Unschooling? Chasing happiness

Are we Unschooling? I really don't know. The way I understand it, Unschooling is about letting the child direct their learning, not making them do school work they don't want to; providing them the means to learn what they want to learn, when they want to.  It definitely takes away pressure and adds a lot of joy to our lives.  Our unschooling looks like this:

I've given up on "structure" in general. We have "learning time" in my bed, reading Life of Fred, doing MadLibs, and for my little guy, doing Language Arts from a "1st grade everything" kind of worksheet book. I don't force writing on PJ, but I compromise with "I'll write this sentence, you write the next." He does all right with that and seems very happy with an approximate hour per day of studies. He's only 6 and pretty brilliant, so I'm not too worried. Especially when Daddy comes home and goes to give them kisses and PJ pipes up with some comment about what comes at the end of Daddy's sentence. Or when he's adding 8+8+8 while driving to meet friends at the beach. Clearly we're learning.

I am wishing for more social time. We haven't had enough. This past week we were able to spend time with PJ's BFF, Henry and his sisters Keely and Sadie. I had to share this picture because they are just so freaking cute. They were winding down to a little Scooby Doo on a Friday afternoon.



"Essay" on Sea Monkeys

As for the T Man, age 8.5 and going on 14, trying to tell this little bugger anything is a challenge. He shut me up in the car the other day when I asked if he knew where the word "riviera" came from. He said "No, and I don't want to know. I'm just not interested in it." Well alrighty then. I think he's being a disrespectful brat, but then I guess he knows what he doesn't want to learn about. I just wish we had a better, clearer idea of what he does want to learn about so I could feed his thirst for knowledge. I'm pretty sure that he thinks he knows everything already: just like a bratty teenager. (sigh) The boy's reading and Science is middle-school level, he has an amazing grasp on History, his sense of humor and understanding of the world is outstanding. His math is coming along - Dreambox just moved him into pre-algebra, so he's definitely on the right track.

T will do a minimal amount of formal study time without a fuss: a couple of lessons on Dreambox, rapt attention to Life of Fred and MadLibs, and will occasionally do a paragraph of writing. Outside of this, he's doing what he wants. He reads voraciously, researches things on the web, and does any kind of web games he can find that are free. These past couple of weeks I rebuilt a couple of old desktop PCs for the boy's exclusive use. (T had already broken my laptop screen hinge and downloaded malware and I really need to make this laptop last for another 6 months or there's no Christmas gifts under the tree!)   So now they each have a PC that is fast enough to accommodate Dreambox, Ooka Island and whatever kind of malware or virus they wish to experiment with. I can easily wipe and reload.

Lately T has figured out how to download maps for Minecraft and load them, he has been downloading Google Chrome apps, and then he found Wizards 101 which has turned out to be fairly educational. The important part is that he become comfortable with the computer and confident installing software, learning the file system, and also researching fixes on the web. This is where the future is, barring zombie invasions or the loss of electricity ;-)

I'm feeling so much better, so much more confident that this new direction of less formal study is the way to go.

We are happier. Shouldn't we chase happiness? I am sure many agree that chasing A's is better... just maybe not for us. My loving
sister, Aunt Mimi, says "This is OUR TIME NOW."   She's right - we need to make the most of it. So... in case their is an outbreak, a Zombie invasion or the lights go out and all hell breaks loose on 12/12/12... we've certainly had a good time while it lasted. ha ha

So, what do you think? Should I be worried that what we're doing is enough for now? I'm just curious if I'm delusional... 

Week 4 of the "School" Year: Nature and Lessons Abound

Oh dear, where to begin?  We had a LOT of nature this week and frankly I am feeling every one of my forty-two years.  Chasing after little boys and trying to weave educational opportunities into our every day lives can be a bit tiring.  But I am NOT complaining!  This week has been a whole lot of awesome.

We packed a lot of learning in on Monday because we had a big Geocache Expedition on Tuesday with our Gifted Kids Meetup friends at the Botanic Garden on Tuesday.  It was hot.  It was a trek.  But we finally won our little (nano) prize on our third cache attempt at the garden.  Viola!  A nano log!  Woot!  I think we hooked our friends on this fun little hobby.

