I'm shocked surprised to find myself leaning so much toward the unschooling side of homeschooling. Not entirely-for that still feels a bit too extreme for me, at this point in time. At first, I thought I would be recreating school at home, but I'm finding that not only do I not like that, the kids don't need that.
What seems to be developing is a sort of unstructured structure, in that we have lots of learning activities, including books and worksheets, computer programs, puzzles, games, toys, paper and crafting stuff in our "school room" available. The unstructured part is that we don't have a set time, it depends on our schedules and what we need to do in a given day/week and that I don't have a rigid schedule I stick to as far as the learning activities go. We have "school time" where we are engaged in learning activities, of which I generally let the kids choose. I really am coming to see "homeschooling" as more of a life style, a way of life. I think "Learning Lifestyle" is more appropriate. We are always learning about new things, as they come up and as the kids express interest or ask questions. It feels so much more natural than trying to force our way through an entire workbook or lesson. We do use workbooks, when it makes sense, and when the kids are interested. These Spiderman workbooks
are a big hit right now. So is coloring. The boys seem a little obsessed to enjoy coloring right now. We also have a lot of free play time in our day.
I am finding that I am loving the freedom and letting the kids choose our learning activities. The line between play and learning is blurring, and I love that much of the time, the kids are having so much fun they don't even know they are learning. I also find that I enjoy letting them choose the topic or activity that we are going to study.
What seems to be developing is a sort of unstructured structure, in that we have lots of learning activities, including books and worksheets, computer programs, puzzles, games, toys, paper and crafting stuff in our "school room" available. The unstructured part is that we don't have a set time, it depends on our schedules and what we need to do in a given day/week and that I don't have a rigid schedule I stick to as far as the learning activities go. We have "school time" where we are engaged in learning activities, of which I generally let the kids choose. I really am coming to see "homeschooling" as more of a life style, a way of life. I think "Learning Lifestyle" is more appropriate. We are always learning about new things, as they come up and as the kids express interest or ask questions. It feels so much more natural than trying to force our way through an entire workbook or lesson. We do use workbooks, when it makes sense, and when the kids are interested. These Spiderman workbooks
are a big hit right now. So is coloring. The boys seem I am finding that I am loving the freedom and letting the kids choose our learning activities. The line between play and learning is blurring, and I love that much of the time, the kids are having so much fun they don't even know they are learning. I also find that I enjoy letting them choose the topic or activity that we are going to study.
Learning about numbers. John put the numbers in order, matched the dot cards to the number cards, and then, counted out that many vehicles.
Goofy! But learning! On this day, Steve chose this cool book about the states.
We colored a map of the USA starting with the states he already knew about.
We read facts from the book about the states.
Then we learned about the states where mom and dad were born.
We also did a puzzle of the USA which helped us learn about the state capitals.
It doesn't look like what I thought it would or should.
But we are learning.
2 comments:
awesome, Lena!! i love it. i think this is probably the most effective way of learning. at least for some us... cause i think it would've been for me, too!
Thanks, Megan. :-)
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