I Want My Four Dollars

We ended up having another field trip yesterday. After a couple weeks of being carless (and having frequent car trouble for several weeks before that), our cupboards were decidedly bare. And I'd already used up the black ink cartridge in my new printer; not by printing scads of super fun school materials, but by printing out menu covers for my husband's restaurant. A trip to St. Thomas to do some big-box store shopping was unavoidable. So I skipped my morning walk yesterday, loaded the cooler in the car and drove down to ferry dock instead (with Parker ensconced in his car seat, of course). My shopping list was four stores long (Home Depot, OfficeMax, Kmart and Cost-U-Less, St. Thomas's Costco), and I always get a little harried when I'm hurrying to catch the ferry (for no good reason, since there's always another one arriving within a half hour), but I did remember to grab the four dollars Parker received in a birthday card from his grandparents. (My in-laws didn't just give him cash for his birthday. They sent him actual gifts, too.) Aboard the car barge, on our way to St. Thomas, I gave Parker his four dollars--he'd already declared his intent to use it to buy (toy) cars--and told him he could spend it while we were shopping, if he saw something he liked. I figured we could do some "unschooling" on St. Thomas with those four dollars. Parker and I would have to talk about money, math (what does four dollars buy?), limited resources (it doesn't buy much!) and how to conduct a financial transaction. I intended to give as little input as possible; I wanted the whole episode to instill in him a sense of independence.

Parker asked if we could go to Kmart (or, as he used to call it, the "car store") first. I guess those four dollars were burning a hole in his pocket already. The toy car aisle is all the way in the back of the store, and he fairly ran there, he was so excited. The conversation about limited resources started almost immediately; Parker kept selecting big ticket items, like Hot Wheels tracks and Cars (the Pixar movie) characters. He'd see something he liked, then ask me its price. We talked about "more" and "less"--for instance, if something cost eight dollars, I'd ask Parker whether he had enough money to buy it. "No, Mommy, I need more money for Snot Rod." He did find finally find a few toys he liked, each of which cost about four dollars (thankfully, there's no sale tax here so I didn't have to try to calculate that in), and was having trouble deciding which to buy. That's when I said, "Hey, Bubs, did you know that these Hot Wheels cars each cost only about one dollar? You have enough money to buy three of these cars." Good thing we got an early start yesterday, because that occasioned much more debating and dithering. I could definitely see the wheels turning in his little head as he tried to wrap his brain around the fact that he could use his four dollars to purchase either one single toy or three other toys. Value is such a crazy, intangible concept, is it not?

Well, in the end he decided to buy three Hot Wheels vehicles (one race car, one truck, one plane). He loves those little mass-produced toys so much that I'm sure he would have gladly spent all four of his dollars to buy just one. The fact that he could purchase three obviously elated him. We made our way to the registers and proceeded to practice waiting patiently. It always (always!) takes at least 15 minutes to get through the lines at the St. Thomas Kmart; poor Parker was ready to burst by the time it was finally his turn to pay. He conducted the transaction by himself, and was ecstatic when the saleslady gave him thirteen cents back, in addition to his new toys. It was pretty fun to watch. I wish the rest of the shopping we did yesterday had been as amusing.

In the car, on ferry, clutching his four dollars.

OK, I'm ready to go pay!

Making propellor plane sound effects.

Postscript: The North American Montessori Center's Montessori Homeschool Program is giving away one free program. I'm linking to their site here in order to try to win. I've never ever won anything in my life, but I'd sure like to win this. I mean, I'm having fun getting all crafty and creating our homeschool materials, but man would it be awesome to have the real thing to help me educate my son.

Best Laid Plans

Cruz Bay Playground, Post-Earl

My son and I leave tomorrow, and we won't return to our little island home until the end of October. Imagining our homeschooling materials sitting neglected on their shelves in Parker's closet, gathering dust in our absence, I was determined to do as much homeschooling with my son as possible prior to our departure. I knew I'd miss our Montessori mornings, and I was pretty sure Parker was going to, too, regardless of the occasional "But I don't like school!" utterances. Well, best laid plans, and all that. Mother Nature decided to give us a practical life lesson all her own in the form of Hurricane Earl. We spent most of Sunday getting ready for Earl, all of Monday hunkered down and the majority of yesterday cleaning up after Earl (category 4 hurricanes leave behind quite a LOT of debris). This morning I was busy doing loads (upon loads upon loads) of laundry (our bed sheets were disgusting--you get really sweaty sleeping with no electricity and your house all shuttered up), and this afternoon I'll be packing, so our school stuff has already acquired a thin coat of dust and we haven't even left yet.

