What in the world do the kids do all day?
I haven't posted anyting lately on this blog because the kids keep me so busy it is totally unrealistic to keep "track" of what they did when. Especially since they do most of their learning when I'm not paying attention.
K has been very busy for the last two weeks, trying to complete her kindergarten math workbook. She is so darn cute! I bought the workbook that we used when she was enrolled in a virtual school becuase she told me she missed it and wanted to finish it.
When she received it she promptly started at the beggining and worked for hours trying to get caught up to where she was when we stopped using it. She worked again a couple days later for another hour and got caught up to where she was. She is so excited and now wants to get to the money part. I told her we could just skip ahead to it but she will have nothing to do with it. She wants to do the WHOLE book.
She is also learning not only her alphabet but the sounds that go with them, on her own. Unschooling is just awesome. We are still writing stories together, where she tells me what she wants to write and I spell it for her helping her with the letters she doesn't know. I think she knows just about all of them now but sometimes forgets. On top of this she is making associations of letters like I said letter D and she said, D.....duh... like in Dad!
T has been busy too, his new love is Alpha Centari a game we got from freecycle. We also found a neat game at Rich kids smart kids. It is a shame they labled each game by grade level however. T sat and worked out the k-2 grade really quickly, since he's supposed to be in 2nd grade. However when I peeped over he was working on the 9-12 grade and figuring those out too without any problem, just more logic. He looked ashamed that he was jumping ahead to 9th grade but wanted to see what they were all like. I told him it was great that he wanted to explore and see what he could do. So I feel mad that they limit children to learning by telling them what level they should look at.
T has also been writing lately, he hates to write, but he's been busy making of all of these posters for a movie called Flaming butts, or butts in space, or whatever funny name he can come up with using the word butts. I am just silently and quitely cheering on that he is writing without even thinking about it and complaining.
W is busy as always. He loves cords, especially electrical. He maked tangled messes with knots and cords twisted in and out of items, making it impossible to get thing apart. My dad says he should be in boyscouts when he gets older. I think he'll do better learning knots now because he wants to learn how, not to get a cookie, I mean merit badge!
I've been having a conversation with R about unschooling and freedom. I'm so glad that we can talk about things, and he has stopped asking what the kids have learned today. I think he is understanding that they are learning, maybe not like tradition school kids but on their own schedule. I brought up a really interesting point I think.
Kids who go to school spend 13 years "learning" all the things they need to learn to live in the real world. Unschool kids live in the real world. So when schooled kids get out of school they are supposed to decide what they want to be now that they are grown up, or what they want to major in college in. The problem is most of them have no idea and haven't been living their passions so they go into what is expected usually.
Now lets look at unschool, and maybe K if I had lots of money. She loves horses. Let say I buy a horse for her and she learns how to take care of it. She learns everything there is to horses, how to ride them, care for them and breed them. As she gets older she enters competitions for riding because she wants to, she sells horses or maybe keeps them all and gives riding lessons to other kids. When she grown up she has a ready made career of keeping horses, teaching riding, selling and breeding horses, boarding other peoples horses or other horse things, maybe she decides to go to college and become an equine vet. I don't know anything about horses. Now that to me is following your passions.
Now how to help K and her dream of horses. I need to have a little money to afford to buy her riding lessons to learn about horses and how to ride first. So my goal if we are not moving this summer is to find someone to mentor her and let her be around horses.
So as we are discussing this I realize that T has told me he wants to make computer games. I now I need to find ways to help him learn how to make this passion come true for him. I can find some C++ program books at the library but will he be able to understand them? R isn't sure he would even understand them. R spent this week going over an animated room he is building on his computer for a grant he is working on at work and T was so very interested. I will need to find some ways to help him learn what he wants to learn.
