FREE RANGE ACADEMY ARCHIVE

We've moved! Please join us at the new blog.

2008-01-11T05:29:00.000-08:00

We've moved to www.freerangeacademy.blogspot.com.

This blog will be maintained as an archive of our early unschooling experiences.

HW

New Beginnings

2007-12-19T16:09:00.000-08:00

As the kids get older, I find that everything about the way we unschool is changing too.

It was time for a fresh start, that better reflects what we are doing and thinking about right now.

Please join us at our new blog www.freerangeacademy.blogspot.com

This blog will remain as an archive, of use, I hope, to those just starting down the path of unschooling. Lots of Waldorf stuff here too.

Thanks and hope to see you!

HW

Thanks...

2007-12-14T08:40:00.000-08:00

to everyone who has emailed to tell me about the problems with my header...it is a problem with Blogger, doubtless they have 'improved' something again. I am struggling with it and hissing at my laptop and will triumph in the end.

HW

Righteous Garb

2007-12-14T05:25:00.000-08:00

Yeah, this is an ad free blog, but one has a duty to one's friends.

Shameless plug for a righteous man's grassroots enterprise - SlamShirts.

T-shirts being a staple, like potatoes, one may as well fight the power and alienate the trophy wife next door whilst in them.

Child and slave labour free, organic options available.

Lunartalks likes them too.

HW

Life Without Plastic

2007-12-11T05:33:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Craftymama from Sweet Thing Designs for posting a link to Life Without Plastic. I wish I'd known about that place years ago. Always fretting about what could be leaching from plastic sippy cups, I switched Scoob and Baby Man to these (the all-steel 9 oz size, sans lid) as soon as they could hold a real cup.

In addition to being nice and inert, they are indestructible and can be banged rhythmically on the table, as though by mutinous prisoners, if dinner is late.

HW

Pickering Museum Village

2007-12-10T08:37:00.000-08:00

We attended the Museum's very lovely "Christmas in the Village" thingie on the weekend. Can't say enough nice things about it. Scoob and Baby Man cavort on the path through the Perfectly Wintry Forest leading to the village. I think it was minus 40 Celsius.

The village suddenly appears after we emerge from the forest, cross a frozen creek, wonder why there is nothing but snow-covered fields for miles, and round a corner. Nice and frigid now. Hoping they have fires.

We hurl our frozen selves into the first house we see - it turns out to be a log house, with a nice crackling fire, filled with Scottish womenfolk preparing for Hogmanay, the Scottish celebration of the New Year.

Their cottage made me a little broody.

After cider, stamping to drive out evil spirits, chanting rhymes and learning that red-heads and women are Bad Luck and must not darken the New Year's door before the tallest, darkest haired man in the village, our cockles are warm enough to head back out into the snow.

As I stand gazing dreamily at this picturesque little house, the small things spy/are almost trampled by horses.

Scooby and Baby Man score front row seats, up with the drivers, and are in Urchin Ecstacy. Horse on your left is Annie. Horse on your right is Mindy.

They take us on a long carriage ride through the village and fields, often with the horses at a fast trot, bells a-jangling.

Now we're losing our extremities again, so we dive into another building, this one full of The Village Singers whose voices reverberate nicely in the sparse, chilly chapel. There is no fire, but we all press together like a herd of stranded cattle, steam rising from our backs.

Back out, we discover Father Christmas hanging out in front of the General Store. Scoob and Baby Man are suspicious of his youthful beard.

We follow The Grey Horse - a symbol of good luck and fertility - and a bunch of wassailing Welshmen - to a Welsh cottage heavy with the wonderful smell of rum and cider, where they ply the big folks with hot wassail, the little folks with hot cider, and all of us with currant cakes. Core temperatures restored, we dive back out into the biting cold and do some traditional Welsh Christmas crafts until our fingers turn black and fall off.

It's time to find another refuge, so we join Squire Jonathan's Christmas Ball for music and dancing.