Not being able to do school aside, we were incredibly fortunate this week. We were without power for about 36 hours (an amazingly small amount of time--go WAPA!) and we were greeted with a big ol' mess on our deck when we opened up our hurricane doors yesterday morning. (And I wasn't actually upset about the mess! I'd just spent 24 hours stuck inside, and we couldn't leave the house once Earl had passed because there was a curfew in effect--not to mention most roads were impassable--so I took one look at the muddy, leafy pond that our deck had become and attacked all that debris with the vigor of one who has been sitting around, twiddling her thumbs, for hours and hours.) If all you have to complain about after a category 4 hurricane is a brief power outage and a muddy mess, then count yourself lucky. I went out walking this morning and saw dozens of downed power lines, huge trees uprooted and beautiful sailboats sadly washed up on shore. I came home humbled by the devastation I'd witnessed. Count us lucky, indeed.

Tomorrow we leave for Ohio, the first leg of our trip. We're actually flying into Detroit (cheaper airfare that way), and my in-laws plan on taking Parker and me to the Detroit Zoo after they pick us up, before the two-hour drive to Milan, Ohio. I'm sure my son and I will be doing some sensorial and language activities while we're in transit, as well as some "unschooling" at the zoo, and I'm sure I'll be blogging about it all soon.

Sailboats Washed Up

(from St. John Source)

Practical Life Activity: Helping with the Clean Up

Fun with Mops during Earl

Innovation Up Ahead

Yesterday's Library Excursion

There's something about the tail end of the summer. The days feel so slow, the late summer heat infecting me with an unshakable case of lethargy. At the same time, the knowledge that the end is near--that autumn fast approaches--is inescapable. My son and I don't have to stress about the first day of school, but most of his friends do. I've been skipping homeschool sessions in favor of playdates a lot lately so that Parker can get as much playtime as possible with his buds before they head back to their classrooms. While my son's friends all reunite with their teachers and classmates and get down to the business of school, Parker and I will be bouncing around five states for almost two months, visiting family and friends and attending a wedding, two birthdays, a triathlon, a melée up a mountain and a melon festival. One of the downsides--for me, the biggest downside--of living in the Caribbean is being so far away from loved ones. I miss my sisters, my brother, my mom, my dad, my husband's mom and dad, my niece, my cousins, my childhood friends, my college friends... (The list goes on.) It's not enough to see them only every so often; if I had my druthers, they'd all live within driving distance. Yes, it's a small world, but not small enough for me. So I pack my suitcase a couple times a year, fly myself and my son back to the USA and try to get my fill of as many of my beloveds as I can. (And if I get to do a little shopping at Trader Joe's and Target, too, well, that's what you call icing.) One of the upsides--not the biggest upside, but a good one nonetheless--of homeschooling my son is that I don't have to plan our travels around a school's calendar.

I wrote about unschooling in my last post, and I will definitely be borrowing from its philosophy of allowing children to learn through their natural life experiences while my son and I are away on our potentially epic five-state adventure. As it has in the past, just getting ourselves to the St. Thomas airport alone will provide multiple learning opportunities, from packing our suitcases to buying our ferry tickets to driving across St. Thomas (past road construction, cruise ships, a cargo port and a bazaar). We'll be flying into eight different airports; bustling, exhilarating hotbeds of excitement for a young, inquisitive mind. And, when we have some downtime from the sporting events and melons and birthday cakes, my son and I will happily have at our hands any number of zoos, museums and exhibits. However, I do intend to at least somewhat keep up with our homeschooling (and my blogging!). Some Montessori materials I will be able to pack, but others I'll improvise using whatever I can find around us. We can practice identifying different odors while sitting in an airplane (the first class passengers' hot meal, the perfume wafting off the lady in front of us, the carafe of coffee the flight attendant is proffering, Parker's stinky feet). Similarly, we can practice identifying textures and sounds while playing in my in-laws' backyard or visiting my sister's apartment in the city. Forced innovation, it should be fun; for me, and for my son as well.

