Learning

It's August already! Hope everyone is enjoying summer. We have so many pictures to upload since Miles has been back with gramma & papa, we've been on a roadtrip to San Diego to Las Vegas and back. It's been so much fun, visiting family and meeting relatives he's never met before. And it feels really good to have him back home.

Since he's been back from Hawaii, his interest in fungi has grown and he asked me one night, "When are we gonna have homeschool? I want to still learn about the ocean but also about fungi...mushrooms!" Sounds like a plan to me. Kat, from my LFDV crew, is also a piano teacher. She told me about her approach to teaching piano. Instead of starting with the usual classical approach, she asks each student what they want to learn. One of her students was only interested in learning ABBA songs so--she told him to bring ABBA cds to class and they'd begin. That approach to teaching in general resonated with me, relating to how we've approached homeschool with Miles. Instead of us coming up with subjects to "teach" him, we roll with whatever it is that he's interested in. If he feels like doing art, he does art. If he feels like playing outside, we go outside. And now, we are going to learn more about these fun guys. Mushrooms.

(one of the pages from his Bug City book he made in March)

We took a Saturday trip to our local library to turn in his summer reading club book list and also to look up mushroom books. The librarian laughed when I told her, "Please make sure they are kid-friendly," cause as soon as the list pulled up on the computer screen, there were several Psychedelic mushroom guide books. Ha! Oh boy..So anyway, she was kind enough to lend us a reference book, making a special exception for Miles when she saw how excited he was to see just how many different types of shrooms were identified in that book.

Miles has also spent some time molding mushrooms of various shapes and sizes out of clay. "Look mom, this one looks like the mushrooms in the wood chips at our playground." And I told him, "Some of these wood chips must come from trees where mushrooms love to grow from..like parasites." Parasites are also another favorite subject of his (think it has to do with when I was studying for microbiology). I'm so glad he doesn't want to study about those.

Gramma was thoughtful enough to bring back some mushrooms from the grocery store the other night (and also a mushroom printed towel from Crate & Barrel :). He woke up this morning, learning that their was a surprise in the fridge. When he saw the brown mushrooms, he shrieked. Gramma suggested cutting them down the center to see what it looks like but Miles told her, "I don't want to hurt them or make them dead. They're alive."

I suggested to Miles, that we make a list of things he loves and would like to learn more about. He said after mushrooms, "I'll probably want to learn more about cactus and the different kinds."