Sometimes with homeschool, as in life, things just fall together in a way that makes us see the divine in everything. I call this serendipity. We started out the year with so many dreams, tools, and ideas. But never fully knowing how things will turn out. Today, our friend Serendipity took us for a ride and it was a fabulous example of how intuitive, organic schooling can be such a great thing. If it hadn't been for one grouchy kid, it would have been perfect. Maybe it was better, being more real because of it. Who needs perfection?
Walking home yesterday I remembered a stalk of mullein that I had been eying. It wasn't just any weedy wooly mullein, but a large leafed popcorn mullein. It had mostly dried up and had hard brown seed pods all the way up. With the help of a friend and his pocket knife I brought home a sizeable piece of stalk and lay it on top of the schoolroom shelf. When it came time to start school this morning there were tiny black seeds scattered all over the top of the shelves. Finding it was simple inspiration. Today we would talk about seeds. I remembered a book Ada had from last year called "A Seed is Sleepy" and asked her to go get it.
We start out every school day with a word of the day. It gives Leonardo and Astor some great writing practice and sometimes we come up with a word that even Ada and Nahuel don't know the meaning of. Like today, our word was 'Humidity'. Yesterday started with the word Sprout. We read the book A Seed is Sleepy" and it was a perfection. There qualities of a seed are portrayed, from wise to adventurous and inventive. Seeds find diverse ways to continue on the cycle of their DNA. Leonardo's seed sprouting activity, which of course, everyone partook of, was a natural follow-up. But we decided to take it a bit further and do a little experiment, comparing old seeds and new seeds. We have a can of white wheat that had probably sat in Grandma and Grandpas storage for 2 decades and we've been wondering how much the time has affected the seeds. A 'Seed is Sleepy" talks about how seeds can lay 'sleepy' and dormant for a long time, depending on the kind of seed. We also have a new bucket of wheat from Costco that we opened a few days ago. We'll try sprouting both wheats and compare how they each do. We watched a few you-tube videos about seed sprouting. Most of the you-tube videos were for fodder for animals, but we'll probably use ours for bread. Astor and Leonardo were the most active participants by far.
And later on we went on a seed hunt, collecting and labeling seeds from all over the irrigation ditch.
The most serendipitous part of the lesson was during our reading/coloring time. We're currently halfway through The Education of Little Tree. Ada and Nahuel sometimes remind me that 'son of a bitch' is a swear word...and I'm glad that even in Sanpete County, I can offer them some diverse cultural elements through literature and hopefully teach them not to take themselves so seriously that a simple swear word breaks their whole spirit...This is the first time I've read this book and I've been waiting for a few parts where the wisdom of nature would present itself in the narrative. Today we happened upon this passage as we read:
"Different kinds of seeds are born at different body heats in Mon-o-lahs womb. When she first begins warming only the tiniest flowers come through. But as She warms, more, bigger flowers are born and the sap starts running up in the trees, making them swell like a woman at birthing time until they pop open their buds." p 101
We've talked about some of the different kinds of seeds that we've seen and how they have adaptations to get them through the wind and and into soil. We decided to change the place of the bird feeder, as it doesn't seem any birds have found it in our window. We got the microscope out and tried to look at some different seeds under it. Now that it's out we'll probably keep it out, as the kids are constantly curious to know what different things look like under it.