Wednesday we packed the car and the pup and headed to the San Bernardino Mountains to Aunt Mimi's Family Cabin.  It's a hidden little valley owned by a small group of people for about a hundred years with a wonderful history attached to it.  It is cluster of cabins nestled between two streams and separated by fields of apple trees.  It is my version of Heaven.  I had visited the cabin when I was my kid's ages and this orchard contains some of my fondest childhood memories.  Now my children are very privileged to get to experience it too. 

We arrived, unpacked our cooler and headed directly to the stream to play.  The weather was perfect, around 78 degrees and the fresh stream water chilled our feet.  Of course the boys have to go neck deep whenever possible.

My original plan was to build rafts and huts for GI Joe, to test speed and flotation, to make bows and arrows and test speed via bow tension... Lots of plans for these trips to the river.  You know what they say about Best Laid Plans?  Yup...the kids had their own plans, which included doing what they do best: playing.  And who am I to try to force them to do this stuff anyway?  Ha ha, jokes on me, Teacher Mom.

There was lots of learning happening anyway.  Aunt Mimi surprised the boys with Golf Cart driving lessons, which must have turned out to be pretty funny but I missed the lesson and that's probably a good thing for the state of my heart health.  Apparently T Man nearly rammed them into an apple tree!  He got better on the next lesson :) 

We gave Aunt Mimi a lesson in Geocaching and we were all happily surprised to find an awesome cache within a mile of the cabin. It was an old ammunition case filled with lots of toys.

On the way back to the cabin, we got one of our greatest lessons of the week: finding a baby bird that fell out of its nest.  T was vehemently against taking the baby home and thought we should leave it flailing in the dead grass next to the road.  Mimi and I were all for attempting to save its life.  We put him in a shoe box and immediately queried our Facebook Friends to see if they could help identify it so we could feed it.  Duckling?  Heron?  We were given a number to a volunteer organization that works to save wild birds and got some very valuable advice on finding baby birds like this:  Put it back in the tree it fell out of, watch for an hour and hope and pray mama bird finds it.  Essentially my little T was right.  We shouldn't have messed with it.  I found this out too late.  By the next morning the baby couldn't peep anymore and was quickly on his way to birdy heaven. I feel awful about it, but isn't that how we learn lessons?  Today Mimi said her son thought he was a Vulture.  I'm pretty sure that is correct.  (sigh)

Near the end of the day, it was clear that the golf cart was the boon of the visit.  They boys obsessed on it.  T pointed right at Mimi and said "You need to take us out in the golf cart."  This got an eyebrow raising!  Mimi explained that she is a Communication Expert and that she's pretty sure that this is not the way to convince someone to do something for you.  She coached him on how to properly ask someone for something.  This was an invaluable lesson and I am so grateful to have her do this because it doesn't matter how much mama harps on her kids for their behavior, coming from Mom it sounds like a regular nag session.  Coming from Mimi, however, makes all the difference in the world. 

I am, for the most part, solely responsible for the complete education of my children. Not just reading, writing and arithmetic, but life skills, communication, social skills, manners, self-care, reproduction, respect, love, logic and common sense, caring, you name it.  It is a daunting task that I often try not to think about, but live in the moment and make every situation count to the education of these boys.  It is a wonderful gift to be given when someone steps up and helps in this journey.

We got a little sit-down work done during our full day at the cabin...the kids use dice to do addition (PJ) and multiplication (T) and they wrote on their Favorite Thing about the Mountain Cabin.  (the golf cart, of course)  We started reading Life of Fred Butterflies and it covered the life cycle of the butterfly, and moved onto Astronomy and the Orion constellation, specifically Betelgeuse, the super-sized star that makes up Orion's left shoulder.  Apparently this star is the size of a football field compared to our Sun, if you can imagine our Sun as the size of an orange.  Crazy Big. 

