Bits & pieces

Caren Knox, on how they learn:

I don't even think about learning any more. It's not something I can quantify, or say how it's happening for anyone other than me - and quite frequently, I can't for me, either. It's organic. It's in bits & pieces so small we don't notice.

—Caren Knox

How do they learn?
SandraDodd.com/day/meme/caren
photo by Sandra Dodd
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Swans

Colleen Prieto wrote:

I took this photo the other day. The second Robbie saw it he said right away, "Whoa - that really says something about unschooling there."


I hadn't thought about it as being about unschooling, and so I asked "What's that?"

He answered "Cuz the kid is going ahead of the parent and the parent is coming along where the kid wants to go and, well, it's all metaphorical—you know?"

He sees parallels to his life, even in swans. It makes me happy.

This page has trails to follow: SandraDodd.com/learning
photo by Colleen Prieto

Looking closely

Karen James wrote:

Ethan and I are playing a game where one of us takes a close up picture of something in our yard, and the other one has to find it. Here's a sampling...



Sandra, I thought of this quote from Just Add Light and Stir as I was playing this game with Ethan today: "Some families travel. Some stay in one place, and come to know that place well."

It's interesting too, as I sit here and look at these photos again, that there's not anything particularly exotic about our back yard—it's kind of overgrown and weedy (as you might have guessed from a couple of the photos)—yet it looks so beautiful from this perspective. Especially that middle one. (Ethan was proud of that one.)

More exploring without leaving: SandraDodd.com/museum
The quote first said "...the quote from today's Just Add light..."

photos by Karen and Ethan James

Where and why, gradually gathered

Some families travel. Some stay in one place, and come to know that place well. Consider your resources, histories, friends, relatives and where they live, and why. All those stories, images and artifacts, gradually gathered, will expand your child's view of his own personal world.

Where are you?
photo by Bea Mantovani
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Like the air

Given a rich environment, learning becomes like the air—it's in and around us.



Photo by Sandra Dodd
The quote is the last line of this interview: SandraDodd.com/interview

Basketful of ideas

Used Easter baskets will be on sale everywhere in the Spring for nearly nothing. We have used ours for birdfeeders, storing doll clothes, storing kindling (eventually just burn the basket), rinsing toy dishes outside (water runs out), for hanging plants, or storing socks, caps or hair scrunchies on tops of dressers. While you have those baskets, see if you can look at where they're from, how they're made, and of what material. When weaving pictures or examples of basketry come by, point that out to your children (or just appreciate them yourself).

SandraDodd.com/supplies
Photo by Sandra Dodd (click to enlarge)
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Webs, nets, connections

The terms "web" and "net" have both been commandeered by the internet. The idea of a grid or web or matrix to represent the connections involved in learning and memory is a good one, though—of many "dots" connected in all directions.

The photo here is of the two-dimensional web—very flat—of a garden spider, outside my house this week. Black widow spiders make a web that's three-dimensional, but has no pattern. We have those in our yard, too.

The webs on which our own mental models of the universe are based are more complex—with past and future, emotion and theory, alternative stories and secondary theories. We have sounds and songs, scents and tastes to remember, and can sort things by temperature or texture, in our minds and imaginations.

Rejoice in the random!

SandraDodd.com/random
photo by Sandra Dodd
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