One of my favorite questions to ask my son, is "what do you want to learn today?"
On his own, he already comes up with some pretty interesting questions. Though when you ask him what he wants to learn about, he comes up with some pretty interesting things, some of which interest me and amaze me that he wonders about.
I wrote down a list of them today, so we can see how much we can increase learning around here. To really get a feel for unschooling. I wanted to blog about, because some are cute, some are amazing for a 6 year old and just maybe someone in the neighborhood will read this blog and have a learning opportunity available. You never know (hint hint)....
I figure I will post this list of things he wants to learn, and then ask him again next week what he wants to learn. Every week (or sooner if he wants), we can refresh the list to keep it interesting, or continue on with subjects he liked learning about. This will be the first list of July 2011.
EJ's Learning List (July 2011):
*Learn to make Tater Sauce and Onion Rings
*Learn about snakes - how they eat, what they hunt, feel, hear, see and smell. Learn about different types of snakes, especially rattle snakes
*Learn about puppies
*Learn how combustion engines are built
*Learn about Alaska
*Learn about how our house was built
*Learn about cowboys, then have a cowboy camping trip next year. What cowboys wear, what they do, go see horses, learn about cattle farming, about what cowboys wear
*Learn about how some Deserts used to be Oceans
*How do petstores get the fish they sell?
*Go to Carkeek park and learn about the wildlife, how the beach formed there and learn about the trains there, about how the sand there was made, about how the water got to the beach.
*Learn how to make cookies! (useful skill, lol)
And last but not least, he wanted to learn about the ocean, specifically about how waves are formed. This was one we already got started on, as even though it's late in the day, we can still watch movies. He's now entirely engaged in a Disney documentary about the oceans that was actually made for 5-7 year olds (convenient). For the last hour he's already told me about schools of fish that make whirl pools, big fish with long tails and sea lions.
What I love most though, is how many different things he wants to learn, but at the same time how they can connect or relate to each other. Not to mention, he has enough to start with that could actually take weeks to really learn about, if he wants to keep learning about them. Which he probably will because he's just like that when he finds something he likes.
We'll see how this goes...
Saturday, July 2, 2011
learning About Creationism..
I wanted to blog about a conversation my son and I had last night, that really hits home with unschooling. It came about late at night when my boy would usually be in bed, but he wanted to know who made the earth or how it was created.
Philosophical questions are among my favorite subjects, and so we sat down and had a little lesson in creationism. First, I asked him how he thought the earth was created. It was entirely to cute.
He decided that the earth was always there, but it started out as a tiny little blip. One day the earth got pregnant by the moon and after earth got really fat, she went to the earth hospital and spit out 12 babies. One was a baby girl named Mars and one was a baby boy named The Sun, and the rest were stars. He said that Mars, the Sun and the stars all wanted to float up to the sky, but Earth said they had bedtimes and had to sleep in special cribs in Earths house. She said that after they went to college, they could go up into the sky, and they did.
He also said that the Earth lived in Alaska, but we thought about it, and it would be hard for Earth to live on Earth. So he decided Earth lived in Space.
After we talked a while about his idea of how the earth was created, we talked about how he had just done some "creationism", which is when someone puts down a hypothesis about how the earth was formed. We talked about all sorts of different theories over time, though we didn't stick with any particular theory until we got to the big bang, which he found a bit interesting.
Now all day he's been asking various questions about how things are created or made. Which is already leading us into many other subjects I would have thought to be to complex for a 6 year old, lol.
Philosophical questions are among my favorite subjects, and so we sat down and had a little lesson in creationism. First, I asked him how he thought the earth was created. It was entirely to cute.
He decided that the earth was always there, but it started out as a tiny little blip. One day the earth got pregnant by the moon and after earth got really fat, she went to the earth hospital and spit out 12 babies. One was a baby girl named Mars and one was a baby boy named The Sun, and the rest were stars. He said that Mars, the Sun and the stars all wanted to float up to the sky, but Earth said they had bedtimes and had to sleep in special cribs in Earths house. She said that after they went to college, they could go up into the sky, and they did.
He also said that the Earth lived in Alaska, but we thought about it, and it would be hard for Earth to live on Earth. So he decided Earth lived in Space.
After we talked a while about his idea of how the earth was created, we talked about how he had just done some "creationism", which is when someone puts down a hypothesis about how the earth was formed. We talked about all sorts of different theories over time, though we didn't stick with any particular theory until we got to the big bang, which he found a bit interesting.
Now all day he's been asking various questions about how things are created or made. Which is already leading us into many other subjects I would have thought to be to complex for a 6 year old, lol.
Blogging: Another adventure...
About a year ago I started heavily researching the idea of home schooling my son. It started out when I had dozens of conversations with others about my views on the educational system, and I realized that I really don't agree with the current "system" in place. I didn't have the best experiences and my time growing up could have been so much more productive, conducive, fun and educational then it was. Essentially, I realized that I wanted my son to get a real education and have fun with what he was learning.
At the time these thoughts came about, my son was in preschool. His grandparents wanted to get him into preschool and take a lead on it, since I already didn't want to get him into it. Though I agreed that they could do it with him and give me some time to work on my home businesses.
Truthfully, I feel bad about subjecting my son and myself to the preschool process. Especially since I did so more to avoid a guilt trip from my family and give in to lazy parenting. My boy ended up having a pretty crappy year, in which he got picked on, learned to be physically violent with other kids (because of being picked on), was made fun of for otherwise normal behaviors (like hugging) and he really only learned that school was a source of trouble. On top of that, even though Grandma said she would take care of the parental needs for the preschool, they still had me come in and out for at least one parent-teacher meeting every three weeks, most of which was spent telling me my 5 year old had speech problems, that he wasn't interested in what they had to teach and that I should get him vaccinated to fit in with the herd. It wasn't fun.
