Weekly Wrap-Up

 Last weekend we went to Canada's Wonderland with family.

 We've been observing many insects. Here is a stick bug that Austyn found.

Here is one of the two Stag Beetles found in the basement of this old farm house.

Here is the large spider we found on one of the mattresses we sleep on. The kids caught different insects to see what it preferred to eat and it only seemed to prefer live flies.

 Unlike last week, when we focused on History and Reading, this week we focused on Science. We have been using Adventures with Atoms and Molecules Book 1 by Robert C. Mebane and Thomas R. Rybolt. We did many experiments this week and the kids made a water molecule (not in the book). When Zoe got bored with Science she started to make crafts and just watched from her place on the table as Austyn and I did the activities.

 We enjoyed going from experiment to experiment and Austyn seems to be getting over his balloon phobia. 

 Austyn is really into Finding Waldo lately so a large Waldo book could be found laying around the house even when he wasn't in the room. Zoe placed her crafts on his book (above) and thought it was funny to spell the word "pee" with pipe cleaners.

 Austyn made many make-believe things from the craft supplies I picked up at the dollar store. Here he is looking at one of his bombs and infront of him on the table there is a special gun. He placed guns like this around the house and was pretending that as people walked by they would get a surprise. 

 We continue to observe the behaviour of the farm cats. Here they are all huddled together in their house. It's a cold day and they are able to keep warm by sleeping together. The mother cat still nurses her first litter of this season and one cat babysits and nurses her newer kittens for her when she is busy. 

 The kittens are growing fast. They are now starting to walk around. This one has extra claws so his feet are so big and cute like a teddy bear! They are starting to be more vocal to us and less shy.

Moving to this area there didn't seem to be much support for us so I took over the secular group and have been getting things together to organize events. The first event I organized was park day. We had a couple of families join us this week. The kids enjoyed themselves.

Zoe practiced dance and Austyn practiced singing. This is something they do everyday.

Zoe practices gymnastics at any available moment. Zoe is in Dance Lessons and both kids started gymnastics this week.

Austyn is in Power Skating and Hockey.

Daddy started to dust off the race car. He tried to get it ready for the last race but it didn't work out. We may have to wait until next year.

The great thing about being in the country is that there are discoveries around every corner. Here the kids are observing the sap from a large pine tree and then they found some lady bugs trying to hide.

 They are in two reading programs at the library. One is a regular story time and the other is a French Story Time. They are enjoying them. This is probably the first time they have ever had homework. This is a project for the regular Story Time. They are to write a story about the adventures of a cat named Scooter and Scooter will read it when we return to Story Time.

 They worked on Drawing. I was going to crack out an art project but they weren't interested. Instead Austyn wanted to do a drawing from a How to Draw book that we purchased at a local book store and Zoe wanted to just draw what she wanted to draw.

Austyn did a bit of reading this week, but not as much as last week.


Hmmm... I'm discovering that it's not so easy to do a Weekly Wrap-Up with unschooling since we really don't follow a curriculum or subjects like kids would in school. I'll try this for a little while, regardless, and see how it goes. 

Doing It On Their Own

 From watching my children, I find it hard to understand how others can't see that children will learn on their own. They will naturally pick up and do important activities that they are ready for. People will ask my when I make them do Math or Spelling. I don't make them. In fact much of the time they do it on their own with the resources I keep around the house or they ask me to do it with them. Zoe decided to try and type to daddy on MSN Messenger. This is a great way to practice spelling in a real life situation (which is way better than spelling drills, in my opinion).

That same morning they decided to read. Austyn read me a book and then Zoe decided to read to him a book she chose. He helped her if she couldn't sound out a word.

Following Interests - Outcome

 

One thing that sets apart child lead learners from traditional schooling is that they have so much free time to explore their interests to the fullest. These kids get to delve deeply into whatever interests them. 

Austyn has many interests and our house becomes littered with things as he moves from one interest to another. One thing I notice with him is that as he becomes more skilled in the areas that he is interested in, his confidence level increases. He has nobody to compare to and isn't marked. This is his own personal gratification as he learns and discovers new things each day in his life.

 Here is an invention he made all on his own with K'nex. It is a ride for his Lego people. It spins around. He did it entirely by himself and without any instructions. I did however show him an improvement once he was finished so that the people would spin faster. 

 This is his fan. He also made this on his own, without direction.

Zoe was sick with a fever and he suggested I fan her with it. Then he decided that maybe it could be improved with paper or cardboard to make a more powerful wind. 

