"Children do not need to be made to learn about the world, or shown how. They want to, and they know how." -John Holt

Monday, January 12, 2009

Snow Angels

When the kids go out to play, Caden is always content to stay in and enjoy his alone time but on this day he said, "I outside too? Ma, outside ah me?" So much for tidying up!Of course no sooner did we get out there that chaos erupted. It began with something as harmless as snow angels. First one...Then another...Then Caden's turn... except he laid in his sister's snow angel. The nerve!And Simone's world came crashing down around her. Just like that.And because I'm a horrible mother, I came in tight for a close-up. What a wretched thing to do. The destruction of the snow angel I mean...Not to worry, true to her nickname "Bi-polar Bomey", she was happy as a clam after capturing Pete yet again.
Speaking of happy, Smoke says "Hiya- got any sugar cubes for this smirking goofball!?!"

1 comment:

Taboulichic said...

I love that you've got snow there! We're looking to move to NH from PA. Will try to send you a private email.

"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