One of the awesome things about getting to visit the apple orchard in September is that it's Harvest Time!  Mimi took us into a separate orchard where we got to bag up all kinds of apples.  And of course, in the Harvest tradition, we had to bake a pie.  By this point in the day, around 4:00, the kids were pooped out, so they watched TV and I poured a glass of wine and started to peel apples.  I'm proud to say, it turned out to be one FINE apple pie :)

 

On our way out of the mountains on Friday, the kids were able to jump out of the car and play in a real, honest to God, mountain waterfall.  What a way to end an amazing few days in nature.   

Home Sweet Home brings us pictures of the Shuttle Endeavor flying piggy back on a 747 on it's way to LAX and its final resting place, the California Science Center.  We are looking forward to visiting it when it opens.  During the week without the crowds, of course, because we have that freedom now that we homeschool.  Just like the freedom to explore nature whenever we are invited to the Heaven that is the Mountain Cabin.  And the availability to spend these precious times with Aunt Mimi and learn from her too.

2nd Week of "School"

First of all, why the heck am I calling this "school"?  I am beginning to realize that it's a bad word around here, a bad word I'm telling my kids to use.  Silly mom.

We started our week off on Labor Day Monday.  Dad had to work (no irony there) and so we decided to be couch potatoes.  Mr. T parked himself on the coach with my laptop and proceeded to spend the day studying his favorite topic:  Minecraft.  He had discovered a nice guy named Paul Soares, Jr., a dad of boys who is quite funny and clearly gifted, and who does some very nice tutorials on youtube aimed at the child audience.  Am I a big fan of the game?  Not so much.  But since my son is studying it with the voraciousness of a groupie to a rock band, who am I to complain?  The fact that my son was finding an actual goal within the game helps me to cope with it.

In the meantime, I discovered that Rovio, famed game designers of Angry Birds, has a new release called "Amazing Alex" a ""whiz kid who turns everything into adventure. From cleaning his room to battling cardboard robots in his backyard.  Alex creates amazing chain reactions..." another awesome physics game to challenge my little PJ's puzzle brain.  This gave me time to look at our Moving Beyond the Page and make a strategy, as well as investigate some new history books to order.  T Man loves his history.

Tuesday started off with nightmare battles trying for some cooperation to do some school work.  (There's that WORD AGAIN, Mom!)  After the usual threat of zero gaming, things turned around.  T wrote out our grocery list, emptied the dishwasher and offered to join PJ for a game of Scrabble.  PJ and I had worked our way through the day with Life of Fred, Boggle, Dreambox and were just pulling down the box for Scrabble.  I decided to give them each 10 tiles and we actually finished a game, the boys nearly the same score of 140 and 144.  PJ beat his big brother.  I, of course, found the word FOUNDER on my tile holder and was able to play FLOUNDER for a 50 point bonus, but they didn't seem to mind ;-)

Wednesday was much nicer and we moved through our day with wonderful cooperation, working on our Map of the Community, doing some Ooka Island and reading Horrible Histories.  At one point the house was too quiet and I found these two taking over Life of Fred and finishing the first book.  I'm feeling a little bit of a loss over that; I wanted to see how it ended!  :)

Liam and T tutor each other on Minecraft

Thursday featured a playdate and nature hike to Temescal Canyon with our gifted homeschooling friends.  It's always such a treat to be with this crew because they are as funny, interesting and quirky as us.  We hung out at their house on the Westside for a bit and the little ones played board games and the big ones played Lego Hero Factory and then tutored each other on Minecraft.

Our trip to the Canyon was a lot of fun.  The weather couldn't get any more beautiful and the kids couldn't be a better match.  The boys separated off in their little teams and explored the creek and ravines. 

We moms watched, amused to see how well the kids got along.  Little Sutton just turned 4 but is a great intellectual peer for little PJ, almost 6.  That is one of those funky "gifted" things that people have a hard time understanding.  T could go play Scrabble with a couple of college students, but don't put him in a classroom with twenty average 8-year-olds, because he just can't relate.  

On the other hand, put this kid in a giant play structure with a bunch of 4 and 5 year-olds during the week and he's having an absolute blast. Go figure. 

