What unschooling looked like today

I'm a little late with my mid-month look at unschooling...

We had a lazy morning, with MJ the only one to do much more than lounge and read. She listened to music, spent some time writing in her journal, and hung out on MySpace for a while. Later, Frank and I watched the Seahawks. Chloe—who has cycled back into a swing-shift sort of schedule after several camp-inspired weeks as a day-tripper—finally appeared and fixed herself some breakfast. She ate, then settled down with her laptop. She is doing a practice run at NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), getting herself psyched up for their November sprint. (The goal is to write 50,000 words in those 30 days, and the reward is satisfaction and a certificate that says you did it.)

At 2:30, we tore ourselves away from the game to head down to Seattle (listening to radio coverage of the game all the way, of course). We went to Matthews Park on Lake Washington where we helped our friend Aeron celebrate her 7th birthday. We met several new kids and adults, frosted cupcakes, did some arts and crafts, destroyed a piñata (way to go, MJ!), blew bubbles, and tormented the local wildlife, then some of us settled down to chat and listen to Frank play guitar. The rest played at the playground.

From there, we headed up to Capitol Hill to the Baptist church where Frank plays volleyball every Sunday night. We were early, so we stopped in at Tacos Guaymas for a bite to eat. I introduced MJ to their little open-faced tacos—a great excuse for eating pico de gallo—and MJ introduced us to horchata, a sweet, milky beverage made from rice and flavored with cinnamon. We mostly preferred Frank's Jarritos Mandarina, but it was fun to try something new.

At the church, the girls and I settled in to entertain ourselves while Frank played v-ball. MJ plays there sometimes, but she elected to protect her nose today, so the three of us alternated between watching the action and hanging out in the rec room. I listened to a book on CD briefly, then kept Chloe company while she made some Halloween art. We fiddled on the piano. MJ listened to her iPod.

Then one of the regulars (a church member) suggested we go try out the bowling alley. Turns out the church has its own, two old-fashioned lanes where human hands have to do a lot of the resetting of pins. This was a fascinating experience, and a lot of hard work! The "pit" at the end of the lane was surprisingly spacious once we'd crawled under the (nonfunctioning) pin setter. There's a long, elevated bench back there where the pin boys can sit, taking care to keep their feet out of the way of flying pins, and there's a nifty force-of-gravity ball-return ramp that was fun to play with. (ZP bonus: a fascinating article about bowling that mentions pin boys and one just about pin boys)

We finished up the evening back in the rec room having some carrot cake and chatting with the players. They're a friendly bunch and only ribbed MJ a little about her nose ring.

Now, we're settled in back at home, spread to the four corners of the house. Frank is watching TV in the basement, MJ is going through her photo collection in her room, Chloe is back at work on her novel in the homeschool room (formerly our diningroom), and I'm upstairs blogging.

I'm supposed to do an academic translation of our day now, but I'm tuckered out and not feeling very interested in that. Maybe my readers would like to help me out by taking a stab at it in the comments...?