Another regret - even though I had already decided after that year that I would rather home school my boy, I feel into the guilt trap from my family that I should put him in kindergarten. I had already beaten out all of their educational worries, since my son is an exceptional learned when given the right environment. So they played on the socializing problem, which is one of my concerns, since my son is essentially an only child. He has a half sister who his 6 years older than he is and only here half of the year. We have another one on the way, but he will be 6 years younger then my son. Which means that most of his time is spent with adults, and many of the kids he gets to spend time with a much older or much younger than he is. There just isn't enough diversity.
So I asked my son if he wanted to go to Kindergarten, and when he said yes, I spent all summer looking for a school that was at least not the "norm" and that would preferably help him learn more than other schools. I found an alternative school I liked, but to suffice it to say, the school year that just passed was worse than the year before in preschool. They didn't hound on me about his speech (which we worked on at home all summer), or about vaccinating him. Though we now had a speech therapist hell bent on suggesting he was autistic or sensory disabled, neither of which he is. He got beat up, harassed (sexually and otherwise) by other kids and punished half the year for retaliating. He still wasn't very interested in what they had to teach and said he only liked going for recess and gym. Even with that in mind, he didn't make any real friends all year, even with lots of encouragement. So the socializing deal essentially backfired.
Through out the year I continued researching home schooling and came upon Unschooling. I was never really satisfied with the systems take over home schooling or the overly religious reasons why most people home schooled. It's fine for some, but I want something more diverse. Unschooling looked better and better with the more people I talked to about it, the more I read about it and researched the potentials.
Just a few days ago, I was talking with a friend about the idea of getting a co-op unschooling group together. In the state of Washington you have to be present whenever your child is doing any specific learning, though that doesn't mean we can't all learn together or have each parent teach what they are good at. It makes for a well rounded education I feel, especially when the children are the leaders in what we learn.
After chatting with my friend, we came up with the idea of getting a facebook page together to see who else wanted to join us (I'll talk more about the page in another blog). Not to mention, my son and I already agreed to try unschooling this summer and we have been having fun with it over the last few weeks. So after having an indepth talk with him last night, I decided it would be fun and interesting to document our unschooling adventures by blogging about them. Why not? lol
At the time these thoughts came about, my son was in preschool. His grandparents wanted to get him into preschool and take a lead on it, since I already didn't want to get him into it. Though I agreed that they could do it with him and give me some time to work on my home businesses.
Truthfully, I feel bad about subjecting my son and myself to the preschool process. Especially since I did so more to avoid a guilt trip from my family and give in to lazy parenting. My boy ended up having a pretty crappy year, in which he got picked on, learned to be physically violent with other kids (because of being picked on), was made fun of for otherwise normal behaviors (like hugging) and he really only learned that school was a source of trouble. On top of that, even though Grandma said she would take care of the parental needs for the preschool, they still had me come in and out for at least one parent-teacher meeting every three weeks, most of which was spent telling me my 5 year old had speech problems, that he wasn't interested in what they had to teach and that I should get him vaccinated to fit in with the herd. It wasn't fun.
Another regret - even though I had already decided after that year that I would rather home school my boy, I feel into the guilt trap from my family that I should put him in kindergarten. I had already beaten out all of their educational worries, since my son is an exceptional learned when given the right environment. So they played on the socializing problem, which is one of my concerns, since my son is essentially an only child. He has a half sister who his 6 years older than he is and only here half of the year. We have another one on the way, but he will be 6 years younger then my son. Which means that most of his time is spent with adults, and many of the kids he gets to spend time with a much older or much younger than he is. There just isn't enough diversity.
So I asked my son if he wanted to go to Kindergarten, and when he said yes, I spent all summer looking for a school that was at least not the "norm" and that would preferably help him learn more than other schools. I found an alternative school I liked, but to suffice it to say, the school year that just passed was worse than the year before in preschool. They didn't hound on me about his speech (which we worked on at home all summer), or about vaccinating him. Though we now had a speech therapist hell bent on suggesting he was autistic or sensory disabled, neither of which he is. He got beat up, harassed (sexually and otherwise) by other kids and punished half the year for retaliating. He still wasn't very interested in what they had to teach and said he only liked going for recess and gym. Even with that in mind, he didn't make any real friends all year, even with lots of encouragement. So the socializing deal essentially backfired.
Through out the year I continued researching home schooling and came upon Unschooling. I was never really satisfied with the systems take over home schooling or the overly religious reasons why most people home schooled. It's fine for some, but I want something more diverse. Unschooling looked better and better with the more people I talked to about it, the more I read about it and researched the potentials.
Just a few days ago, I was talking with a friend about the idea of getting a co-op unschooling group together. In the state of Washington you have to be present whenever your child is doing any specific learning, though that doesn't mean we can't all learn together or have each parent teach what they are good at. It makes for a well rounded education I feel, especially when the children are the leaders in what we learn.
After chatting with my friend, we came up with the idea of getting a facebook page together to see who else wanted to join us (I'll talk more about the page in another blog). Not to mention, my son and I already agreed to try unschooling this summer and we have been having fun with it over the last few weeks. So after having an indepth talk with him last night, I decided it would be fun and interesting to document our unschooling adventures by blogging about them. Why not? lol
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