“What exactly do unschoolers do all day?”
I cannot even attempt to count the number of times I’ve been asked this particular question.
Recently, a lady asked me this question and my answer was simple:
Peacocks and potatoes.
The look this lady gave me caused me to walk away giggling with my son. However, I meant it. On that particular day, peacocks and potatoes had consumed our day.
Potatoes
As I’ve noted before, this is our first real year gardening. It’s a task that I’ve always wanted to do, but we have not had space to REALLY garden before this move. So, my 13 yr old son and I are going all out and learning together each step of the way. We spend more time looking through books to find out what we should be doing than actually planting, but we’re thoroughly enjoying this journey.
On Pinterest, we had read that you can plant potatoes in practically anything. We had a broken tote that was missing a top(I think all of the tops from our totes have joined the millions of missing Tupperware tops around the country) and decided to give it a whirl. To read more about our previous gardening adventures, please check out this blog post: https://learningisawayoflife.com/gardening/
My son tends these potatoes diligently and has been getting more and more excited each day as he’s seeing the leaves growing and then watching them wither. He gives me a countdown almost every day…”hey mom, about 1 more week and I think the potatoes will be ready…”
It’s here!
Well, the day finally came! He was literally squealing with delight as he started digging them out.
My heart was so overjoyed as we talked about potatoes. We sat outside in the sun, surrounded by dirt, bugs, and potatoes while he looked up the history of potatoes on his phone. Why would he do this? Because he is obsessed with knowing the history behind everything. As he was sharing interesting potato facts with me, I realized that this moment in time would be forever planted in my memories.
Well, we had planted 3 layers of potatoes, and he’s not sure if he accidentally went too far and started digging out the 2nd row, but I guess only time will tell on that. As he was expressing his concern about this, I told him not to worry we’d figure it out.
He went off to go fill a bowl with water so we could wash the potatoes. I just sat there on the ground smiling, absolutely cherishing this day.
Peacock!
The next thing I hear is a bowl thud to the ground, water splash, and my son yell “MOM!!!”
I jump up and start running towards him and he says, “Mom, stop right there and stay very still!”
I freeze in my tracks, with my heart racing and follow his gaze.
Standing right in our driveway, about 3 feet from me is a gorgeous peacock just looking back and forth between my son and me.
I tell my son he doesn’t need to worry, a peacock won’t hurt us. Being skeptical, he walks towards me and we just watch the peacock as he wanders around our driveway and yard eating bugs. It was such a beautiful peacock. My son has always loved peacock feathers, and now seeing this peacock in our yard, guess what he wants the next addition to our little homestead to be??
Natural learning
After the peacock wandered off, we sat out there on the ground again, back by our piles of potatoes and dirt, discussing peacocks.
He asked if we could get some and I told him that I knew nothing about peacocks. He ran into the house and brought out a notebook and some pencils. We sat there and read everything we could find about peacocks. He made about 5 pages of notes as to how to care for, feed, and house them(plus an extra 2 pages of history notes).
Back to potatoes.
I then decided that we needed to get back to washing up the potatoes. After cleaning them well, I let him decide what he wanted to do with them. He wanted to roast them, so he looked up how to do that, and then made the most delicious potatoes we’ve ever had.
After our dinner, he started looking up different craft ideas using peacock feathers. He is so excited at the idea of having peacocks next year that he can’t stop daydreaming. After disappearing into his room for a while, he came out with a super cute story he’d written from a peacock’s point of view. He made the cover for his little book but wanted so badly to decorate it with peacock stickers or feathers or something. He really wanted to go to a local craft store and look around for some and to get ideas on some peacock crafts he could start planning for next year.
After browsing for what felt like hours, we finally went to check out, and the inevitable question “where do you go to school?”
His answer of “I’m unschooled” led to the question of “what exactly do unschoolers do all day?”
And my response of “peacocks and potatoes” just came out of my mouth naturally without me even thinking about it.
I can just imagine how puzzled that poor cashier must have been.
