"Children do not need to be made to learn about the world, or shown how. They want to, and they know how." -John Holt
What a process in patience this was. Simone first spied the "Butterfly Treehouse" at Target about a month before her birthday. Fast forward 30 days later, she receives it as a gift.
Step two: send out order form to receive caterpillars via mail. No online ordering either, this was old school business. 2 1/2 weeks later, the caterpillars finally arrive. We keep them in their self-sufficient container for another week waiting for them to form their chrysalis's.
Finally, suspended from the lid, we (and by "we", I mean Rich because they were kinda eeew) carefully hang them in the Treehouse where we wait another week until one day, I happen to notice 4 butterflies fluttering by (nod to Dear Mr. Henshaw anyone, anyone??).
Anyway, why I forgot to take pics of the first two stages I have no idea, but at last... the release...
Poor little buggers spent 5 of their 7-10 day life span in the Treehouse but boy did they know how to fly when they got out. Crazy and fast- up, up, up and out of sight. Simone ran in circles yelling to them, "Goodbye! I love you!"
"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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