Vacuuming around life

Reggio Emilia. It's a small town in Italy that had a tough go of it during the second world war. It's also the eponymous home of a unique philosophy on child rearing and early childhood education. About three years ago, before we had done much research on homeschooling, we were spending a lot of time in our local library reading up on all the different thoughts on how properly to educate a child during the pre-school years. After reading several books, and after drawing on my own brief stint in early childhood education, I became enamoured of the method, which embraces child and experience driven learning to the nth degree. The key word in Reggio is really respect, and I don't mean the respect a teacher demands of a student, but the respect they give to that student, and to the student's naturally derived desire to learn. Trust would be another good key word because the Reggio way requires a teacher to trust in a child's impulses to lead them (teacher and child). Reggio is also very much about using all the senses and having access to physical materials—not so much toys, but materials—and freedom to explore. Reggio relies heavily on a relationship developed between child and teacher, one that is developed through careful observation. A Reggio teacher spends hours observing the children and taking notes on their activities and inclinations so as to better guide the learning experience in the future—guide, not direct, and all based on the child's own interest. From my own interpretation Reggio is really the precursor to a life of unschooling. The early formation of an autodidact.

Reggio, as a method, is not easy to grasp or to understand, in part because it does not fit well into our own cultural beliefs about child rearing and education. For that reason a real Reggio school is hard to find here. Jon and I searched the area and found that there were no official Reggio preschools with teacher who had been trained the Reggio way, or at least none that were affordable, so we decided to learn what we could about the approach and adopt it as much as possible at home, and I've been pretty pleased with the results as a whole. Calvin is a very independent learner so far, sometimes to the point of wishing me away when he is busy in his own world. In fact, the hardest point I think is going to be gauging when he does need assistance, and teaching him how to accept it. Or maybe that's my own interpretation of the situation? But until now, actually, the hardest part has been letting go of the house keeping, because Reggio demands that a child is given as much time as necessary to explore the worlds they choose.

If there is a log community in process on the floor on vacuuming day, one just has to vacuum around it.

Not Counting Monsters, by H.L. Ross

Ah, now this is a real treasure left from my childhood. We found it on a recent romp through the history cache that is my parents' home. I know I said this about The Little Rabbit, but here's another book that brings back wonderful memories every time I read its pages. This is simply a fun book. It's a counting book that asks you to count all of some object on any given page (people on one, gas pumps on another) while skipping over the monsters (who are dressed up as people or gas pumps respectively). It's just a fun book. Unfortunately, it's no longer in print. In fact, it's so out of print that I was unable to find a picture of it online anywhere, so I had to take my own. There are a few used copies to be had out there, and if you're at all interested I suggest you do a used book search and snatch one up. Did I mention that it's fun? And now, from Calvin:

"We're avoiding counting monsters and counting people, gas pumps, sheep, and cooks, and fish and boats, and all kinds of things, but not monsters."

"I like the book. I like how they wrote it like a poem with rhyming."

"Yes [I would recommend this to others]."

Empty chrysalis syndrome

This is copied from the journal:

Our black swallowtails finally emerged and left. Having read that they remained as chryslids for only 8-10 days we had come to believe that they were planning to winter over with us, since they had gone into that state while we were still up at Walloon, 14, 15, and 18 days ago. We were surprised and excited, then, to find one of hte shells empty on Sunday afternoon. Having missed the take off of Larry, our first caterpillar turned black swallowtail, we were determined to keep a closer eye on Curly Parsley and Moe so as not to miss the great show. to give them more room we had tied their smaller sticks to longer ones and propped them in an open (never used) bird feeder on our deck table.

This morning we were finally rewarded. Right after eclosing the butterfly has a body distended with fluid and wings folded tightly against the body. They then pump the fluid out of their abdomen and into the veins of their wings to spread them open. These two eclosed probably 4-5 minutes apart, although we missed Moe (on the right) emerging. This picture was taken at 8:48am.

Just four minutes later at 8:52 Curley Parsley (on the left) has significantly altered his appearance. The chrysalis is still there on the stick. Notice that it is no longer dark in color now that the black butterfly is out.

A closer look at Moe so you can see the veins running through her wings. Curly Parsley and Moe were both females, a specific that can be determined by the spot formation on their wings—big yellow spots on the male, smaller yellow spots on the female.

Here is Moe stretching out her proboscis, making sure she's ready to get nectar from the plants she finds.

Stretching and sunning. This was right before Moe took off. Curly Parsley (on the right here) wasn't that far behind time wise, but she stuck around for another 30 minutes.

This is pobably best chance we've ever had, and probably will ever have, to take such a close look at a butterfly.

And just two final shots of Curly Parsley before she took off to look for nectar plants and a mate. Good luck Curly.

Awesome.

The Little Rabbit, by Judy Dunn (our review)

This is an oldie but a goodie. I remember this book vividly from my own childhood and flipping through the pages brings a delightful feeling of recognition and nostalgia. One of the best things about this book is the use of photography instead of illustrations. There's nothing wrong with illustrations, of course, but the pictures make this book unique. The only disappointment? The little rabbit grows and grows and one day has babies of her own. That's it. She just has babies. Now, I'm not saying that my four year old is ready for sex-ed, but there's something just a little unfinished about that part of the story, eh? Here's what Calvin says:

"It's a story about a little girl who gets a little rabbit. She makes a hutch and she puts Buttercup in it and hten she puts a nesting box in it for Buttercup's babies. Buttercup has babies and then they give some of the bunnies to Sarah's friends because they ahve too many bunnies and the hutch is crowded. In the end they [Sarah and Buttercup] are alone again and so they are happy."

"[My favorite part is] when she picks her name from the buttercup flowers."

[I learned] I can have a rabbit as a pet. And wild rabbits are camoflauge[d]."

"[I'd recommend this book to someone because] I like the pictures in teh bok and i like the end and the beginning when they are alone."

Rearing Black Swallowtails

This is a repost from the journal:

Two weeks or so ago I clipped parsley from the overgrown plants on our deck and stuck the bouquet in a glass of water, hoping to find use for it over time (the parsley has been very happy this year for sure). Then, on Monday of this week, I decided that we'd gotten as much use out of it as we were going to and went to throw out the remaining stalks. Imagine my surprise at finding a very fat bright green and yellow caterpillar perched right on top of my parsley in my cup in my kitchen. He must have come in on the large bunch nearly two weeks ago and has been munching away ever since (I must say, the bunch did seem significantly smaller, but I hadn't paid much attention).

At his current size and appetite we decided that replacing him on the already pared plants outside would be the end of our parsley crop for the year, and in fact a quick check of the outdoor plants revealed his two brothers or sisters on the now much-munched outdoor plants. Not willing to give up my plants or the learning opportunity waiting to be grasped, we brought all three little buggers inside and made them happy with clipped parsley (organic from the store) and sticks inside large wide mouth Ball canning jars. They could have picked better timing, though—looks like they will have to go on vacation with us next week.

Shall we name them Larry, Curly Parsley, and Moe?

The orange horns are a stinky warning to those who might bug him, but we bugged him anyway and brought him inside. The other two were far more mellow about using the horns, but this guy was feisty.

Here are two of the cats, each in a different phase; the one on the left is much bigger and greener and is in the final caterpillar stage while the one on the right will molt one more time.

Fascinating.

We'll keep you posted on their progress.