"Children do not need to be made to learn about the world, or shown how. They want to, and they know how." -John Holt
Nevermind that it was a certain girl's birthday. There was yardwork to do!
First up, a complete upheaval of the heaviest backyard equipment and all because I've been suffering from a bad Feng Shui flow for a year now. The trampoline and the swingset HAD to be swapped out, one in place of the other. That led to fifty
more things that subsequently had to be done.
Like redistributing mounds of dirt and mulch that lived around the tramp...
And re-homing worms (to the bellies of the chickens, sorry guys)...
And lots of experimenting with the forces of push and pull...
Caden's shoes were a prime example of friction and had Simone re-thinking her placement in the whole endeavor.
PaPa and Daddy were more than willing to sacrifice my help so that I could document their efforts instead. Always doing my part...
All this by the light of the half-moon as noted by astronomist Simone.
By 8:00 it was a mad dash into the kitchen to feed the children and make some very last-minute cupcakes for a very last-minute birthday song and feast.
(No worries, the girl will get a proper party later next week!)
"By nature people are learning animals. Birds fly; fish swim; humans think and learn. Therefore, we do not need to motivate children into learning by wheedling, bribing, or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do - and all we need to do - is to give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for, listen respectfully when they feel like talking, and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do the rest."
John Holt
"In the end, the secret to learning is so simple: Think only about whatever you love. Follow it, do it, dream about it...and it will hit you: learning was there all the time, happening by itself." -Grace Llewellyn
"What we want to see is the child in pursuit of knowledge, not knowledge in pursuit of the child."
George Bernard Shaw
Real, natural learning is in the living. It's in the observing, the questioning, the examining, the pondering, the analyzing, the watching, the reading, the DO-ing, the living, the breathing, the loving, the JOY. It's in the joy. ~Anne Ohman
"How could youth better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?" -Henry D. Thoreau
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