Thursday, January 29, 2009

Brain Food

People often ask about unschooling (the term used by some for the homeschooling philosophy we tend to gravitate toward) and how it works. A few weeks ago, I was making breakfast with the kids and I thought "this is a perfect example of unschooling, I should blog about it". So here you go...

Life is learning, learning is life. Food is needed for life so food is a catalyst for learning. Vegan food is yummy, good for the Earth, compassionate, and fun, especially pancakes...wait, where was I going with this? Oh yes...

This is how it unfolds, in our completely scheduled and rigid (not!) life. I head downstairs in my pjs thinking it is probably a good time to cook something. As I daydream about what I could prepare for breakfast, I hear the patter of little feet. I'm followed pretty closely by my eight year old, Parker, carrying my 16 month old (after he has helped her go to the potty). Parker asks what is for breakfast and if he can help. I ask him to decide and the shout from behind him (my four year old, Dema, snuck in at some point without me noticing) "PANCAKES!!". "Okay", I say, "if you guys make them and double the recipe". Parker reads the ingredients out loud to Dema and he and Dema work together to double all the measurements (lots of fractions which Parker explains to Dema). Dema and Josie take turns pouring everything into the bowl. While they are doing all the work. I ask them questions about what nutrients they might be getting from the pancakes and that leads to them adding blueberries and raspberries with a side of grapes since we are all in agreement that pancakes are not one of the most nutrient dense foods one could eat. Dema asks questions about baking powder and baking soda and how the ingredients interact to create a pancake. Parker asks about the origin of pancakes and what other cultures eat them. Josie has a great time holding the measuring tools carefully and waiting for Dema's okay to dump them. We watch observe and discuss how the pancakes change when the cold blueberries are added to the warm batter while they cook and how the insides of the cooked pancakes without fruit differ from the ones with. As we wait for the pancakes to cook, the kids sing songs together (it just happens to be US history sentences). The boys ask what the Latin word for pancakes is, but I can't find a Latin word for pancakes so they play with the Latin words they do know. We did find out that "plancenta" is "cake" and since the boys know all about plancentas (one of the great learning benefits of homebirth), this spurred another interesting conversation.

The pancakes and fruit disappear. We all had fun and we covered some reading, math, health, world studies, science, history, home ec, language, biology, reproduction, and music before we even finished breakfast. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

6 comments:

Jumbleberry Jam said...

Lovely post!! My Latin is very rusty, but I'm guessing "libum caldus" (hot cakes) will work. I fear we never get anything done around here as I know so little off the top of my head. I'm forever running off to look up the answers to questions DS isn't even asking yet! (like the baking powder/soda discussion you had)

Jumbleberry Jam said...

Sorry, that's the singular. Plural would be something like "liba caldi" ;-).

VeganLinda said...

JJ, Thanks! I wish I had some Latin in my past to even be rusty. :-) I'm learning along with them on this one (as with so many other things).

lao80 said...

:) I didn't know you were unschoolers. It's nice to meet more vegan unschoolers.

Misc said...

You guys totally rock. Loved this.

The Fearless Freak said...

That is so funny that you blogged about this. We just had a discussion about how you guys are Vegans and homeschool (while I was trying to explain to TB that McDonald's wasn't the best choice for a playdate). He was confounded by veganism ("what do you mean, 'they DON'T eat meat', are you sure") and totally jealous of the homeschooling ("you mean Parker DOESN'T have to get up early and go to school everyday) :)