winter

Charlie and I observing the snow urchins

The snow of the week is starting to fade, and Ani keeps saying things like "The sun is still up and it's 6:00, you know what that means - it's the end of Winter!"  I don't know how to break it to her...

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We've had a couple of deposits in the little library, and I'm still suspecting that they're from supportive friends...which is lovely and encouraging while we wait for the idea to catch on. And they're not all books! Ani and I spent an hour poring over this sweet box of stones...how this girl loves to sort and ponder.

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The week has been slow, which is what we needed.  I'll tell you straight - I was dreading the start of homeschool coop.  I am not ready for the chaos of trying to organize with a large (very large) group of people, and not prepared to teach my classes, lovely as my students will be.  I know once it's going, it's all about me and a handful of students, for I'll be teaching or helping every hour, but it's the daunting thought of it right now that had me leaping for joy and feeling very powerful when we woke up and my snow dances and dreams had proven fruitful.  School was closed! I know my chances of a repeat performance are slim, so I'm psyching myself into it even as I write. I can do it, I can do it. I can do it, but it feels very much like an introspective time of year, and I would love to indulge that. Friday morning everyone in the house stayed in bed until 10, reading their books.  That's what I'm talkin' about.

Homeschooling this week has looked like unschooling, by which I mean some days of great flow and conversation.  Days when you try to track how you got from Trumpet of the Swan to watching an interview with Malala (our choir is learning a haunting song about Malala) to looking into what makes skin so many different colors, and what theories are out there about why we are so many colors? Melanin, pigment, human evolution and adaptation...all while drawing woodpeckers and talking about their amazing tongues and then back outside to play in the snow.  I love those days. We've all read a lot, Eliza is moving her room around, and she and I even got to some yoga, which is often the unrealized plan.  Ani is drawing birds and writing comics about cherry tomatoes, and Eliza is experimenting with some folded books from Map Art Lab and cutting up sweaters to make the cutest skirts and learning how to drive around Seattle from playing on Google Earth.  Yeah, that kind of week.