As freeform homeschoolers, we are always walking the line between freedom and structure. We believe that all children benefit from freedom in their education, but that some structure can help guide a child and keep them centered. Since Z is 7, we've also been working a lot with calendars, clocks, and the idea of routines.

After some ups and downs struggling with getting Z to engage in "activities" (our code word for schooling), I happened on a solution that has worked better than I could ever have imagined: A daily calendar describing events of the day, including appointments that are outside of Z's control (my own appointments or commitments as well as her routine commitments to classes she has chosen, like ballet and gymnastics) and some portion of learning activities that she has pre-chosen in a weekly meeting as her goals and intentions for the week. I set up the schedule in the evening, filling in clock faces to show her what times events are scheduled to begin and end (she's learning to tell time) and writing descriptions of what we'll do, including morning routine reminders that help me get her ready to start the day by a set time, and take care of things we need to do around the house (pick up, feed the chickens, put away the dishes) and all the fun stuff we plan to do throughout the day. The schedule almost always includes free play periods where nothing is scheduled at all -- often an hour or two in the afternoons, as we do our best schooling in the morning.

The thing about the schedule is, while I write up this daily schedule (using activities she has outlined for the week), she is the one who holds me to it. It's only now that we have a schedule that I realize just how often, and how persistently, she was asking what was coming next, trying to fix the order of a day's errands or appointments her mind, and when she would get to do X, on an almost-daily basis -- and how frustrated she would get when an activity was interrupted by something else I had in mind for us to get on to. The schedule has given us both the structure we need, while remaining highly flexible, since its contents are negotiated in advance. Z is now eager to move through the events of each day, and the first thing she does every morning, without fail, is look over the schedule to see what's happening. (The "weather" and "moon phase" blanks at the top of the page are for her to fill in.)

If you'd like a copy of this schedule to use yourself, you can grab a PDF of our Daily Kids' Calendar here.

me: i'll pick z up
see you around 6
oh, wait, one more thing
have a sec?
Jennifer: oh, ok
sure
me: i had what may be an interesting idea
Jennifer: ok
me: we could do a "trial period" for z
could be unlimited candy
(free choice)
could be free choice (unlimited) tv
or she could chose which
or she could choose to have free choice for one and NONE of the other (for that period)
i'd be curious to see which she'd pick and what the outcome would be
could be 1 week
could be 1 month
Jennifer: ok
me: we could have a standard that needed to be met to consider it functional
for candy, for example, it could be eating meals, brushing teeth after candy, going to bed without a fuss, whatever else we considered relevant to the consumption of candy
for tv, it could be anything we felt related to healthy tv consumption - but quantity could not be a factor
idk what those criteria might be
maybe, getting other responsibilities done (responsibilities we outline)
being prepared to leave at routine times
etc
Jennifer: that sounds good
me: it could even relate to completing homeschooling activity...
to ensure a balance to her days
though i'd hate to make that feel like the "not fun" version she had to do to get tv
Jennifer: yes. i'm discourage re: her lack of desire to read because "it's hard"
yes, that's true too
me: honestly... i don't worry about the reading
she is a pretty brilliant reader
she read me a paragraph from Abel's Island last night without much trouble
all I had to do for her was pronounce the four-syllable words
that book is for ages 9 and up
i think what we are dealing with are the ebb and flow of unschooling
which we were warned about
but we can structure expectations for her that show how much freedom she can have if she uses it responsibly
and follow up on how she's doing
i think she'll take well to that, and we can track it however we need to so she knows it isn't arbitrary
Jennifer: ok
me: great
do you want us to pick tv or candy, or let her choose, or do both?
Jennifer: might as well just do both, i guess
me: the only reasons not to would be (a) would be very interesting to see what she chose (we could go with old rules for the other, or make it a "all-or-nothing" bargain)
(b) we might see effects and not know which change they stemmed from
Jennifer: hmm. that's true
me: want to think about it a bit?
Jennifer: sure

What do you think? And which would your child pick?

Eco Kids USA's "Eco Dough" play dough is handmade by a very passionate and intense guy I met at the ABC Kids Expo and would have talked to all day if either of us had had the time. His company, which he runs with his wife, has the financial and moral support of Burt's-Bees-founder-turned-organic-clothing-company-Happy-Green-Bee-founder Roxanne Quimby. In addition to play dough Eco-Kids USA also makes a powdered tempera paint, also by hand, and sell colored pencils and art pads that are sourced out. We're guessing Roxanne's hand is still at work in the company, as they announced recently that they're relocating from California to Maine, which happens to be where she lives. If one wanted to speculate.

Their play dough is a rare concoction of all-natural ingredients and plant and vegetable extracts, dyed by beets, spinach, paprika, carrots, purple sweet potato, red cabbage, blueberries and tomatoes. They also make a gluten-free play dough, which is made with rice, banana or potato flour. That version will really cost you, but if you are needing gluten-free it is probably worth it.

