Hi. I follow a number of substacks now and often forget why I follow people here until I’m halfway through their note. So just to recap…this is a substack primarily about homeschooling. We use of a mix of curriculum, Classical Conversations, and relaxation. Our family of six lives in Vermont in the United States. Today’s note is about our first day back to school after holiday and vacation.
We’re going to do a little school today, I announced on a Friday to three sleeping figures at 9am. Like what, came the muffled response. Some reading—probably the Story of the World and Wind in the Willows. “I don’t want to read that anymore,” remarked the 8yr old. “Ever since we watched the Disney short, now we know the ending.” -That was your idea, remember, I said. “You agreed we would still finish the book if we watched it together. And we don’t know the ending.”
Meditative silence came back from the pillows.
To let you into my interior conversation on our first day back—I started reading Hunt, Gather, Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff over Christmas break. My Aunt Libby gifted it to me and all of my siblings, and cousins, as her book of the year. I am a quarter of the way into the book, thanks to a few drives and some time on a plane. The writer visits families in several different countries in rural areas to observe in a detailed manner how they raise their children. I agree 100% with the writer’s premise that Americans are very confused about how to raise children to be stable, happy, contributing members to society. Moreover, Americans have no idea how to be calm companionable partners with their children as they grow. So while I typically do not pick up books in the parenting advice genre, I was delighted to see this one.
So far the described observations have encouraged asking the children to do nearly everything with you as you make your way through the daily litany of household task. Either to watch you do it, or to do it alongside you. So as I went about my day, I took extra emphasis to stop and ask someone to do it with me when I began a task.
And indeed the task list seemed to unroll as I looked around that morning—three suitcases of laundry, a fridge of spoiled holiday food leftovers to clean out, and first-day-back-to-school thresholds to cross like getting back out into nature in twenty degrees after a week in tropical climates, and restarting science fair experiments. The house felt scrubbed of Christmas things, empty in a strange way, but cozy against the freezing temperatures outside. My psyche was filled to the brim with holiday memories—a cold plunge into ice water after an afternoon eating and drinking with friends, a huge pyre fire with the children on solstice eve bundled against the freezing air, midway through a sweet pageant of music watching my youngest march off stage to ask me WHAT was in the wisemen’s gifts…
And here, January has begun.
After our morning readings together, which ended up being super engaging as we genuinely love all our usual books (“Let’s read the Black Death chapter again”), as well as learning about element number one: hydrogen, I asked the 8yr old to start a thank you note. She came back with a note she’d dictated to the ipad, wondering if she should add an apostrophe to “Barnes and Noble gift card.” I said: let’s not in this case. She went away with it and five minutes later she was reading aloud to me from the Hazardous Tales about the Alamo. Did you just switch from thank you notes to Hazardous Tales? I asked. -Yes.
I let it go, since my suggestion to the 10yr to write a sentence and diagram it was already keeping me busy. She’d worked in a prepositional phrase where I had anticipated a direct object. Now I was turned around, literally and figuratively, as I was emptying the fridge of dishes of rotten leftovers from before Christmas while we talked through it.
After we unscrambled that, I used my newfound skill of “come, clean this with me” to ask her to help me wash out all the dishes of rotten food. There was some sort of sticky residue on the fridge shelf that needed scrubbing. One of the 10yr old’s passions are cleaners and declutters on Youtube. Her notes on their cleaning recipes are the most tidy and clear notes I’ve ever seen her take. Last semester she did a three minute presentation to her co-op class on cleaning chemicals that can turn toxic when improperly mixed. On the way home she reported, “Mom, guess what their first question was? Which one of these have you tried? Were they not listening! I just said they were poisonous!!”
However this passion of hers does not immediately apply to actual cleaning, thus her reluctance to join the admittedly gross project. “After we do this, can I make a degreasing cleaner that I’ve been wanting to make?” she asked. Absolutely, I said, using yet another Hunt, Gather, Parent principal: do not discourage participation no matter how initially messy it is. Her recipe was one pump dish cleaner, a spoonful of baking soda and warm water. She set to work on the stovetop, which needs cleaning any moment of any given day of the week and looked tremendously better afterward.
The 12yr old was engaged with her ongoing experiments with gelatin, experimenting with making it stronger and weaker. This is for her science fair which is just a few weeks away. She has largely not enjoyed the process because the experiments have, naturally, not gone according to plan. She also downloaded the Bible app by YouVerison, which has a lovely setup for a “read the Bible in a year in chronological order” plan. I had mentioned to her that I was going to try to do it, and wondered if she would want to try. I am not overly expectant about the results—a year is a long time—but it was nice to see her setting it with her own interest. She had also gone through her email and wanted to review with me what she needed to fill out for theater next week.
After spending 30 minutes outside (yes, we timed it) looking at water in various shapes and designs frozen along the edge of our yard, we settled into a quiet time. The older girls turned on their audio book and set to work folding a pile of vacation laundry (that I had placed in the living room) without being asked, illustrating another observation of Hunt Gather Parent, which is that the tasks children have been entrusted with from a young age—i.e. encouraged to do and rarely corrected in their methodology—they will willingly take part in to help the household, often unrequested. While I cannot claim I’ve let them cook alongside me for every meal, laundry is one of those things I have always asked for help with, and so I quietly noted to myself that the older girls clearly felt this was a way they could contribute to the household and I wondered what else I might not be noticing…
After quiet time bolstered by tea, I resolved to tackle the last of the suitcase bits and pieces. But I stopped myself before moving quickly through a little dinner prep on my own beforehand. I asked the 8yr old, calling to her from the other room, to salt the chicken with me. She skipped in to watch. I showed her how I cut the bag open in the sink and dump the chicken out to rinse it, and then arrange it in a dish, and shower it with salt, and then wash the scissors and my hands with soap and hot water. “And then the chicken is done?” she asked. Yes, we put it in a hot oven and then it’s pretty much done, and will taste great. Yay! She said, as she skipped away.
Reflecting on the day as I sat down to dinner, I felt our work had been collaborative throughout the day. Everything had taken a bit longer, but what’s the hurry anyway? We’ll see what other developments will unfold as I continue with the book.
Two Essays I Absolutely Loved
Zadie Smith on being a teenager.
Dwight Garner ostensibly on food, ultimately describing my new late-life goals.
Save them for a nice moment when you can read with pleasure.
Periodic Table Videos
We will be watching these short slightly goofy and great videos by the University of Nottingham this spring as we memorize the first twelve elements in order. We will also be reading through The Elements book which has wonderful photographs and descriptions to accompany each element.
Let me know if you have other fun activities tied to the elements! I want to do something like notebooking for each element. Take a look at these inspiring photos.
For next year perhaps? 🎄
An Advent Calendar of Microscope Slides, for their 4yr old. What a fun setup for collaborative exploration, and I love the idea of sourcing old slides off ebay. This is the kind of thinking we need.
Thanks for sharing this with me, Eugenia!
Something New for Us
Catherine makes the multiplication cards from Math for Love sound wonderful for her young children, so I will definitely be using her discount code to order a set for our family.
And a quote for you
But many indigenous parents are happy the grabby toddler jumped into help. They are happy to see the toddler take initiative. They interpret the child’s pushiness as a desire to contribute to the family.
-Hunt, Gather, Parent by Michaeleen Doucleff
I’ve heard such great things about that book! Ugh, I feel immature and not ready to invite my kids alongside every task though.