Oct 28, 2019

Can't Stop Learning!

Every day! There's nothing we can do!

We've never had a curriculum. Don't follow a guide. No tests, grades or required work. But the learning never stops! I keep thinking I'll run out of things to write about, but we discover so much every single day, I now know that's impossible!

This Week I started a new Freeschoolin Journal as our old one was full. I love recording our days in this adorable book I can use as reference and a keepsake for our Unschool days. If you're local, I often have these in stock at a cheaper price so contact me!

Our family did our bi monthly local shop gathering meat and eggs from a few places, including Nicholyn Farms! We got to hang with Oakley, their dog, and play on their playground after we did our shopping.

We attended an annual Ghost Bus Event where Hope did crafts, joined a dance party, checked out a fire truck and braved a walk or two through the haunted city bus.

Our Unschool friends came to visit and we helped care for their baby mouse, adventured outside and had fun together with beads, water and dinosaur toys. All ages socialization is our jam. We learn so much from being with friends of all ages, from baby to adult.

I surprised Jaze with a trip to a nearby resort, Blue Mountain, that I had planned for a month in advance. We hiked up the mountain with our homeschool friends and enjoyed their Plunge Aquatic Centre afterwards. The wonderful trip organizer even set up a scavenger hunt/puzzle where Hope had to solve a math question. She'd never seen anything like it before but did almost all of it on her own, excitedly. Our homeschool group assisted her anytime she needed help with reading, even though most are not unschoolers. We are so grateful for the support for our style of education and lack of judgement directed our way. We all had a amazing time.

We run a LARP production company, L.A.S.T. Productions, through which we host a variety of games. This weekend we played L.A.S.T. Halloween where Jaze was the killer Mikel Miers and we had an hour to escape or hide to outLAST the time limit. If you live, you win! So much to learn from these games! It's played in the dark so we're using our night vision, we're practicing risk assessment, keeping track of our health points, deciding what paths to take to find the elements to escape, managing fear emotions, getting active and more. And all while playing! "Scientists have recently determined that is takes approximately 400 repetitions to create a new synapse in the brain - unless it is done through play, in which case it takes between 10 and 20 repetitions." - Dr Karyn Purvis

And though we had such a busy week, there was a free animal opportunity at Wild Birds Unlimited by Soper Creek Wildlife Rescue, and of course Hope wanted to attend so we headed of on Sunday morning to meet a baby skunk, a baby porcupine, catch up with Stella the Opossum, have a pigeon on our head and pet a baby red fox who was actually dark, near black in colour. We learned that many red foxes are not red, that skunks are illegal as pets in Ontario and that pigeons can't be touched because of the oils on our hands and the damage it does to their feathers.