Unschooling

The homeschool world, like all the rest of mommydom, has camps.  You homeschool for religious reasons, or anti-government reasons, or hippie-reasons, or because your kids have special needs or because they had a terrible time in public schools or because you're sickly attached to them and can't stand to spend a moment apart.  However you came to it, here you are, and now you must declare allegiance.  You follow the Charlotte Mason method, or the Classical method, or you do "school at home" (aka the textbook method) or you are eclectic, or some combination of the above, or something else entirely.  Or you unschool.

I've always felt like if I were a little bit braver, a little more sure of myself, a little more confident in the outcome, that I would unschool, at least somewhat.

We've done a little bit of unschooling for the last few days, and this is how it went:

-When I come in from work in the morning, the youngest is editing a book she and her sister are writing about how to save the environment.  It includes pages and pages of information and graphs with data they have fabricated.  They are in the middle of some debate about the best way to get their message to the world.  This is not a children's book, they insist;  adults need to read this book.  Should they self-publish or pay a lot of money to buy the services of a publishing company?  This has led to conversation about the process of writing and then publishing books, how to get a book contract, the requirements on authors to help promote their books, etc...  So she's sitting at the table editing their work.

-In the morning, the kids ask to play Bananagrams, a Scrabble-style game that requires you to create words out of letter tiles and then be flexible in your thinking as you have to incorporate new letters at intervals.  Then they ask to play Battleship, the classic game where you search for your opponents' battleships by using coordinate pairs.  Spelling, vocabulary, math. Check.

- Davis and I work through a lesson in his new Teaching Textbooks math curriculum.  It takes us quite a while.  Some of the problems are really complex.

-Meanwhile, the girls have decided to set up a science lab in Zoe's bedroom.  They are spending time gathering all the science supplies.  They are creating experiments and writing down all their science knowledge on papers with which they decorate their lab.  They invent a dubious product called "4-in-1," containing water, hand sanitizer, soap, and lotion.

-Zoe and I practice her violin for about 45 minutes.  This is "switch week," so I am required to practice as well, and she critiques my form and reminds me to keep my thumb and pinky bent on my bow hand and to relax my shoulder.

-Meanwhile, Davis is reading his book for book club, which meets on Friday.  Emma Kate is playing school with her dolls.

This morning, more unschooling:

-More Bananagrams.  My worst speller loves this game, and he's learning so much about creative and flexible thinking as we play.

-The girls invented a zipline system to deliver a cup of supplies from a storage spot on the wall down to their science lab table.  They also worked with some large cardboard boxes to create something else...not sure what...they declared it a failed experiment but were happy with their effort.

-Davis and I worked through another math lesson.  Zoe and I had another violin practice session.

-The girls collected some creek water and everyone looked at what they found in the microscope.

-Davis started work on a new story using a hand-drawn storyboard.  He's drawing the pictures and creating the story now.

-We went to the library for new books.  Zoe chose Robinson Crusoe and is finding it dense.  I'm interested to see if she'll persevere.  Emma Kate chose a book by a favorite author.  Davis put the next Harry Potter on hold and will finish his book club book by Friday.

It's delightful to give them some days to just follow the day where it goes, to let them pursue what moves them.  It's amazing to see that they "cover" so much of their academics in their own learning:  reading, math, music, writing, science.  I think to unschool all of the time, the key is to live in a home full of learners, so they are always being exposed to new and interesting information, some of which they gravitate toward to dive deeper.

Tomorrow we'll return to a more parent-directed day, and that will be good in some ways, but we'll all look forward to our next time to unschool.