Poi Workshops

A couple of weeks ago we celebrated Yule with some friends. Part of our festivities included fire twirling:

What better skill for our freakshow of unschooled children to learn?! Art that burns! Anyway, we asked Loz (our firey friend who organises local twirling get togethers) how to get started and she suggested putting tennis balls in the ends of knee high socks to create home made poi.

First we practiced at home:

It is a lot of fun, whether you're 3 years old or 28. But, you need more room than a lounge room can provide. Next we headed to the beach with Sarah Jane and her girls:

Sarah Jane about 2 seconds before she hit herself in the head

And of course, we practiced outdoors at home:

Using poi for elephant trunks is also a big hit

After practicing at home with our socks and balls, we joined the local fireies and had a go at glowstring poi, the fire staff, twirling glow sticks and we watched in awe at friends with fire poi:

5 of our fire twirling friends at play

Sarah Patrticia with poi

Loz dancing

Harri with glow sticks, Sarah Patricia with glowstring poi

Harri with the fire staff

Sarah Patricia with poi

Harri dancing to her friend's poi-ing

Bubby loved watching the fire

Harri twirling glow sticks, Mumma with poi

Friend with the glowstring poi

Someone also brought their drums along, Harri had a great time thumping out her own beats.

Our friends are hoping to get together one night every month for a fire twirling/poi/drum night, so we've decided a set of our own poi would be a wise investment. And maybe down the track some fire twirling gear too.

Home Made Face Paint

Last week I discovered the I can teach my child blog. It's a great hub of ideas for fun activities kids enjoy. Knowing our eldest's love of painting herself, I thought she's get a kick out of home made face paint. We invited some friends around to share the fun.

A great time was had; it was a gorgeous afternoon. We found that the actual recipe for making the paint didn't work so well. We ended up with hardened clumps setting in liquid or little dry clumps. Instead we mixed water and corn flour together with a fork until we got a consistency we felt was close enough to paint. Then we poured the white mix into egg carton spaces and the kids added food dye, mixed and started painting. (Harri was big on painting 'dinosuars' on herself and I.

When the kids were finished they had a run around in the long grass, all rainbow and laughing (and some divine singing too). We're looking forward to doing it all again sometime soon.

Unschool Uniform: headware

For a long Winter's day

• pink baby beanie
• long sleeved shirt 
• rainbow fairy dress
• naked cabbage patch kid baby, wrapped in wet tea towel
• jeans (not pictured)
• sneakers (not pictured)
• no jacket

Around the world in 80 Plates: Turkey

Our family has been inspired by the girls' interstate Godparents. They've been doing "Worldly Wednesday", each week they pick a different country to learn about and use a recipe from that country to make the family meal. Such a fun idea! It gives us something else to look forward to each week, inspires us to share cooking and shopping for that meal together, and adds to our menu.

We took a look at Harriet's world globe and had a chat about where we live and what "countries" are. She had a close look at one particular region and then pointed her finger to Turkey. I would love to be able to get into her brain and find out why it was Turkey that captured her imagination. Whatever the reason, we had our place to research.

She and Daddy surfed the net for info about Turkey, including a bigger image of the map. Harri was fascinated by the map and felt inspired to draw her own.

We found many Turkish recipes online and settled on Ali Nazik and a tahini spinach salad. We also toasted some Turkish pide. We prepared the meal together, to the sound of Turkish music found through youtube. Our cat sniffed the computer as if to ask "what is making those strange sounds?", Harri appreciated it though. She broke out into some funky (yoga inspired) break-dance moves.

Harri tried a handful of new skills. She grated lemon zest, cut avocados, crushed garlic and juiced a lemon. Using the electric juicer for the first time was definitely the highlight of her night. Once she started using that she stayed there until it was time to eat. She had a ball grabbing anything she could find on the bench and trying to juice it: "Juicing is fun!" she squealed at one point.

With all hands on deck it didn't take long to make dinner. We sat down together and began filling our plates. We had a salad of: spinach, red onion, avocado and sliced almonds, with an option dressing of: tahini, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic. Our main dish was a mince beef tray with roasted eggplant and green capsicum, yoghurt, paprika and butter, with a side of toasted Turkish pide. Our kitchen smelt fantastic!

Big thanks to The Owlets for great inspiration.

Our Classrooms

As natural learners we understand that the whole world is a classroom ;) Here are some of our daughters' recent learning spaces.

By a fire

Daddy's lap

a trampoline

Lounge room

Friend's backyard

Our backyard

Stove-top

If you share pics of your childrens' classrooms this week, be sure to leave a link in the comments section so we can come check it out and say hi :)

Milestone Monday: Name Recognition

At 10:30 on the dot we race into the library, just in time for the beginning of story time. As we enter the kids section we pause to grab Harri's name tag from the canvas sign where they are pinned.

Me: Hey Harri, would you like to grab your name tag today?
Her: Awight! (glee evident)

She pauses for a moment, taking in all the tags. So many colours and letters and styles of hand writing. She's determined, but struggling. Librarians are ushering us to the allocated floor space for story time and Harri is getting frustrated.

Me: Do you remember which colour you chose for your name tag?
(Something clicks immediately and Harri reaches for her tag).
Me: That's the one.
Someone's Dad: Wow.
Me: Yeah, wow, right!? I wasn't expecting that either *smiles*

Natural learning in action.

I'm joining in Owlet's Unschool Monday

Unschool Uniform

For Winter afternoon classes

• long sleeved hoodie shirt, with hood on
• rainbow tulle fairy crown
• short sleaved cotton dress (a size too small)
• jeans
• 1 men's sport sock in white
• 1 mutli-colour striped baby sized leg warmer, worn as sock

And that, my friends, is an unschool smile