh, math! in real life!), spacing, and crop yield.

 

 

Physical Education

I don't push this one. I don't feel like kids need a class in running around. Tuna skated and Bay ripsticked (I know Blogger spell check is going to love that word). There you have it. Gym.

Culinary Arts

The kids and I volunteer at the thrift shop. We found a pasta rolling machine. So, today, we tried our hands at fresh pasta, for the very first time. See? Adults can learn, too!

 

 

This good stuff is destined for a creamy broccoli-garlic sauce mmmmmm

There you have it. Our "school day" is done (not really...we never stop learning around here). We've learned so much more than those kids learn in that big brick box down the road. And we've had fun doing it (and we absorbed lots of vitamin D in the process).

Tomorrow: volunteering and reading, preferably outside in the sun. Happy Hump Day, everyone. :)





 

Monday, Monday

It was back to normal for us as Charles returned to work after a week off. Little Tuna had a hard time getting out of bed this morning. We read a lot today: Tuna and I read The Story of the World and Cupid and Psyche (a great love story, beautiful illustrations, highly recommend it), and Life of Fred. We played with the sticker album and stickers we collect: It's a Germany sticker album, and we get a new pack of stickers for every 5 Euro I spend at the grocery store called Rewe. We're working on collecting them all and translating the captions.

Bay and I took Sylvia Plath outside to soak up the sunshine. Today's the warmest day yet, with the bluest sky I've seen in Germany in the six months we've lived here.

We also went and applied for our tourtist passports this afternoon, so in a month or two, our "field trips" are going to start being places like The Louvre, Royal Albert Music Hall, and the streets of Greece!

Everywhere we went today, people were outside raking, tilling, pulling weeds, planting things, riding bikes, walking, and enjoying the weather. 

still messy in front, but our herb garden is planted. In the pots: dahlias. Around the outside: lavender, mint, rosemary, and thyme. 

Yesterday, we put in our front yard garden. The kids helped. Whenever we unearthed a worm, they rehomed him into one of our pots, to help keep the soil fertile. 


Bay helped me hang my boot gaden and Tuna helped plant the herb garden. 

I like the way the boot garden turned out. 

We still have our veggies to plant: peas, carrots, parsnips, salad greens, and Brussels sprouts. The Brussels sprouts, I'm told, are difficult to grow. But I like a challenge. 

What's in your garden this year? Do your kids help?

What we did on spring break...

Charles had a week off from work for spring break, so we took advantage of the time together, hopped a train and went exploring.

We went to Nürnberg, home of the Nazi War Crimes Tribunal. It was a rich history lesson for all of us. 

Here is Courtroom 600, the courtroom where the tribunal took place. It's been remodeled, of course, as it is still in use today as a courtroom. But the general sense of what it looked like was easy to imagine. The defendants sat in the box to the right of the large doorway. There's an elevator in the box for secure entry and exit of prisoners (can you see the door?). I've studied Nazi Germany for almost two decades. Entering this courtroom was emotionally overwhelming to me. I actually cried. I felt embarrassed for crying, but the flood gates were opened and I let loose. The feeling of being there is somber, tremendously moving... I don't know how to word the feeling. Just...go there yourself if you ever get the chance. 

Bay admitted complete boredom here. As you can see, she is less than enthused about sitting here while Tuna and I (Charles, too, to a lesser extent) sat in awe of history. Tuna listened attentively to her audio tour. I listened to a bit of it but was too overwhelmed to continue. 

The city is full of interesting (weird) statues. 

The famous golden fountain (which was never actually a working fountain at all!). Ornate. Pretty. 

I love finding smiles in inanimate objects! We spotted this fella from the top of the castle, through my camera's zoom. 

The girls are sitting on rock at the base of the castle. We got a fascinating tour of the well house, which was guarded securely, because the Germans were concerned with poisoning plots against them. The well was crazy-deep. I don't remember how deep it was. The tour guide lowered lit candles down into the bottom of the (still full of fresh water) well so we could see how far down it went. The other demonstration he conducted was pouring a pitcher of water into the well. It took the water a full five or six seconds to hit the well water! Tuna asked the guide about the oxygen levels in the well, and expressed concern about how the workers survived. It was all chiseled through solid rock by hand. The tour guide was knowledgeable in the oxygen topic and even told Tuna exactly how far down oxygen can typically be found (a little bit further than the well was dug). Later, I asked Tuna how she thought to ask that question. She reminded me of the scene in one of our Little House books when Pa and the neighbor were digging the well and they send a candle down each day to check for oxygen. That was a nice reminder that the way we're learning really works. We do sticky learning. ;)

Along the same lines: We took a break sitting on some monument steps. The monument was this one here:

It's a monument to Wilhelm the First, who was the first emperor of Germany. We needed a rest, and he offered it.

Tuna took off her shoes and gave herself a massage. :)

Bay sprawled out on the monument steps and soaked in the newly-found sunshine (it's springtime!). I had no idea who Wilhelm was, and I asked about him aloud. Bay knew who he was and explained to me the changes in German government throughout history. And she's not even really that "into" history! Sticky learning! Yay!

We really enjoyed ourselves. Not every moment was rich in history or educationally-motivated. We just went to have a great, memorable day together. It was a "bucket list" city for us. We spent a good part of the day shopping, eating (being next door to Italy does have its perks, lemmetellya!), and goofing around. 

It's so cool that I don't have to force-feed information to my daughters, because they absorb real-world experiences like thirsty sponges. 

Now then, I'm off to enjoy the final day of spring break with my family. We're sanding and painting furniture and putting in a garden today. The temperature is supposed to hover around 65F. Enjoy your day!