As for W. I have helped him already, he has great freedom in his stunts. This week as the weather was nice we had the windows open and he found that we don't need a back door, he just climbs in and out of the windows. I helped him by setting up the ladder for him to climb up so he doesn't have to scale the wall. (It's only a 3 foot climb)
K has been very busy for the last two weeks, trying to complete her kindergarten math workbook. She is so darn cute! I bought the workbook that we used when she was enrolled in a virtual school becuase she told me she missed it and wanted to finish it.
When she received it she promptly started at the beggining and worked for hours trying to get caught up to where she was when we stopped using it. She worked again a couple days later for another hour and got caught up to where she was. She is so excited and now wants to get to the money part. I told her we could just skip ahead to it but she will have nothing to do with it. She wants to do the WHOLE book.
She is also learning not only her alphabet but the sounds that go with them, on her own. Unschooling is just awesome. We are still writing stories together, where she tells me what she wants to write and I spell it for her helping her with the letters she doesn't know. I think she knows just about all of them now but sometimes forgets. On top of this she is making associations of letters like I said letter D and she said, D.....duh... like in Dad!
T has been busy too, his new love is Alpha Centari a game we got from freecycle. We also found a neat game at Rich kids smart kids. It is a shame they labled each game by grade level however. T sat and worked out the k-2 grade really quickly, since he's supposed to be in 2nd grade. However when I peeped over he was working on the 9-12 grade and figuring those out too without any problem, just more logic. He looked ashamed that he was jumping ahead to 9th grade but wanted to see what they were all like. I told him it was great that he wanted to explore and see what he could do. So I feel mad that they limit children to learning by telling them what level they should look at.
T has also been writing lately, he hates to write, but he's been busy making of all of these posters for a movie called Flaming butts, or butts in space, or whatever funny name he can come up with using the word butts. I am just silently and quitely cheering on that he is writing without even thinking about it and complaining.
W is busy as always. He loves cords, especially electrical. He maked tangled messes with knots and cords twisted in and out of items, making it impossible to get thing apart. My dad says he should be in boyscouts when he gets older. I think he'll do better learning knots now because he wants to learn how, not to get a cookie, I mean merit badge!
I've been having a conversation with R about unschooling and freedom. I'm so glad that we can talk about things, and he has stopped asking what the kids have learned today. I think he is understanding that they are learning, maybe not like tradition school kids but on their own schedule. I brought up a really interesting point I think.
Kids who go to school spend 13 years "learning" all the things they need to learn to live in the real world. Unschool kids live in the real world. So when schooled kids get out of school they are supposed to decide what they want to be now that they are grown up, or what they want to major in college in. The problem is most of them have no idea and haven't been living their passions so they go into what is expected usually.
Now lets look at unschool, and maybe K if I had lots of money. She loves horses. Let say I buy a horse for her and she learns how to take care of it. She learns everything there is to horses, how to ride them, care for them and breed them. As she gets older she enters competitions for riding because she wants to, she sells horses or maybe keeps them all and gives riding lessons to other kids. When she grown up she has a ready made career of keeping horses, teaching riding, selling and breeding horses, boarding other peoples horses or other horse things, maybe she decides to go to college and become an equine vet. I don't know anything about horses. Now that to me is following your passions.
Now how to help K and her dream of horses. I need to have a little money to afford to buy her riding lessons to learn about horses and how to ride first. So my goal if we are not moving this summer is to find someone to mentor her and let her be around horses.
So as we are discussing this I realize that T has told me he wants to make computer games. I now I need to find ways to help him learn how to make this passion come true for him. I can find some C++ program books at the library but will he be able to understand them? R isn't sure he would even understand them. R spent this week going over an animated room he is building on his computer for a grant he is working on at work and T was so very interested. I will need to find some ways to help him learn what he wants to learn.
As for W. I have helped him already, he has great freedom in his stunts. This week as the weather was nice we had the windows open and he found that we don't need a back door, he just climbs in and out of the windows. I helped him by setting up the ladder for him to climb up so he doesn't have to scale the wall. (It's only a 3 foot climb)
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home