I am not sure exactly why things are off rhythm and routine for me recently, but they are. My morning routine has been left incomplete several days in a row now and some of the standard To Dos I easily check off each day have been going unchecked. Maybe it has something to do with the end-of-February birthday celebrations or perhaps it has to do with my sore knee whose swelling won’t go down and has ached now for two or three weeks and that distracts me from my daily activities. It could be the anticipation of the change of seasons as the days grow longer or it might be related to the ridiculous weather things, like high winds and rain, that too often bring to mind Hurricane Helene and her wake of devastation.
Whatever the underlying, root cause, last night I went to bed lamenting my slow productivity and not in the good way Cal Newport would celebrate in his book by the same name. This slow productivity of mine motivated me to undertake two activities. The first, prayer, heading to God and laying the weight of all my undone things at His feet and requesting a reset and renewal. The second, a bit of Instagram scrolling, mainly because, once again, despite how tired I felt at bedtime, I was unable to fall asleep. And, while I know scrolling on my phone is not conducive to helping me fall asleep, I still opted for that mindless activity as I lay in the dark.
While the scrolling did not assist me with my not sleeping, it did assist me with some unschooling—my feed included updates from the live eagle cam, the Big Bear Bald Eagle Live Nest camera streaming of an eagle pair, Shadow & Jackie, whose three eggs are in the process of hatching (as of today, 2 of the 3 are fully hatched and the 3rd seems to have its first pip). Because of my late-night streaming and the Big Bear Bald Eagle updates, I was able to email the link to myself for the live stream and call it up this morning as part of our unschooling activities. It was a perfect option, especially given that my oldest teen is a bit under the weather this week, with her feeling at her worst today.
One of the benefits of our unschooling homeschool efforts is that even when sickness enters the picture, we are able to do some school-related things that don’t actually feel like school. Some of that has involved several space documentaries, including another viewing of Good Night Oppy, the wonderful documentary about the two Mars Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity (my 17 year old loves this film). But, we started the day with some regular independent reading and then some read aloud time, including finishing up the Madeleine L’Engle biography, Becoming Madeleine.
In between the readings, I had launched the eagle cam stream and we kept our eyes on the nest and the single eagle covered in snow from a snowstorm that apparently moved into their area only yesterday or last night. From time to time we caught glimpses of the two chicks as the nesting eagle stretched and shifted, and we saw the way the parent moved around the unhatched egg to get it more snug and warm beneath her; we decided the eagle on the nest must be Jackie because my 17 year old had immediately researched a bit about eagle pairs, learning eagles, like penguins, both sit on the nest to care for the eggs, and that the female tends to be larger than the male (and otherwise they look exactly alike). As we watched her shifting and moving, we were fairly certain we saw the evidence of the first pip on that final egg.
As our day has progressed, we have continued to monitor the live stream and finally got to witness the arrival of Shadow and the changing of the guard on the nest. As we watched Jackie stretch and make her way off the nest revealing the chicks and the third egg, eventually we watched Jackie stretch her wings, and take flight. In that moment we saw the definite cracking of a chick about to hatch, that first pip now a larger hole with some additional pipping around the hole like a spiderweb. We have also since learned that the adults will utter clucks as the chick begins to hatch.
As we watched the action on the screen, I was thrilled by the delight exuded by my teenagers. My youngest definitely has a heart for cute, fluffy critters and the eagle chicks do not disappoint in that department. Her squeals harmonized nicely with the clucks and short, soft, whistling sounds uttered by Jackie. I love when learning can provide delight; in fact, I believe it should do so more often than not because learning should be fun and also feed natural curiosity. While we don’t always get that exactly right here, we’ve done pretty well.
Recently, my teenagers were reminiscing about their early at home learning experiences, remembering toys (like Citiblocs & Magnatiles) and television shows (like Wild Kratts & Octonauts) and games (like Leaptsers & Spot-It) all geared toward curiosity and learning. My 17 year old commented how so many of the things they had or did were “secretly educational,” to which her 14 year old sister rightly replied, “I don’t know that it was a secret.” I chimed in, agreeing the learning aspect definitely was never kept a secret from them. It has simply always been my approach to learning, to engage them in their natural curiosity and provide fun along the way. And I love knowing they are still deeply engaged, lured by their curiosity and the delight in learning brought about by things like Mars rover documentaries and eagle cams now or the Octonauts and Citiblocs then.