Be sure to check out Joel Henriques’s blog for some awesome authentic art and craft projects to do with kids. It’s awesome!

Click on the photos above to go straight to the how-to posts!

A lot of interesting things were brought up in this weekend’s open thread, and they had me busy thinking and scribbling notes to myself.

Hopefully I’ll have a post up in the next day or so about perfectionism, stress ... and the things we do that are just for ourselves.

In the meantime, Brain Pickings offered up this post:

Modernity offers a curious paradox of connectedness and loneliness. Our perpetually networked selves cling to constant communication in an effort to avoid the deep-seeded sense of loneliness we so dread. Somewhere along the way, we forget — or maybe never even learn — how to be alone, how to stay contented in our own company. — How To Be Alone

This ties in nicely to my thoughts this weekend about how we sometimes have to break free of the stranglehold of always considering other people's expectations and whether our work is attractive or makes sense to anyone other than ourselves. When we judge ourselves too harshly or set our expectations too high, we can’t experience the relaxed playfulness that learning requires. We need to be comfortable with ourselves, with being alone, with doing things that are only for ourselves and no one else.

Poet and singer-songwriter Tanya Davis and filmmaker Andrea Dorfman address this forgotten art in How To Be Alone — a beautifully hand-illustrated, simply yet eloquently narrated visual poem full of all these things we so often need to tell ourselves and believe, yet so rarely do. — How To Be Alone

Be sure to check out the visual poem — it’s wonderful!

Stacey left this comment on Curating Their Experience:

Okay I have the next stage of the question. I’ve been keeping a “learning” journal for my son for about two months now. But I have found that it is more reflective than active. Pretty much I sit down every week or so and write about what we've been doing and what we want to do, need to change, and some new ideas. But it hasn’t really become part of the daily life I know it should be. I’ve read the project/learning journal post but I wonder what people have done internally to make the practice more consistent.

My (lengthy, sorry!) answer is below. Would anyone else like to add their experiences/thoughts?

And feel free to start new discussions or make any other comments/ask questions/etc. — this is open thread!

There are several reasons why you want to use your journal on more of a daily schedule than a weekly one.

1 - You want to be jotting notes about things as they happen and getting down exact words that are said during conversations, questions as they pop, etc., rather than your remembrance of what happened at the end of the week.

2 - When you write about the whole week’s events, there is a tendency to frame or edit what happened — writing it down like a story, choosing the most important parts to write about. You are imposing your thoughts and ideas to give what happened a structure.

Instead, you should be getting down as much raw data as possible with as few preconceived ideas as possible. If you wait and reflect on the raw data, you may be able to see questions, patterns, connections, repeated ideas, etc., that you missed the first time around.

You cannot always anticipate or even recognize what is happening; collecting raw daily data and then reflecting on it thoughtfully can help you see things that you weren’t expecting or weren’t yet ready to see.

3 - It is incredibly easy to forget things if you don’t write them down as they occur. If you practice making daily notes — even about things that do not seem very important — you will begin to collect this data without needing to plan to do it first. It will simply become a habit.

I use post-it notes for this; they are easy to transcribe later (writing in my journal or typing on the computer) or, if I don’t have time, I can just keep them in post-it form and perhaps move them around my journal as I think about them. (Date everything!)

4 - Never underestimate your ability to forget!

5 - If you write at the end of a week (or more), then you are writing about the past. When you make daily notes, you are writing about the present, as it is happening. Your goal is to stay on top of what is happening right now while connecting it to the past and making hypotheses about where things might be headed. To keep the project moving, stay current.

5 - Your goal is to extend your child’s work and help him dig as deeply as possible into his ideas, projects, research, questions, constructions, etc.

To do this, you need to keep on top of your job of supplying him with materials he needs/asks for, helping him remember his own questions and plans (frequently, perhaps daily!), and creating an environment that supports what he’s doing and also helps him remember.

This requires constant, ongoing attention; thus, daily note-taking rather than weekly/bi-weekly/etc.

6 - You want to send a powerful message to your child that you think his work is important. Let him see you documenting his work; let him see you journaling - again, almost daily. When you pick up the camera to photograph his construction, when you watch him play or make, when you talk with him and make notes, when you leaf through your journal and remind him of his question or his plan, you are sending a very strong unspoken message that his work is important to you .. and he will believe it is important.

Now, as for making it a daily practice, I think it helps to start by simply cataloging how he spends his days, then observing him at play (e.g., building with blocks) and making notes, noticing what he asks about and talks about during meals and making notes, etc.  Simply begin to build the habit of paying attention and then documenting what you see/hear/notice.

The goal of project learning is to support your child to become a self-directed, self-managed learner .. and for you to discover how your child learns and how you can best support that learning. This is how you start.

Sometimes, if your life doesn't seem significant enough, it's not your life that isn't significant enough ... it's your response to your life. --- Theodore Roethke

This article by a college professor contains some interesting ideas about using students’ “‘connectivity’ — that is, a strong desire to be connected to the community, and a propensity for social networking … well served by interdisciplinary study,” plus ideas about how to motivate students who are spoiled by a history of being rewarded for just showing up.

There is also a wonderful and touching story about her grandmother learning for learning’s sake.

Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit, and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these. — Susan B. Anthony (hat tip: Helen)

We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures. — Thornton Wilder

If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable. Favorable conditions never come. — C.S. Lewis

Do you ever find yourself thinking that you will get a fresh start tomorrow .. or next week? That when things settle down after the holidays, you’ll get down to it? That you just need to get this or that off your plate .. and then you’ll be ready?

Do it today.

We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action. — Frank Tibolt

Inspiration usually comes during work, rather than before it.  — Madeleine L'Engle

One of life’s quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful. — Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

hat tip: F-Yeah Unschooling