Love is in the air

Candy hearts, Red Hots, roses, chocolates in heart-shaped boxes, wearing red, wearing purple, s.w.a.k., ribbons and lace...what does Valentines Day mean to you?

From my own school days, I remember sitting at our kitchen table with a class list and a pen or pencil, painstakingly writing out the names of classmates on cards carefully selected for their innocuous messages (don't want that guy in the third seat back to think you actually love him). I remember being devastated the year that school was cancelled on the 14th due to winter weather. I remember spending hours designing the perfect card collecting device, which was inevitably made with a paper bag that would taped to the back of one's chair in the classroom.

Now, though, one can't pass out a card without attaching some additional token, usually in the form of candy. And nobody brings a paper bag for collecting their cards anymore. That would be blasphemy. We are part of two homeschooling groups this year; we still attend the same one that we joined last year at which Calvin takes a couple classes a week, and this year we've also started joining our little local group that meets in our library to visit and play games. The first one is more structured, the second more relaxed, but both did Valentines parties this year, which found Calvin designing, assembling, and addressing over eighty Valentines in all, and enjoying every minute of it. I refused to jump on the Second-Coming-of-Halloween bandwagon, so to speak, though. We handed out glittery pencils attached to downloaded and printed cards, as the shaft of Cupid's arrow to one group, and as an owl's tree branch to the other. Pinterest, again, was my friend.

11 days: The last day of "school"

Calvin's one and only performance as the Cheshire Cat in the HAA stage production of Alice in Wonderland went off without a hitch this afternoon. His teeth have miraculously returned almost to their normal position and he was entirely understandable—loud and clear with all of his lines. Adorable, too, but I happen to be biased. Following the play it was play time, with food, crafts, and all around fun for the HAA holiday party. It was essentially our "last day of school" before the holidays, as we will not meet with the group again until two weeks into the new year.

Pipecleaner ornaments

Snowflakes

Field trip! at the zoo

Our homeschooling group did not have access to our usual meeting place this afternoon, so instead some families opted to meet off site somewhere. We joined with a group of young families that were headed to the Detroit Zoo, which feels more like home than a field trip to us, but that was part of the fun. Relatively warm weather and pretty sunshine added to our enjoyment, of course.

Field trip

Homeschool group fried trip! The space we rent as a group was not available this week, so one of our moms organized a field trip to Wiard's Orchard, a local apple orchard and pumpkin patch, family owned for the past 125 years. I remember visiting when I was in high school, and many times in college. Sadly, as with so many other locations in Michigan, their entire apple crop was destroyed by the early March heat and subsequent frost. Their solution was to bring apples in from their family orchards on the west side of the state, which mean that we still got to take home Michigan apples, we just didn't get to pick them.

While there we also went on the hay ride, played mini golf, tried out a variety of play structures, and consumed the obligatory cider and doughnuts. Fall splendor.

A play, a talent show, and more

Today was the last day of indoor gathering for our weekly homeschooling group. During the summer we meet at various parks and eschew indoor activities in favor of learning from nature. It's a great arrangement, because while learning doesn't end when summer comes around, I think our desire and focus changes with the season, so why not follow them.

If I thought I might miss out on some of the cyclical nature of the public school system—the yearly plays, the parties, etc. that I always loved as a child—I have found instead that at HAA we seem to one-up them. Today all the kids gathered along with all the parents (both parents today in many cases) to share in food, games, a play performance, a talent show, and a "talented display". Calvin participated in all three, as a munchkin and a monkey in The Wizard of Oz, as a pianist in the talent show, and with a Lego display of ancient structures from around the world (Egyptian pyramid, Mesopotamian Ziggurat, Mayan temple) on the "talented display" table. 

I will never stop reveling in the camaraderie that exists between all the kids in the group regardless of age, gender, race, belief, yadda yadda, nor in the amount of time, effort, and interest the parents invest in their children, and in others in the group. There are about forty families in the group, and today's gathering was a joyful, raucous affair, without being either too big or too small. Although I barely saw Calvin once he was no longer on stage (a sign of our growing comfort with the group) I know we both had a great time because we came home tired yet positively filled with exuberant, happy energy.

Talented display...

Talent show...

This is the second play Calvin has been in through our group. The first one was Percy Jackson, which they did earlier this spring, but it really was nowhere near as good as The Wizard of Oz, which they put on today. Calvin's own acting ability had grown some, and he spoke with great diction and a loud, clear voice, he remembered all his lines, and I could tell he had a great time. Of course, doing The Wizard of Oz as a play was like a dream come true for him.

"Please take the ruby slippers as a thank-you gift."

"We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz..."

"I don't have a heart."

"Please take us to see the wizard."

"Hooray!" (she melted)

"Dorothy, you have saved us from the evils of the Wicked Witch of the West. But what do we do with our lives now that we're free?"

"The wizard looked at us and said: 'monkies, you have already found your purpose in life. You said it yourself, you enjoy helping people and you can fly. Combining those two things should give you great opportunities for self-fulfillment."

We are linked up to Saturday's Artist at OLM.