So I ask the the five and almost three year old, ‘Anyone want to make a giant unicycle shadow video out in the dark?’
I told them it would not be dark enough for 20 minutes. I thought it was going to take me 10 minutes to get ready, but it took 20, with two live shadows on me the whole time…they were excited.
We got out, set up the light, got the camera ready, tried to get on the unicycles, and it turns out they learn a valuable unicycle lesson almost immediately; Wet shoes because of wet grass will slip off plastic pedals.
https://www.facebook.com/unconventionaldad/videos/vl.163159680894133/797444873758656/?type=1
Why was this 30 seconds so exciting? She remembered which way the seat faced, and he knew immediately that the pedals didn’t feel right. (she can’t tell the difference and kept practicing…)
Unicycling is about the little things! Very self-motivating…older kids and adults can easily get through a whole pile of ‘failed attempts’ and see the big picture, but I could see that easily frustrating them…nice to see they don’t need an hour of practice to get better. And there’s no rush…they are already better at it than most people on the planet 🙂
20 minutes of unschooling?
As our stroller full of camera gear and unicycles rattled across the field, we talked about why we were going to the wall we don’t go to at night. If there is ever a skunk around, it’s probably going to be around here. But, as I explained, we only have to worry about scaring a skunk, if they are over there, they will run off long before we get there, and they certainly aren’t going to come back and investigate!
As you can tell, she runs off at the end of the video. I told her we were also going to search for night bugs when we were done 🙂
On the way back in we discussed how dad is able to push the stroller with his unicycle in the rain without slippery pedals. It’s because mine are made out of metal and have metal pins that grip into my shoes, so I can ride all I want in rain, snow, and ice. Metal pedals and pins have torn a lot of skin out of dad’s legs and spilled a lot of blood. By the time the kids got back in and slapped my pedals to spin them around we had discussed what ‘pros and cons’ means, risk vs. reward, safety equipment (they don’t need any at this point, it’s like falling over onto the grass from a few inches up)
Tomorrow when they watch this I’ll also show them a first hand view of how shadows work!