Home vs. Un

At the Library

Well, this morning resembled most other Monday mornings for us. Parker and I were both excited to do school (he pulled out the shelves himself almost immediately after I came home from my walk), but we had a laundry list of errands to do before we could start our school day (DMV, library, hardware store, cable bill payment, mail center). However, instead of hurrying through our errands (is it even possible to rush through the DMV?) in an attempt to squeeze in some school before naptime, I slowed down and looked around for learning opportunities while we were out and about. I wrote earlier about how I'm just starting to accept the (somewhat ego-deflating) fact that my son learns just as much outside of school as he does during our homeschooling sessions. (So much for my dreams of becoming a homeschool teacher extraordinaire!) This is especially true when I make a concerted effort to teach him about things throughout the course of the day. For example, on one of our many recent trips to the DMV, I saw a paperclip lying on the ground; I picked it up, told Parker what it was and showed him how it worked. I compared it to the staple that was holding my sheaf of DMV paperwork together and had Parker practice using the paperclip. (Sure, the paperclip was technically trash--who knows how many people had stepped on it already--but we were waiting in line at the DMV. What else were we going to do?) This morning, on our final (huzzah!) trip to the DMV, Parker crawled under my chair and told me he was a baby chinchilla growing inside an egg and that I was sitting on top of him to keep him warm until he hatched. This started a conversation about chinchillas and, inevitably, a debate (OK, argument) about how baby chinchillas are born.

Before I started this homeschooling adventure, I'd thought that choosing to keep one's child out of formal school-like institutions in favor of educating him in the home was as extreme as a parent could get with regard to her offspring's education. Silly me, there's no such thing as "the most extreme" in this country. Apparently, some people consider homeschooling to be too rigid and choose to "unschool" instead. Unschooling is an educational philosophy created in the 1970s that is focused on letting children learn through "natural life experiences" rather than through a traditional school curriculum. Now, I wouldn't say that our homeschool's Montessori-inspired syllabus resembles a "traditional school curriculum" by any means, but I do have to admit (as I did a couple posts ago) that the structure of our homeschool seems to sometimes chafe my son's sensibilities. In light of this (also because I'm just naturally incredibly curious), I've read a bit about unschooling, and I've found it inspiring. I'm not going to quit the Montessori method or anything, but I do find it both exciting and freeing to view the world at large as an (amazingly complex and stimulating!) extension of our little homeschool.

It wasn't like I was an automatron mom before I discovered this thing called unschooling. Anyone who has a small child knows that parenting pretty much equals teaching, particularly during the first few years of life. But I can't say I was always seeking out teaching opportunities, and I can say that, since we started homeschooling, I've often felt harried as I've tried to zip through chores and errands so that my son and I can do school most every morning. Well, this morning I had unschooling in mind. I didn't hurry and, though we didn't do any of our homeschool activities, my son discussed anatomy, zoology and pest control with me, practiced tracing uppercase letters and observed commerce in action. And, since we weren't trying to hurry home to do school, we were able to enjoy a pleasant lunch together at our local bakery. (And I was CALM the whole time!)

Postscript: The library had some leftover workbooks lying about on a table by the checkout counter today. Parker spontaneously opened one up, asked to borrow a crayon and started tracing some letters. Also (as I mentioned in a previous post), he's been very interested in his body and how it works. Since he has absolutely loved his two Usborne "Flip Flap" books about (respectively) farms and airports, I purchased the Usborne "See Inside Your Body" flap book for him, even though it's technically for ages 8 and up. He gets very intent when we read it. So far, he likes the sections about the respiratory system and the digestive system best. This morning, as he was drinking some water, Parker said, "And you know, Mommy, when I drink water it slides down my throat into my bladder and then I pee it out." I smiled and replied, "Well, I'm pretty sure the water goes into your tummy first." There was a brief pause and then Parker pedantically responded, "No, Mommy, not my tummy. My stomach."

Lunch

Gratuitous Picture

(Island Animal Life)