Ironically, I feel like we unschooled the best over the weekend. It actually makes sense - I was fired up, I hadn't told anyone we were doing it and it wasn't a "real" school time. The weekend was fun. We baked and cooked together (we do this often, but I really tried to be better about explaining things), they played outside with Helium filled balloons (we talked about Helium) and we read snuggled up in my bed (my husband was out of town Sunday night). It also helped that my older daughter was at her dad's house most of Sunday. It's harder to let go with her.
Monday was Johnny Appleseed's birthday, so for our first "official" day of unschooling, we headed to an apple orchard. We rented some books about Johnny Appleseed (did you know no one actually called him "Johnny"?) and we made "Grandma's Apple Crisp." The kids played outside and it was fun. Really fun. I printed off some worksheets from the internet too - just some basic questions about Johnny Appleseed's life and geography about where he'd planted his trees. I vacillated. Was it too formal? Was I taking it too far? Should I have just let it go? My older daughter did one of the printed worksheets and I recycled the others.
Tuesday was no one's birthday.
Since we began homeschooling, we have always listened to books on CD in the car. We're on our second run through of the Harry Potter series - we just started the 3rd book. Three times a week we drive thirty minutes to bring my son to speech therapy. We listened to Harry Potter on the way there and back. While we waited at speech I finished up reading the American Girl Samantha book to my 5 year old and we read a couple more chapters in Savvy while the girls did Foam Art Mosaics. That's an 1 hour and 45 minutes of reading (if you're keeping track).
When we got home we made tin can telephone's (an idea we got from the Samantha book). After our first attempt, the telephone's didn't work. The kids lost interest and I was left tweaking the phones in to operation until I went upstairs and passed them on to my husband to figure out. The kids were more interested in playing in the rain. Honestly, it didn't really feel like they learned anything from doing the tin can telephones or running outside in the rain with jump ropes tied around themselves pretending they were horses (a common game around here). Throughout the day we read the Bible, played a Silly Sentences Game as a family and the kids played with trains, Barbies and American Girl Dolls. Looking back it seems like a pretty successful day, but getting there was rout with stress, worry and frustration for me.
With four kids and a Type A perfectionist personality I don't feel like I'm meeting everyone's needs if I don't have a plan. Someone is going to get forgotten in the mix. Extended periods of reading just aren't feasible when the 7 month old is trying to eat the books and wiggle out of my lap. My 3 year old son wants to do nothing but play with trains and race cars. The girls would lock themselves in their bedroom for hours on end doing nothing but play Barbie's or American Girls. I WANT them to play, but how much is too much? And what about me? I feel like I can never turn off. I can't take time to myself during the day because I should always be encouraging some kind of learning activity. On Monday I was "on" from 7:00 a.m. until 10:30 p.m. when we had to go pick up my husband from the airport.
And I know kids need time to "deschool", but since the baby was born we haven't really done much anyway. They all did some "Time 4 Learning" (an online curriculum) each day and my older daughter did Math, but that's been about it for the last 8 months or so. Maybe my Type A "no" personality has left my kids defeated. They don't even ask to do chemistry or build elaborate structures because I've "no"-ed them to death. Honestly, they don't even ask me to read to them.
I guess I'm needing some encouragement. From other homeschool families (on any end of the spectrum). What does YOUR day look like? How much planning goes in to it? Do you keep track of what you're doing? How do you quantify it? Most importantly - are YOU happy with it? are your kids?
For now, I'm off. I think I'll offer to let the girls make breakfast today.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Inside Out
I am a hands on, book reading, playing with my kids, getting dirty kind of homeschool mom. Inside. On the outside I'm a workbook using, flash card drilling, slip in fun if we have time kind of homeschool mom. And I hate her. She stifles my inner Linda Dobson.
My Kindergartner complained about doing school this week. Sad. I want my Kindergartner to WANT to do school. Actually, I don't want my Kindergartner to think she is doing school at all. I want to slip it in like they do with veggies in that book, "Deceptively Delicious." Really, if you think hard about how people learn, school should be fun! School should be done while reading and snuggling together on the couch preferably with hot cocoa (for them!) and coffee (for me!) in hand. School should be done on the floor playing games. It should be done in the kitchen, outside, in our community, at the library. Actually school shouldn't be "school" at all. School should be life. Real life. Doing, touching, seeing, experiencing, tasting, loving and enjoying this beautiful world God created for us to explore.
