I loved The Swiss Family Robinson as a kid. It was one of my favorite stories, along with Robinson Crusoe and the Little House books. I remember going to Disney World long before I read the book and wondering what the treehouse was all about, but I understood once I was old enough for the book. After reading this abridged edition, I realize that the cornucopia of flora and fauna on the island is utterly outlandish, but as a kid it seemed perfectly normal for an exotic island to have lions, tigers, elephants and ostriches. The story is still a blast, and M enjoyed it quite a bit too since it was a special ‘Daddy & M’ book. Along the way, I got a nice flashback to some of my dreams and fantasies as a kid and realize that some things don’t change but are slowly forgotten.
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I’ve been reading some of the Little House On The Prairie series to M lately, and we are both loving it. We finished On the Banks of Plum Creek a few weeks ago, and now we are working on By the Shores of Silver Lake. I skipped the first book (…Big Woods) mostly because I had read it before several times, and I also skipped Farmer Boy since I really wasn’t too interested in Almonzo’s childhood. I skipped Little House on the Prairie because that is one that we are missing (got the rest at a garage sale). I’ve been reading aloud several chapters at a time to M, and I am always happily surprised by how much he seems to enjoy it. The other day we were building lincoln logs and I mentioned how Laura and her family had lived in a log house in the Big Woods. I showed M some of pictures in that book, and described how they plugged up the gaps in the logs. He asked a lot of good questions, and decided to looks at the pictures in that first book while I read from Silver Lake. We also talked about all sorts of other topics, like why people at one time didn’t have telephones and cars. And we had a conversation tonight about why some people eat chickens (we are lacto-ovo-pesca vegetarians).
The ex-teacher part of me keeps feeling tempted to create a “unit” about the Little House time period, but I’m trying to resist the urge. For one thing, I think M is too young for me to worry about more formal learning. For another thing, I’m trying to pull myself more in the unschooling direction because I really do believe in it intellectually. And really, I’m just enjoying how the story unfolds and seeing which things end up interesting M the most. So I think I’m just going to see where this takes us and maybe suggest ideas for other projects to M if he gets excited about something. Personally, I’ve been meaning to do some research into the recipes that “Ma” is making in the book. M loves to cook, so I have a feeling he might like doing that along with me.
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