We are do-it-yourselfers and would never think of buying play dough but handling this stuff makes it clear how you could justify it. Roughly one-cup-size portions of five vibrant but earth-toned colors of play dough come in a cardboard tube and are easy to get out and put away; our homemade play dough tends to take up the whole house and even with the artificial food colorings we never get colors half as rich. The moisture level is also uniformly just right - ours sometimes comes out a little, eh, sticky. Besides, many of us do buy play dough in a pinch, even if we like the idea of making it, but I always hated for our daughter to get all those weird Play-Doh ingredients on her hands, even if it is supposed to be non-toxic. (No, we don't have any evidence that Play-Doh is toxic. But still.)

A set of five colors of Eco Dough sells for $20 plus shipping from Eco Kids USA's well-stocked shop.

The only warning I'd issue is that these vegetable dyes can bleed. No Hair's bald head was tanning-cream orange when we peeled that Legoman helmet off her scalp and the color only washed about 75% off with a little dish soap. Z also had some stuffed dogs "eating" play dough cookies and they have a bit of yellow on them. Personally I think this is fine - it will probably come out of the dogs' polyester fur once we throw them in the washing machine and there's nothing wrong with a little fakin' bakin' when it comes to Z's dolls - better that than the blue. But you'd better have your child play with this stuff in the proper type of space, not on your kitchen butcher block countertop.

We haven't yet used the paint but are eager to. It seems even more unique (whoops, "more unique," can I get a shout-out from a peeved English major?) than the play dough. We'll let you know what we find.

Like making homemade play dough? Make a "to go" play dough kit for a day at a caregiver's.

On a recent visit to Houston, Z and I abandoned plans for a major museum visit when we drove by a broken water main and a driving lane full of water. Some scenes:












Love this kid.

Celebrity bear Corduroy had chins wagging at a recent red carpet appearance, in which she wore a provocative toilet-paper-and-rubber-band gown by couture designer Zella McNichols.

Pundits agreed that the selection of colors coordinated well with Corduroy's trademark pink armband, a stubborn reminder of a 2008 injury that had tabloids prematurely announcing the star's death at the jaws of rapscallion daschund Harley Earl, who is still at large. "The somewhat bedraggled appearance of the gown is a testament to all Corduroy has been through since the pre-K heartthrob declared himself a woman after that injury," Page Six's Jarrett Brockington opined. "Between her frequent joyrides in the clothes dryer and the prominent eye scratches from her only haircut, Corduroy is a classic post-Brittany diva. She's managed to keep herself in the public eye with hard living and a decadent lifestyle despite not having worked in years."

Z and I had a conversation about 911 earlier today - what it used for, why it is a short number, what types of situations she might need to call 911 for and what she should say if she did, and "how much" someone would be bleeding if they cut themselves so bad that an ambulance would be necessary. Thus the amount of blood in the human body arose as a significant question.

We did a quick web search and came up with a figure of six quarts of blood in an average adult. (Later, and perhaps better figures would knock this down closer to five quarts, but I have no regrets.) This means very little to a five-year-old; even showing a one-quart liquid measuring cup and saying "six of these" doesn't help much, because kids that young can't really visualize and estimate volumes. So we decided to make six quarts of "blood," to get a sense of just how much that was.

It all went down in the bathroom, where knew we could clean up any mess we made without much hassle.


We used this hair clip board to count quarts as we went. With each quart we poured into the larger container, Z "opened the doors" in one of the hair clip slots.


The red food coloring was the master stroke that made certain Z would both remember and understand what we were doing. Above, Z contemplates the volume of blood that is supposedly coursing through my body.

The next step was a discussion of the fact that she undoubtedly had considerably less blood. We did some quick math and guessed that although she was about 1/4 of my weight, she might have up to 1/3 of the amount of blood in her body that I had in mine. We really had no reason to think that, but it seemed like a decent guess, and I didn't want to slow down our progress by looking for more facts.

That's when things got really interesting, though, because after calculating how much blood we were going to measure back out of the container, we decided we'd take pictures of each of us with the quantity of blood that was in our bodies. In other words, it meant Z was going to get her hands on our Nikon D40. She's a pretty careful kid, but that camera is pretty heavy for a five-year-old.






In a way it seems like a lot of blood to have in your body... doesn't it?

When we removed the blood from the container to "draw down" to Z's level, she "closed doors" back up in our counting card and was able to tell me when we had removed enough.


This seems like a shockingly small quantity of blood for anyone to have, especially since we were probably overestimating. It's realizations like this that make kids' toughness in the face of great vulnerability so shocking, and so inspiring.


This photo is a few months old, from the time Z ran out of a restaurant more or less straight into a pole. There was a lot of blood at the time, and it didn't help that her tears mixed with it, reopening it several times as it healed. Clearly, though, there was plenty of blood left over.