I'm an Unschooling mom in Las Vegas, NV. I have all boys! A 14 yr old, a 6 yr old, a 1 yr old and 2 teenage stepsons.
4 of the 5 have some special need or another, and the 5th would be termed "gifted" if he was in school. They all have their own interests and abilities.
Join me as I blog about our Christ-led learning approach..things that work, things that don't, and the antics of family life!
Unschooling is child led learning! It is not dictated by mom, by "grade level" by "shoulds" or "should nots". It is simply following your child! I used to use this example....just because babies learn to walk, does that mean that at 10 months you start FORCING them to? holding them up and berating them when they fall down? Because SOME kids start at 10 months? Or, do you follow their lead, encourage them, give them time, give them tools?!!
That's the way it should be with all learning! It shouldn't be forced, it shouldn't be because some administrator who doesn't know your child, dictates it to be time...this homeschooling business is all about our individual children!!
If they want to learn about rockets for 5 years, or 5 minutes, that's AOK with me! If they want to learn about the American Revolution in 3rd grade, who am I to say, sorry, that's a 4th grade topic?!?! Well, there's more below...and more to follow...keep reading!!
This is from a post I sent to my local support group recently:
I call myself "the door-opener". I'll open a million doors for the kids and see what interests them and then I'm "the resource-gatherer" and "the taxi" and "the money-machine". But, don't forget I'm also often "the co-learner".
I do not teach during certain hours. We fall into an always learning category. That doesn't meant they are always learning(just 90% of the time!), but it means I am always on the prowl for educational inspirations. Numerous examples:
**Dressing room of Walmart..they give you those number placards for items...when my son was 4, he'd run from door to door and read the number, saying it aloud. I ENCOURAGED him to do this. Number recognition! Does nottttttttt need to come solely from a workbook.
**Speed limit signs...my oldest learned his double digit numbers and concept of adding while we were in the car...whats two five? 25! Whats 2 + 5, 7!
***When we're eating apples, I point out that they are RED
**When we're drawing houses I point out they are square with a triangle on top
These are little kid examples, but you will find if you get in that mode, the info you "give" gets age appropriate. The other day my oldest was talking about LSD and it's molecular structure (ok, this sounds really geeky...I'll explain more...he's got this screen saver that shows molecular structures of all sorts of things...it's tied in with a study on the periodic table of elements..ANYWAY!) I started explaining about nerve inhibitors and thats why people on it can set themselves on fire etc and "not feel" anything, which led to talking about amputees etc etc. We're always learning!!!
Now, no, we arent always actively pursing "molecular structures" and such...we have lots of play time, lots of pool time, but a lot of our "play" is also learning.
I'll give u a big kid and a little kid example of playing=learning
Little kid...I have this "cash box" and has all sorts of money in it, bills and coins. My 6 yr old LOVESSS to play "mc Donalds" One of us "drivesup" and orders, the other is the cashier. At first it was all about coin recognition, front and back and coins worth. NOW its just starting to be about making correct change now that we know its worth.
Big Kid....my son loved NeoPets. They offered him his own page and an html guide and he took it from there....he "played" and built his own page and learned html. NOW he knows html, xhtml, xml, and css. He has just taken over MY websites and is actually more advanced than me (I get yelled at now for my "antiquated ways").
Last year my oldest son's interests were the computer (mostly website building and blogging) and Japanese. We listened to Japanese music, he bought Japanese writing utensils and practiced writing, he made spreadsheets with all the different words he knows, and the various sets of characters (dialects? I dunno!) cooked Japanese foods, read Japanese for Dummies, the list goes on and on!
This year, he is "taking a break from Japanese" (Thank GOD!) and more working on programming and computer graphics. He is currently running "dual operating systems" on his computer, Windows and Lynux, he has torn apart and rebuilt not only our old computer, but his BRAND NEW ONE (gasp!!!) and re-did mine and saved/transferred all the data when mine crashed. He knows so much more than I do! He surpassed me in website building last year, now knows and uses CSS and XML ("html is so OLD , mom!!! Soon, noone's going to be able to read your pages")
He has many interests and abilities that astound me. He loves to read the Left Behind Series. His knowledge of Revelations supercedes mine, and is actually embarrasing! He laughingly told me that OF course there are dragons in the bible, havent I read revelations?:!?!? We recently purchased the Tim LaHaye study "Revelation Unveiled" and Brian will be attending the upcoming Dare To Share, which is centered on Revelations this year!
I'm telling you, no matter what the topic/interest is...I can find resources for it! One son LOVES comic books. He loves the format, the way they flow.....During a trip to an old Fort, I found Epic Battles of the Civil War comics...totally cool! A friend mentioned that there are Classics in Comic Book format...and recently I found books of the Bible in Comic Book format! The Book of John.
Well, I hope this helps! I know so much STUFF, have so many things we use, have used, or COULD use!
