Interlude: A Knitted Quilt

The amazing group of homeschoolers with whom we attended farm camp has done many projects together. The most recent is this lovely pieced afghan or blanket--made up of 6-inch garter stitch squares made by the children and their parents. (My family had a blast making squares during this season's Snowpocalypse.) Many of the squares were knit from hand spun yarn, and several were hand dyed as well. What a lovely project to work on together!

We auctioned off the quilt to raise money for Haiti Projects, a multi-pronged non-profit working in Fond des Blancs, Haiti. Some of its projects are a craft cooperative that provides work and much needed cash for women, a tuition program to help poor families send their children to school, a family health care clinic which offers planning services to those who wish to control their family's size, a community library to encourage reading skills among local citizens, and a micro-lending program to help farmers borrow money for tools and animal raising.

In 10 days, our homeschooling group sold 143 raffle tickets, raising $1,430 for Haiti Projects!

While we were thrilled that a local kindergarten teacher received the quilt, we were sorry to see it go, too. It has inspired my family to try making our own blanket. The squares have just begun. More details soon!

The Unplugged Schoolhouse

During the month of March, my homeschooled son and I have decided that our "one small change" will be to pull the plug on all electrical use during at least one school day per week.

For a while, my family has celebrated--albeit inconsistently--a weekly powerdown evening where (after the meal is prepared) we spend the rest of the evening together without using electricity. We light the table with beeswax candles, spend time together reading aloud and playing recorder trios and just talking, and go up to bed on the early side. I hope we will get back in the habit this month.

For our unplugged schoolhouse, however, the challenge will be a bit different. My son and I plan to turn off any lights as well as the laptop by 8:3O or 9 am, depending on when we wake up. Everything will stay off until 3:30 or 4. Although these are traditional school times for many children, most of that time is not actually "school" for us. Instead, it is time for music practice, free reading, yoga or running around outside, and other pursuits such as knitting or drawing or folding paper airplanes. (My son would add that his chore of taking out the compost also falls during this time.)

We're honestly fairly removed from a lot of plugged-in entertainment compared to many families, I guess.  We don't own a TV or some game system or anything like that. But significant amounts of our days disappear to the hungry soul of this laptop. We've fallen into the habit of using it as a teacher sometimes--especially enjoying things like Thinkwell and the free Hippocampus. My son loves to watch old Pink Panther cartoons and Buster Keaton movies--as well as Myth Busters--on Netflix instant-watch.  Not that these things are bad; they certainly aren't occasionally.  But too much always seems to leave us further removed from any real-life connection than I think either of us wants.

A powered-down homeschool day also forces us to get out the solar oven and cook in the sun at least one lunch a week.  On days that are very cloudy, we'll have cold sandwiches.

By not starting the day until 8:30, I can make a pot of tea for myself and encase it in my homemade recycled-sweater tea cozy to keep it warm for a while.  Cheating?  Maybe.  But a hot beverage seems to be the only way I can stand freezing our buns off this season.

We're allowing ourselves the liberty of deciding which day to celebrate the unplugged schoolhouse.  Mondays are our free day.  When we are home, it will be ideal.  But we do sometimes go on adventures in downtown DC on Mondays and would therefore be mooching off a museum's electrical supply.  On Tuesdays, my son has a piano lesson at home.  The room with our piano is one of the darker rooms in our house--and our deal is that if it is a cloudy day, it will be perfectly acceptable for my son and his piano teacher to turn on the light in that room during the lesson.  This Tuesday was our first day and although it was cloudy, neither bothered to turn on the lights when they walked in the room.  (The teacher has no idea about this game, by the way.)

Just like last month's small change of not eating out, this day of powerdown is not something I imagine keeping rigidly for the rest of our lives.  Instead, I hope that this month will get us in the habit of relying on ourselves rather than our devices--and making us more conscious of the role of electricity in our lives all the time.

Anyone want to join us?

Are You Game?

We've been having lots of fun and studying homeschool math at the same time with a wonderful game called Equate.It is a game very much like Scrabble but instead of using letters to build words, players use numbers to build equations.

Beginning several years ago, we used the Junior tiles. After using the Junior tiles for a while, players are ready for the regular tiles.

Recently we've started playing with the Advanced tileswhich include negative and positive integers, integer exponents, and more fractions.

It took me a while to get in the swing of thinking about negative exponents again...



For those looking for homeschooling mathematics fun and games, we also love ThinkFun Math Dice.