The dancers perform the Grand March, the Duke of Kent & New Rig Ship, the Lancer's Quadrille, and the Spanish Waltz.

Scooby leaps up and joins the Roger De Coverly! This is the dance performed by Old Fezziwig's employees at the warehouse Christmas party.

Then we huddle desperately around one last woodburning stove, before trekking back through the beautiful forest, and heading home for some Traditional Spinach Pizza and Eggnog.

HW

Ask a Biologist

2007-12-06T06:06:00.000-08:00

Thanks to PZ over at Pharyngula (who is also a participating scientist) for tipping me off to this great resource.

Ask a Biologist wants to take kids 'beyond the classroom' (ears pricking up) by giving them access to Real Scientists who give up their free time to share their knowledge and passion. It doesn't get any better than that. Question and answer forums, science news and a great little section called Not Just a Lab Coat. Looks like it will just get bigger and better with time.

From the site's welcome page:

"Everything here will be written by a professional scientist who is an expert in your area of interest. These people are giving up their free time to help you, so please use them to learn and enjoy science, between us we work on dinosaurs, sea scorpions, ecology, human evolution, spiders, cell biology, evolution, birds, animal behaviour, physiology, forests, conservation, genetics, fish, and plenty more besides....We want you to enjoy science and to be as excited about life on earth as we are. Simply send us a question and one of our experts will post the question and a reply as soon as they can."

The Great Tree Hunt

2007-12-03T09:05:00.000-08:00

No Winter Solstice/Heathen Christmas is complete without the celebratory chopping down of an evergreen. It is a noble and ancient tradition.

Urchins having a grand old time...

breaking stuff....

Scooby was in charge of selecting this year's species.

All aboard for the wagon ride to the fields!

Hmmmm....which one.......

Posing in front of The Chosen One.

Wresting the Chosen One from this Mortal Coil.

The Chosen One posing with Implement of Destruction.

Then, a frozen wagon-ride back to the farm, where The Chosen Ones are dropped into a very entertaining mechanical shaker, and then thrust into a baler, an enormous and very noisy machine one imagines will perform some astonishing feat, but instead just winds a little jute around your tree.

Waiting for hot dogs and hot chocolate by the fire...

We bloody love (Heathen) Christmas.

HW

Boom

2007-12-02T09:41:00.000-08:00

Ahh, a nice patch of slippery ice.

And Baby Man is down, but he's ok, he's determined to get back in the game. Scooby is a thing of grace and beauty, strong, focussed.

Scooby still in the lead, Baby Man grits his teeth and tries again, he's been training all season, he'll recover from this.

Oh! Baby Man is down again! What a disappointment! Scooby continues to fly over the ice, like she was born to do this.

What spirit! What heart! Baby Man will not give up! He's up, he's up, he's on his feet!!

HW

The Best Mittens Ever!

2007-12-02T09:27:00.000-08:00

Thanks to a clever knitting Grandma for these Just Fantastic Mitties. They are so goshdarn cute, they made me glance wistfully in the direction of the bags full of seven foot long half-digested sweaters jammed full of irate knitting needles that represent my failed attempts to learn to knit. Well, truth is, I can knit....I just don't know how to stop.

HW

First Snow!

2007-11-23T08:57:00.000-08:00

I'd elaborate, but another foot fell last night, the sun is shining, and they're off!

HW

Scooby & Baby Man, Portrait in Crayon - by Scooby

2007-11-19T15:00:00.000-08:00

Ahoy Inner Circle Santy Clauses!

2007-11-19T06:02:00.000-08:00

Hi folks. Many of you lovely people have emailed with Winter Festival queries, looking for facts and figures and so on. As I have lately become quite appallingly inept in the email department, it occurred to the mind that a simple single post could answer all queries with one sweeping arclike motion, or something...

Q. What do they NEED?

A. Nothing, they are spoiled, rich, decadent Western brats, who already own more shite than most kids on earth will ever see.