Friday we met up with another gifted friend just to let the boys run and play.  Kid's Concepts in Torrance isn't cheap, but it was just the kind of physical outlet these boys needed.

It's now Friday at the end of the day and T is waiting for the use of the laptop.  While he's waiting, he's sprawled out on my bed reading the 8th book in the Life of Fred series.  The kid just slurped up the other 7 books since Tuesday.  Sheesh, I really need to pay my library fines and get back over there... ;-) 

If you want to read more about our friends Liam and Sutton, you can find them on Amy's blog, A Voracious Mind.

  

The First Week of School

Wow, this has been a long week for all of us. Our transition into the school year could have been a little easier, but I still feel compelled to be the "teacher" and my kids do, in fact, need a little more hand-holding than they really want.  For example, we started Beast Academy 3A this week and lemme tell you, it ain't easy.  I have never been a geometry lover and memorizing different shapes' names and attributes is really not all that fun.  We made it through the first 3 chapters this week, but honesty, I'm really not sure we need to know the term "rhombus" or that a Square is actually a type of Rectangle in the future. I call these "cocktail party facts" that only your favorite show-off Geek may actually mention in conversation. Perhaps I'm wrong about that - please post back if you know where that info is potentially helpful!

On the other hand, Life of Fred - Apples has been so delightful.  We worked through the first seven chapters this week and BOTH kids can't wait for the next one, even though this is the very first book of the Elementary Series, meant for kindergarten or 1st grade.  We learned that the first day of the week is Sunday, some basic algebra, and that Archimedes estimated that the universe could hold 1 vigintillion grains of sand, among many other interesting things that included basic addition.

Dreambox online math has turned out to be a success.  Ooka Island reading is kind of "eh" for PJ.  We worked in some writing books to practice our letters and T wrote some fun paragraphs, even though getting either of them to write is sometimes like pulling teeth...

We played The Allowance Game, that earned a big Thumbs Down from The T Man but little PJ loved it so much he had to get dad to play every morning.


We visited the Cerritos Library (wow!) and found some fun reading there.  PJ is a very big fan of "Biscuit" the fictional dog.  He read a couple of those to me while T discovered a graphic novel about "Ug" the stone-age boy genius.  P.E. followed in the fountains in about 90 degrees.  Very fun.  Thanks to my dear friend Claudia for taking us along!  We all have so much fun together.

We are lacking in hard physical activity this week.  It's so hot outside, we're staying under fans!  And while we've had two playdates this week, I'd like to improve on that as well.  Baby Steps...

Moving Beyond the Page is barely moving.  The kids are not crazy about the "Community" topic because they have 1) studied it before and 2) don't find it all that exciting. We reviewed Rural life versus Urban Life.  It was a little lost on the Peej.   I'll be picking out the fun bits and moving right along in it next week.

I never realized that Slime, aka "Gak," could be so much fun.  T was using a straw and blowing it up into different shapes of human organs.  Wish I had caught a photo of that.  He also created a Minecraft scene and made a pretty good looking "Steve" and "Creeper" character out of the awesome non-drying modeling clay from Lakeshore Learning.

Are you exhausted just hearing about this week yet?  I'm not even done!

Life skills were folding and stowing laundry and putting away dishes for little PJ while T was getting handy in the kitchen.  He used the microwave to heat something and then made a new creation: a peanut butter pickle dog with mustard.  I didn't think he actually would like it, but low and behold... he did.  Perhaps it was just because he made it himself...  He also tried his hand at hand-washing dishes since our washer went kaput a few weeks ago.  A green-tinged face appeared at my desk exclaiming "I can't do it! There was CAT food on a bowl!  It just grossed me out!  I'm just too sensitive for that!"  Inwardly I sigh, but I was the same way at that age.  Maybe next year... :-)

It's now almost 5:00pm on Friday and Mama is tired and we are starting our long weekend.  Thank. Goodness.

You are probably thinking about now... Wouldn't it just be easier to drop them off at school?  If you have been reading my blog from the beginning, you know that it wouldn't.