Isn't self discovery magnificent! :)

A NEW Unschooling Support Forum

I just set up a large Unschooling Network that anyone can join who is interested in unschooling. It is brand new! I mean REALLY new! So, please go easy on me. There may be some things to iron out still. If you see anything that you would like to be changed or anything that would be helpful to add please let me know.

Here is the website:

http://unprocessed.proboards.com

 

I Guess This Is Unschooling... activity 4

Just because we ended up unschooling doesn't mean that the kids never do the three R's. I can tell that people assume that they never do lessons of any kind and this is a misconception. They do what they ask for. And "YES" they ask for math and they ask for reading lessons AND they print in their play all the time. I know it is hard for some people to grasp this idea. We see kids who are told when and how to learn each day in school and those kids usually don't want to do more of the three R's at home. In fact they need to be forced by the parents laying down the rules about homework. By telling my kids when and where to learn something I always felt like I was insulting their intelligence and possibly affecting their confidence in their own ability to choose and learn the best way they know how. 

Since I've let go of my own impulse to "control" I've seen such a transformation in us all. There is so much less pressure. I don't mean just for the kids but the pressure has been lifted from us parents as well. Life feels so much more free and flowing now. The kids seem to grasp information so fast compared to when I would try and sit them down to do something. Everyone seems happier and we are all learning so much.

I hate that articles and news casts misrepresent unschoolers. I think because we are all so conditioned in our society about how school is or how we have to learn through being taught it makes it hard to understand. I also think this idea of having to be taught is conditioned into us because if we truly believe this we will pay for teachers and that means money for someone else. I could go into this deeper here but I won't. Suffice to say that it wasn't always this way though out history and people did great things in the past without having to pay an ivy league school to teach them. The strange thing is that now that I see how life is for all of us to learn what we want (parents included) I wonder how I never saw it before.

I am adding an after-thought here: I believe that as long as they aren't in the system of school or forced to be taught subjects that they will ask for those subjects (even CRAVE those subjects) or be willing to learn it without having it scheduled and forced upon them. BUT (big BUT), if there comes a time that I feel that they really will need something I know that there are more appropriate ways to have them learn what they need in fun and engaging ways without extinguishing their enthusiasm for learning. This is exactly what I witnessed from Austyn when I would sit him down on a schedule and teach to him. His enthusiasm died right off. I have learned to respect and trust his ability to seek out what he needs to learn and what he will learn well in each moment of everyday and I'm making sure that he is getting what he craves.

I Guess This Is Unschooling... activity 3

Totally on his own, with no interference, suggestions, or coaxing from anyone, Austyn memorized a quote and he has discussed it's meaning a few times now.  Who says he has to memorize what I tell him he has to? He does it anyway and remembers the quotes that move his soul. Who cares if it's from a book or where it came from. Here is the quote he has memorized all on his own with no coxing or anything: 

"The only way to achieve the impossible is to believe it's possible" ~ Alice's Father from Alice in Wonderland

I Guess This Is Unschooling... activity 2

The other day when I was busy with the gardening and my hubby was busy working on the race car the kids decided to do an experiment all on their own. Austyn set up the pool noodles along the back door of the car trailer and was testing natural filters found around our house. 

We use these noodles on the wires of the back door so nobody walks into the wires so they have slits on one side. You can see above that Austyn has both of them butt together and the slit is at the top so that the water runs all the way down without seeping out the cut. 

Zoe is inspecting the filter. This time it's a pine cone.

Her other job was to watch the water coming out the other end to see if it was clean.

Here Austyn is trying gravel on top of the pine cone. 

Here he is using muddy water.

His findings were that when he put the stones and the pine cone with mud no water got through. So here he is taking the stones out.

They went on like this for a while and I'm sure they learned a great deal. All I did was listen and take pictures once and a while. We found it amazing that they would just go ahead and do this with no help at all. It's amazing!

I Guess This Is Unschooling... activity 1

I thought I'd start a series of posts about unschooling. Sometimes when we do something that is child lead I'll post it. I Guess This Is Unschooling seemed like a good title for now since I'm still deschooling myself and getting use to this type of homeschooling. Here is my first I Guess This Is Unschooling post. 

Austyn was telling me, after he had baseball practice last week, that there were some boys on his team who wanted to make a boy's club. We said that it wouldn't be fair to the girls and he agreed to call the club Baseball Club instead. He wanted to make badges for the members so we got busy on the computer. I showed him how to make them and we printed them out on card stock together. Then he cut them out and him and I made little wallets for the badges. They are to look like a police badge. Once finished he paper clipped them all to the wallets.

This week he gave them to his team mates. They seemed to like them. 

And we couldn't forget Zoe.