Q. Seriously, you insane cow, what do they need?

A. Clothes, books and art & craft supplies, jig-saw puzzles, games.

Q. Sizes, with room to grow, please?

A. Scooby: Size 7-8, Shoe size 13
Baby Man: Size 6 or 6X, Shoe size 11

Q. What sort of books?

A. Read-it-yourself books, workbooks with problems to solve. Current non-fiction special interests include Ancient Egypt, Dinosaurs, Steam Trains, Dinosaurs, Airplanes, Dinosaurs, Pre-historic Large Mammals (no, I'm not making this up), Insects, Dinosaurs, and Pint-Sized Baking.

Q. Remind me again about your stupid toy preferences that take all the fun out of getting them stuff?

A. In general, we try not to give them too many plastic toys, or mass-produced, television tie-in sort of toys. They do not have television, and do not see commercials. They are not familiar with or asking for whatever the latest thingie might be.

Q. Do they watch DVD's?

A. Yes, and they are VERY age appropriate. Currently they have a small collection, including Thomas the Tank Engine, Bob the Builder, assorted Winnie the Pooh, Nick Park and Charlie and Lola. Similar thingies welcome.

Q. What sort of art and craft supplies?

Any and all, from felt and googly eyes to tools and kits. Scooby is interested in beading/jewellery kits and such things now.

Q. Do you accept certified cheques and money orders?

Yes! Also, wire transfers, non-certified cheques and socks full of cash.

Anything I've forgotten to answer, drop me a line.

HW

Armchair Travels to India

2007-11-17T07:29:00.000-08:00

This week the Big Adventure is over at Yellow House - they are returned from a Glorious Adventure in India, and Penny has posted a fabulous account, with her usual wonderful pictures, and promises of more.

HW

So...What Did You Do Today?

2007-11-13T07:08:00.001-08:00

Nothing. Obviously. Nothing.

HW

Please Stand By...

2007-11-11T20:44:00.000-08:00

We are having technimacal difficamulties.

Now for Something Completely Different...

2007-11-02T19:24:00.000-07:00

Ok, I do my level best not to Crave Things, or Needlessly Shop, but....

This will be mine. Oh yes, this will be mine.

HW

Back in the Day...

2007-11-02T10:36:00.001-07:00

This just in from a friend of my youth! We ran away to sea together, but long before that, she lined up between her brother and her neighbour for this Bank Robber Mug Shot.

Ahhh, remember when we all had those little Unicef thingies around our necks? Did all those pennies really make it to Africa? Damn they were heavy though.

The best part of this photo was the accompanying email which tells us her Mom sewed the Holly Hobbie outfit, (Holly Hobbie! God, how we all loved her....) and she just changed the mask every year!

Now that is terrifying.

HW

The Last of the Homemade Costumes!

2007-11-02T09:36:00.000-07:00

Observe the Baby Girl Cat and the Giant Noisy Truck!

They dreamed up and put their own costumes together (with a little help, ahem) ... and were so proud of them. I thought Baby Man might actually burst.

HW

Halloween Party

2007-10-29T08:49:00.000-07:00

Ah, any excuse for a party! We started off with thirty thousand pounds of cookie dough, and assorted terrifying cookie cutters...

While they baked, the shining little Anklebiter faces were painted...

and then the cookie decorating began in earnest...

Followed by the Mandatory Pumpkin Carving...

...and a group bike ride that ended with the glorious discovery of a Big Digger!

What's in here?

Got 'im!

Happy Halloween to all you Sprog Bloggers!

HW

Flying

2007-10-27T07:49:00.001-07:00

Observe if you will, the Nuclear Power Plant looming in the background to the left. I generate a lot of eye-rolling with my rabid anti-nuclear views, and have strong feelings about taking the kids down to play right beside the ominous thing.

It is with mixed feelings of smugness and horror that I share with you irrefutable photographic evidence of my infant son FLYING in the doubtless radioactive play area nestled in the shadow of the thing.

