Fishing and Playing

B has been anxious to use his fishing license for more than just the day he picked it up for. So this week he and R went to the linear path and fished along the river, where they have seen other people catch fish in the past. Nothing was caught except, as R explained jovially, "a tree".

Not one to waste however much he actually spent on the worms he bought Friday night, B went out again on Sunday afternoon, this time with R and E both. This time they went to Mixville Park. B caught nothing, R caught three fish, and E caught frustration since the pole they have for him is too difficult for him to handle. I'm under instruction that the next time we go someplace which sells them, I'm to get another pole exactly like R's for E. Naturally I'll have to have R with me since I have no idea what any of the darn things look like. Perhaps that can be R's present to E for this birthday, which is on May 26th.

Today we spent some time with friends. Their father is an electrician and recently had a very bad accident. He will have bandages on his hands, and absolutely no use of them, for at least four weeks. His wife, a playgroup friend, asked for volunteers to take her girls this week until she can settle her husband into a routine.

We had playgroup today, which is in their neck of the woods, so I picked them up early and we spent some time in New Haven before playgroup. We went to the Peabody Museum, but I was incredibly overwhelmed by all the school kids on field trips, so we cut out of there PDQ. Luckily we are members, so I hadn't spent anything to get in and wasn't all that frustrated at leaving after just 30 minutes.

So we went further south and parked along the trolley route. The girls had never taken the (free) ride before, so that was something new and fun for them. Of course we have done it many times at this point, but it never seems to get tired. We were disappointed to see that the candy store we loved to visit has disappeared, and has been replaced by some sort of eatery.

After that we parked closer to the green and had a picnic under a big old tree with a huge canopy of shade.

We even had time to run over to BJ's in North Haven for gas before heading to Bassett Park for playgroup.

Playgroup was especially fun today because three new families joined us. I posted the regular event on the Greater New Haven Homeschoolers , and CT Homeschoolers Inclusive calendars of events, and was happy to see the results. One mom had only just moved to Hamden nine days ago. I can remember not too long ago feeling like I would go crazy if I didn't find other kids for my own to connect with, so I was glad to contribute to helping others find us.

Funny, two of the moms already knew me from the photo on my blogs. One of them had read through this blog, and the other one knew me from my other blog. She had heard about it from an unschooling list she is on. Apparently there was a big discussion about my blog regarding Radical Unschooling vs. Self-Directed Learning. It seems that I don't even have to be on the lists to have my "wrong" way of doing things criticized - lol! Anyway a few of us had our own interesting discussion regarding the topic, and I can add more people to the list of those who are afraid to post their real feelings on the lists. They suggested I started my own for those of us who are not comfortable with the extremism.

By the way, I'm moderating comments now. Not interested in providing soap boxes for anyone except myself :-)