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That's it.
I said it years ago in an AOL discussion and the visual stuck.
What I was referring to was leaving things around and changing them out.
Some of our most successful items have been toys or objects for playing with (sometimes not purely a toy) like
castle blocks
magnets (or some new magnet toy where something swings or moves)
a prism
odd little crafts things with some tactile element people will just HAVE to pick up and mess with (fuzzy, furry, slippery, gummy...)
printouts of good cartoons or little articles or humor lists (generally taped inside the bathroom or left on the counter there, or on the dining table)
new foods, snacky stuff, in a bowl, out
interesting rocks, rinsed, in a bowl, on the table
Sometimes it's just as simple as driving another route to the same old place, or going to a different grocery store than usual. Other successful outings of note which I consider in the same category as strewing (though not the same action):
any public doing like racing remote control things in a parking lot or vacant lot—just passing by is sometimes sufficient without even stopping
concerts
fleamarkets
garage sales
new stores just opened
old stores in danger of closing (take them in before it's gone)
prairie dog towns
vacant lots with wood we can pick up for firewood
And with ALL those things, we get time together, shared experiences and conversation.
When the kids were little, I was very aware of and more intentional
about this habit—I picked up interesting rocks or feathers, put out
different kinds of paper or markers or tape or a puzzle or an old hat
or anything that might, even if just for a moment, interest someone.
Now it is just a way of life and I don't think about it, but we all
do it. It is kind of a background thing that goes on in unschooling
families—it is part of what creates a stimulating, enriched
environment for our kids.
-pam
Another view is like the movie Coming to America (Eddie Murphy plays the Prince of Zamunda). In that movie, there are several young ladies whose task it is to toss rose petals in his path so his steps are sweet and fragrant. He doesn't tell them where he's going, he just goes. They study him, his usual behaviors and patterns, his likes and dislikes, and so on. So, most of the time they know that they can go this way and it is pretty close. Sometimes, though, he changes direction suddenly and it's their job to get back in front quickly. We are those flower strewers—we study our kids, what they usually enjoy and so on, and try to draw those things into the environment. Sometimes though they take a sharp turn and after a month of dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs, suddenly we're in outer space. It's our job not to pull them back to the 'rest' of the 'cool dinosaur stuff' we've been accumulating and 'studying' but rather to take a breath and head off into space, facilitating their access to what they want rather than saying Okay let's do a "unit study" on space now.
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strewing page,
or on to
parenting topics for unschoolers.
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