Here is a great post at Simple Homeschool on the comfort of books.
The Jibbers likes sparkly pink. He also likes to wear his shirt backwards. When I asked him why, he told me that some of the pictures are scary. Now he’s in a phase where it’s freezing in Arizona and he wants to go shirtless. He asked me to go shirtless too – I said no. I don’t know why he insists on wearing his dark blue shorts (luckily we have three pairs of them) and no shirt, but that’s him.
He likes to ‘draw’ which means to colour and draw in preschool talk. He uses only one colour at a time: just red, then just black, then just blue. When he does draw in his little notebook, it is one big splotch that could also be Mama or Papa or whatever he decides, just be sure to ask him first before you comment.
The Jibbers catches bugs. Lots of them. He runs outside and in a matter of five minutes (“How many seconds?”) his fists are full of bugs, much to my chagrin. He will watch their legs, and their antennae and their bodies when he accidentally squishes them – we’re still trying to get him to be gentle with them. I’ll keep a ‘bug holder’ in the hopes of saving a few. We’ll be earwigs or crickets or cockroaches for the day. Ew. But he likes it.
He will stretch two pairs of socks on his hands and feet and dig in the laundry like an armadillo. He’ll crawl on all fours like a grizzly bear, and wave his arm like the trunk of an elephant.
He takes apart everything; a pen, an old radio, his sewing machine, his toy ship and the bathroom sink faucet. He just wants to know how things work and where does the water come from.
Whenever we have to leave him for a couple of minutes to use the bathroom or after putting him to bed he asks: “How long?” “Two minutes.” “How many seconds?” “120 seconds.”
Inspired by I Don’t Understand, So I’ll Let You Be.
Image source can be found here.
“I was recently told of an African tribe that does the most beautiful thing. When someone does something hurtful and wrong, they take the person to the center of… town, and the entire tribe comes and surrounds him. For two days they’ll tell the man every good thing he has ever done. The tribe believes that every human being comes into the world as GOOD, each of us desiring safety, love, peace, ha ppiness. But sometimes in the pursuit of those things people make mistakes. The community sees misdeeds as a cry for help. They band together for the sake of their fellow man to hold him up, to reconnect him with his true Nature, to remind him who he really is, until he fully remembers the truth from which he’d temporarily been disconnected: “I AM GOOD”.”
Image source can be found here. More information can be found at www.rawforbeauty.com.
“Just as it is the hungry child, not the satisfied child, who craves food, it is unmet needs that lead to attention seeking behaviors and unspoken approval that can create ‘praise junkies’ as the unpraised child seeks to fill the very human need we all have for validation.
Just as with adults, and specifically with those of us who are writers, children need to know they are being heard and appreciated. A ‘like’ on a post to us is like a pat on the back to a child, and a “Well said!” to a writer is like a “Good job!” to a child. In the same way that these acknowledgements don’t undermine our driving passions, but support and encourage them, spontaneous and sincere expressions of appreciation to a child don’t undermine a child’s passion to learn and grow and become. It is, in fact, the exact opposite. A parent’s sincere, spontaneous praise encourages and motivates a child to blossom in the warmth of their approval.”
Full post on the importance of praise can be found here.
This is a beautiful, thought-provoking, eloquent post about the sacrifice that good teachers are willing to make.
“In truth, our souls are just about as self-sacrificial as souls come, and it is this part of us that you witnessed last Friday in Rachel Davino, Dawn Hochsprung, Anne Marie Murphy, Lauren Rousseau, Mary Sherlach, and Victoria Soto. Yes, they paid the ultimate price, but we want you to understand that what they did on Friday was a natural outpouring of what they were already practicing: a dedication of their lives to your children. It is generally true that if one is going to die for another, he or she is first willing to live for that person. These women did just that.”
Read the full letter to America here.
“There is a lot to be said for, and gained from, online learning. But learning is a social endeavor and while I don’t believe attendance should be regular or compulsory, there is no available technology to replace the value of face-to-face interaction.
“Compass is a wonderful example of a form this type of Learning Center could take. And it is important that the emphasis is on learning, which is something people do for themselves, because they want to, and education, which is something that is done to people.
“This way’ education’ is much more fluid, it starts with and spreads out from the learner, and can be organized and adapted as it goes along. There would no longer be any need for oceans of red tape to be hacked through by lobbyists as though they were Sleeping Beauty’s prince hacking through the forest of thorns. After perhaps years of campaigning, to slay the dragon of the old curriculum, only to find something else was wrong, and would take another gargantuan bureaucratic battle.”
A great idea for education and learning. Self-directed learning is a very strong foundation of unschooling and one of the necessary tools in developing life-long learning and motivation. Read the full concept here on Educoup.com.
Watch the video and follow the beautiful and powerful story of a young girl and her quest for education for all. Truly inspirational and humbling.
A video about the education system in Pakistan and Malala Yousafzai. Although, a good number of Pakistanis are highly educated in urban centres, the facts show an astounding story for the whole country. This video presents the facts on the education emergency that exists in Pakistan and the role Malala Yousafzai is playing in changing things for the better.
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