What We’ve Been Doing
June 2nd, 2005 at 7:03 pm (Unschooling Life, The Magazine)
Kenzie has been focusing his energies on playing with Bionicle (we found several pound’s worth at a thrift store for a few dollars), swimming with his friend, exercising on our new (well, new to us) stepper machine, reading Greek mythology books, organizing his various trading cards, wrestling with the dogs, creating and drawing fantasy characters, etc. We’ve had lots of discussions, of course: presidents, polio, vaccinations, muscles, blood oxygenation, allergies, local wildlife, pet care, etc. Those are the conversations I can come up with off the top of my head. There have been many, many others, of course.
I’ve been rearranging the books after finding another large bookcase (much sturdier than our other bookcases). We’d run out of space (again). This one became a Kenzie bookcase, and it’s set up with history/mythology books, his Magic School Bus collection, Calvin and Hobbes and Bloom County, and large/heavy books, as well as a shelf of games and a few cool toys (an iguana puppet, a stuffed tiger named Hobbes, and a small Sphinx statue). It looks quite cool in the living room, and now he can actually flip through his books, rather than wrenching them out one by one.
My parents and youngest brother rescued a basset hound last week, but unfortunately, the dog doesn’t like being around children. Kenzie was devastated. Hopefully, she’ll come around, eventually, but for now, we’re trying to introduce Kenzie to her slowly and cautiously. She seems to view him as a threat, and we’re not too sure how to fix the situation. She is wonderfully sweet, otherwise, and very laid back (read “lazy”).
The deadline for submissions came and went, and I’m excited about choosing articles for issue six. This is perhaps the most enjoyable part of putting the magazine together - reading through submissions, deciding where each article will go, etc. I’m also considering devoting a few pages to summery pictures of unschooling kids.