Unschooling – Page 6 – a hippie with a minivan

pulp and paper…

Yesterday we left early in the morning to go to a pulp and paper museum in Trois-Rivieres, a city about half way between Montreal and Quebec city…

Having to wake Xavier and coax him out of bed reminded me how much I am happy to not have to do that on a regular basis…

We got there at just before 10am and not long after we started the day… We were the only people there so the kids were able to run around and talk and we didn’t feel like the group was bothering anyone… so the first thing was a small “play” with a guy that talked about being a lumberjack and how life was for them a couple hundred years ago…

Then we learned how they make Paper, why there was pulp and paper mills in that location and how the machines used to work and still work in paper production…

After that was the really fun part… learning how to make paper and then actually making it!

First soak and rip up pieces of paper (recyled)

then blend with water….

Then strain on a frame with screen… then press… take screen off… decorate and then iron to start drying and let it dry afterwards… here are Colin’s and Xavier’s… and we are sure to make more here at home….

Lunch and another activity or two later and we were on the way back home and all three boys fell asleep in the car… It was really interesting and I think that when the kids are older I would love to go back and see it again so that they understand more of what they were hearing…

Here is the link for the place

eclipse…

What an amazing view that was last night…

We spent quite a while during the day talking about the eclipse so by the time night started to fall Xavier was getting excited… Before going downstairs to play King’s Quest he saw the beginning and went in and out of the house until he fell asleep… We told him that if he fell asleep we would wake him up when it was the full eclipse and we did just that not long after he had fallen asleep…

I spent quite a while outside trying to take pics.. I don’t have any special lenses nor an amazing camera but I am pretty happy with what I got anyways….

I was amazing though… and I hope that Xavier remembers it for a long time…

(with Saturn on the left)

begining stages of reading…

Yesterday, Xavier saw some of the pages that Simon had printed out a while back on space from learningpage.com and wanted to take them out to do… for a few pages he asked me to read the instructions and was interested in doing what was asked but then got bored and then started asking his own questions and was circling things on the page in response… so I decided to ask him to circle a few words… Saturn, Jupiter, Planet, red etc… I would ask him the word and he would sound it out a bit to figure out the first letter… he has been doing this for a while so it didn’t surprise me but then he started to sound out the next letter… or the next consonant, or the last sound and was able to find the words he was looking for even if there where other words that started with the same letter…

The was one sentence that had many of the words that he had found and I asked him to read it… and he did!! he even read the words that linked the words that he had circled (has, a, on, it)… He doesn’t know that he is starting to learn how to read, he has a great memory which I know is a big part of it and I think that he thinks is ALL of it… but I can see that it is the beginning, and knowing him, when he gets enough confidence to allow himself to believe that he knows how to read he will do so quickly and with ease…

misc…

I went to two homeschooling meetings in the last two weeks and both turned out pretty well… I still feel uneasy about the local group but it is getting better… the last meeting was a bit more relaxed so that helped… but there are still things that bother me… and most of it I think is about a lack of self confidence and continual excuses when it comes to looking out of the box of doing “school at home”…

but the other group is different… What I like about it I think is that homeschooling is not as new to all of them, there is not the constant “what are you going to use for this” and most of the group are confident in what they are doing, there are no lame excuses when different ideas are brought up so even though we do not all have the same style, we can still talk and share and accept the differences…

Anyway… I do look forward to going back soon… especially to the farther group because there are a few that I really get along well with…

Aside from that I have been working on getting into a routine more here…

I have continued to declutter and I have been trying to get into a better everyday cleaning routine… Last weekend I attacked my closet and my room in general and everyday I have been maintaining it as much as I can (though at the moment I have some clothes to put away)… the kitchen is the same… everyday I get it clean, dishes done and counters wiped down, sweep and clean up they toys etc… this of course may be second nature to many but it is not to me, but it is starting…

I have also been spending less time on the computer in the daytime… I have been reading more, looking at books with the kids more and I slowly but surely I have been finding the time to sew more also… The boys have been a lot better at keeping the playroom a lot cleaner and since Khéna has been putting things in his mouth less I have been letting all three play in the playroom while I sew…

I find it great because I got a great response on the two message boards that I post on when I shared the last dress that I made and now I want to make more… I really enjoy being at the sewing machine and making something that I find beautiful out of a few pieces of cloth and getting paid for doing so makes it even more inspiring… Xavier has also been gaining a lot of interest in my sewing and will often come and watch me and ask questions… I found a small sewing machine for a few dollars and I am going to sere if it works and if it does I am going to give that to him to start learning…

where's your nose?

I was talking with a friend yesterday about unschooling and an analogy popped up in my head when she asked me…
“but how to kids learn if you are not actively teaching them”

First I explained that you are always teaching whether you want to or not, you teach by example all of the time and kids pick up things and learn a lot more than we sometimes want to teach them… They learn our good habits, our bad habits, they learn how we interact with others etc… and unschooling is just an extension of that in many ways…

An example that came into my head was the way that some parents seem to believe that you need to actively teach body parts…

Have you seen those parents that for 15 minutes say…

“where’s your nose?… oh look! I’m touching your nose!…. can you say nose?…. nose…. Nose…. NOSE….. say nose…. can you touch my nose? where’s my nose? can you find your nose? I got your nose!…. say nose…”

and on and on and on….

well…. guess what…

I don’t do that…

and guess what?

my kids know where their noses are…

Now… don’t get me wrong… I am not saying that it is wrong to do it of you enjoy it… or you are doing your kids a disservice by doing it… that’s not my point at all…

my point is that kids do learn and will learn without things being drilled in their heads.

They learn by listening to every day conversations… they learn by asking questions and by getting answers…

So as I explained this to this friend I think she understood what I mean by unschooling being learning without always actively teaching… and that kids will learn the thing that they need and want to learn.