Yet time and time again I order curriculum and textbooks. Time and time again I think I've found the "one" - the Holy Grail of curriculum. And time and time again I'm left desiring more when I think of all that our school could be. Don't get me wrong, at the end of each day it feels pretty good to look over the assignment sheets and see all that we've "accomplished" that day. But I still feel unfulfilled...I feel like something's missing...I feel like there has to be more.
Throughout the evening I've had to unravel the reasons why it hasn't worked in the past. It being what some would call "unschooling". Sadly, all the failure can be blamed on me...it all comes back to me...I care what others think, I doubt myself and I, as an obsessive Type A, have an incessant need to organize, classify and structure everything. So how this usually goes is this - I make the decision to "unschool". I tell some unschooling friends that we're going to unschool (this makes it feel official ya know?). I try out the unschooling thing, "Hey kids...what are you interested in learning?" and 5 minutes later I'm thinking of ways to structure our unschool. Eventually I decide unit studies would be a better approach and sometime between trying to decide where to start and trying to design a unit I get overwhelmed and frustrated (usually characterized by hyperventlating and twitching). And I start scrambling for the box. This time I'm making some rules for myself. I like rules. I'm good with rules. I'm Type A remember?
Rule #1: Read. Read. Read. And extrapolate from those books. The learning opportunities are endless!
Rule #2: Answer their questions. And when I don't know the answers (which will be often), we'll utilize the library and the internet and research everything we don't understand (which will be a lot). It might take some prodding in the beginning, but eventually it'll all begin to flow.
Rule #3: Be accessible. Don't shoo the little's away. Keep them under foot. That's where they learn best.
So for the next week we're unschooling. One week. If we (ahem, I) fail, we'll be back inside the box one week from Monday.
Bree
My Kindergartner complained about doing school this week. Sad. I want my Kindergartner to WANT to do school. Actually, I don't want my Kindergartner to think she is doing school at all. I want to slip it in like they do with veggies in that book, "Deceptively Delicious." Really, if you think hard about how people learn, school should be fun! School should be done while reading and snuggling together on the couch preferably with hot cocoa (for them!) and coffee (for me!) in hand. School should be done on the floor playing games. It should be done in the kitchen, outside, in our community, at the library. Actually school shouldn't be "school" at all. School should be life. Real life. Doing, touching, seeing, experiencing, tasting, loving and enjoying this beautiful world God created for us to explore.
Yet time and time again I order curriculum and textbooks. Time and time again I think I've found the "one" - the Holy Grail of curriculum. And time and time again I'm left desiring more when I think of all that our school could be. Don't get me wrong, at the end of each day it feels pretty good to look over the assignment sheets and see all that we've "accomplished" that day. But I still feel unfulfilled...I feel like something's missing...I feel like there has to be more.
Throughout the evening I've had to unravel the reasons why it hasn't worked in the past. It being what some would call "unschooling". Sadly, all the failure can be blamed on me...it all comes back to me...I care what others think, I doubt myself and I, as an obsessive Type A, have an incessant need to organize, classify and structure everything. So how this usually goes is this - I make the decision to "unschool". I tell some unschooling friends that we're going to unschool (this makes it feel official ya know?). I try out the unschooling thing, "Hey kids...what are you interested in learning?" and 5 minutes later I'm thinking of ways to structure our unschool. Eventually I decide unit studies would be a better approach and sometime between trying to decide where to start and trying to design a unit I get overwhelmed and frustrated (usually characterized by hyperventlating and twitching). And I start scrambling for the box. This time I'm making some rules for myself. I like rules. I'm good with rules. I'm Type A remember?
Rule #1: Read. Read. Read. And extrapolate from those books. The learning opportunities are endless!
Rule #2: Answer their questions. And when I don't know the answers (which will be often), we'll utilize the library and the internet and research everything we don't understand (which will be a lot). It might take some prodding in the beginning, but eventually it'll all begin to flow.
Rule #3: Be accessible. Don't shoo the little's away. Keep them under foot. That's where they learn best.
So for the next week we're unschooling. One week. If we (ahem, I) fail, we'll be back inside the box one week from Monday.
Bree
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