What is never scheduled in structured playtime : Playing a game of Dandelion with dandelions.

We went to feed squirrels. Well, we actually went to pick up her first bike from Kijiji…we just brought peanuts because it was close to the park.

“That goose is out of place!” – the four year old quickly noticed, on the way to the park, that Canada Geese should be near the river, or flying overhead – not waddling its way down the middle of a road all willy nilly-like.

Pushing her bike along with them en route to the park, thinking ‘this thing looks gigantic, how’s she going to ride that? Well, it’s pink, so that’s good, no, you can’t ride it yet – ugh, this doesn’t seem like it’s going to be very back-friendly for me, she’s probably not going to be getting a lot of pushes from me, luckily we didn’t bring her helmet so we’ll have to wait till we’re home…actually that’s better because mom will get to see her trying it out…’

At the park. There’s the squirrels.

Peanut peanut peanut, squirrel squirrel squirrel…two empty sandwich bags back in my pocket and a round of farewells for out temporary friends and we continue north, on our way home. There’s the jumping and climbing wall.

These squirrels should have all they need for winter by now...
These squirrels should have all they need for winter by now…

They climbed. They ran. They jumped. They discovered the first dandelions of the season. They invented a new game.

The six year old asked the four year old, ‘Do you wanna play Dandelion with these dandelions??’ She was all in. They picked the four dandelions growing at the base of the climbing wall. They brought them up, they threw them down. They brought them up the long way, they simulated them climbing down.

‘Wanna play Dandelion with dandelions??’

All of a sudden, they were deep into their story-game and spending longer at that then it took us to feed the squirrels – even longer than it took to wait for the bike to come down (which luckily was at a very playable and explorable area of its own – sidewalk curbs and a bike rack with no bikes)

This may look like a hug, but Mortal Kombat fans should recognize Goro!
This may look like a hug, but Mortal Kombat fans should recognize Goro!

‘I made a bouquet!’ She told us from the bathroom

It turns out that she brought the dandelions home, put some water into a cup, and made what looked like dandelion soup that I figured I would just dump out later. Which I didn’t do…because of playing or something…

Dandelion Soup

‘IT BLOSSOMED! IT BLOSSOMED!’

The next day, there they were…Two dandelions that were no longer yellow. What a great end to the game they started the day before. And yes, she’s gotten a few minutes of bike practice a couple of times in the mean time.

fluffy dandelion

How do you schedule this kind of stuff?? #yayUnschooling!

Earlier in the day, some lady asked me about the kids not being in school. She said homeschooling sounded like a good idea because of bullying. I told her bullying was just another point on a long list of why schools aren’t an ideal place for kids to be.