HW

The Beagle Project Opens Shop to Help Build Ship

2007-10-26T11:30:00.000-07:00

Our favourite worthy cause, The Beagle Project, has opened a fund-raising shop.

So beagle on over and get yourself a t-shirt - spread the word and help build a sailing replica of HMS Beagle, which will recreate the Voyage of the Beagle and circumnavigate the globe in Darwin's wake with an international crew of researchers, aspiring scientists and science communicators.

How freaking cool is that, people.

Permanent portal to Beagle Project Shop in my right hand links thingie.

(Uncle Charles poster stolen from here.)

HW

October Zooage

2007-10-25T21:47:00.000-07:00

Daddy-O bravely flew solo and took the Sprogs for their now-almost-weekly-trip to the Metro Toronto Zoo. It's so enormous, we still haven't covered the whole thing.

There was all sorts of Thrilling Halloweeny Stuff going on...

I defy anyone to tell me how this is not better than school. BE the tortoise! BEEE the tortoise!

Christ on a stick, this is so not funny.

Goatish or Sheepish things on Mars.

HW

Warm Autumn Day on the Shores of Lake Ontario

2007-10-25T21:24:00.000-07:00

Infected by Pharyngula's Mutating Genre Meme!

2007-10-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

To paraphrase Karen over at The Beagle Project, who knowingly infected Free Range with Pharyngula's Mutating Genre Meme, it would be science blogging sacrilege (or even secular, adventure-seeking, science-intensive unschooling sacrilege) to ignore a tap on the shoulder from the Beagle Bloggers, let alone the Mighty PZ !

So here we go...The Pharyngula mutating genre meme rules..

There are a set of questions below that are all of the form, "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…". Copy the questions, and before answering them, you may modify them in a limited way, carrying out no more than two of these operations:

You can leave them exactly as is.
You can delete any one question.
You can mutate either the genre, medium, or subgenre of any one question. For instance, you could change "The best time travel novel in SF/Fantasy is…" to "The best time travel novel in Westerns is…", or "The best time travel movie in SF/Fantasy is…", or "The best romance novel in SF/Fantasy is…".
You can add a completely new question of your choice to the end of the list, as long as it is still in the form "The best [subgenre] [medium] in [genre] is…".

You must have at least one question in your set, or you've gone extinct, and you must be able to answer it yourself, or you're not viable. (Am I the only one who finds this line hysterically funny? HW)

Then answer your possibly mutant set of questions. Please do include a link back to the blog you got them from, to simplify tracing the ancestry, and include these instructions.

Finally, pass it along to any number of your fellow bloggers. Remember, though, your success as a Darwinian replicator is going to be measured by the propagation of your variants, which is going to be a function of both the interest your well-honed questions generate and the number of successful attempts at reproducing them.

And now, with replication error, my two mutations are shown in red - HW]

The best romantic couple in Victorian Literature is: Catherine and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights

The best hip hop Song from 80s hard rock is: "Walk this Way" by Aerosmith and Run DMC (is there any other answer to this question really?)

The most disturbing movie in animated film is: Aladdin (“Oh, I come from a land / From a faraway place / Where the caravan camels roam. / Where they cut off your ear / If they don’t like your face / It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.”)

The best Fishing Song in Working-Class Folk Music is: "Tiny Fish for Japan" by Stan Rogers

My pedigree, in patriarchal lineage:

My great great great great great grandaddy is Pharyngula.
My great great great great grandparents are The Flying Trilobite and Metamagician and the Hellfire Club.
My great great great-grandparents are Flying Trilobite and Leslie’s Blog.
My great great-grandparents are A Blog Around the Clock and The Meming of Life.
My great-grandparents are From Archaea to Zeaxanthol and The Primate Diaries.
My grandad is The Other 95%
My daddy is The Beagle Project Blog

I hereby infect the following Evolved Homeschoolers:

Yellow House Homeschool
Farm School
Full Circle

HW