Quantifying

We're putting on the finishing touches on our portfolios and wrapping up all the obligatory paperwork for the school year. 

The lines are blurring between active learning and the quiet pondering that happens after, or before. There are things that look like nothing at first glance, which actually turn out to be huge developmental leaps. Sometimes what the kids pursue on their own is way better than any of the lessons where adults show up to teach them. It's a little hard to know what to include in the portfolio. Which part of the day was school? 

If I've learned anything from the past two years, it's to expand the margins. Put lots of space in between activities. Do. Not. Rush.

Max disappears sometimes and I will find him wandering alone in the backyard, telling a story to himself (or the trees? or the universe?). He started to crave this alone-time to work through his own thoughts and imaginary scenarios, maybe to break away from the worlds that Marko and Laurel create. 

We started a routine this year we called "Max reads 5 books" (original, I know). We each have to read to him and he reads to one of us, his choice. A very simple daily task, but with many layers. M usually reads to the kids at night. This winter it was Cat Kid Comic Club over and over again, when they were not reading terrifying Norse myths, or memoirs about ultra-running. (The kids loved Born to Run.) Laurel and Marko read graphic novels to him. Pokemon and Minecraft, mostly. I read picture books, the ones with lyrical text that rolls off my tongue, that I read about on literacy blogs. Or sometimes a few pages from one of our references books. He reads Cat Kid Comic Club to us. We have all grown to love the characters of Cat Kid Comic Club.

Marko and Max split off more and more to play, where it used to be Laurel and Marko. They drag home sticks and logs, whittle them down to spears, try to make bows and arrows, fold hundreds of paper airplanes, play board games, arrange stuff animals, create elaborate scenes out of legos and construct forts. They read their Highlights and Cricket magazines carefully and I often see them doing whatever craft or recipe or project was in the magazine. 

Laurel is more fun for me to do stuff with now. We can ride bikes or go on walks and match our pace. We chat and listen to music during chores. We can wear each other's shoes. She can go off with her friends now more and more. They go on walks together, or paint each other's nails. 

Quantifying all the areas of growth feels incomplete without including these examples of not-school.