Science and Fairies

Ok new blog is up and running, here it is: http://scienceandfairies.blogspot.co.uk/ not much in it yet but will keep the goodies coming

New blog coming up

Hi all, have not written here in a while as I have been pondering where to go next blogwise. I think it might be more useful to have a home ed sharing and review based blog, I can still talk about the boys but I think it should be more resource based. I often come across great resources and ideas and I do share them on facebook but it would be good to have a central platform like a blog to do it from, the archive would be useful to, facebook is only as good as the last post... so it's work in progress then.

Recent weeks in pictures

Reuben wanted this keyboard for his birthday, as well as a fairy costume, he got both!!

The Mammoth at Watermead Park, a favourite place of ours

Angels



The Natural History Museum in London, dinosaur heaven!!!

The artist at work

We've been to the theatre a lot recently, this was Peppa Pig's treasure hunt. We've also seen Room on the Broom and One Snowy Night (my favourite out of all of them)

Snow in Rearsby

Writing numbers

Manic unschooling

In the last few weeks we have had some personal problems (they're always personal though, aren't they?) that I hope we have overcome, we have had snow, a new car I'm too nervous to drive, a return (for me) on my psychology degree in the hope that I graduate before I'm 50... Reuben turned 4 and had his first party with lots of lovely friends (so socialisation is not a problem for us) and we're about to drive to Italy staying in France one night and in the Alps the next, ending up in Rome.
There have been some conversations in our house about free will and how schools seem to produce more passive children compared to the non-schooled ones. I certainly find myself surprised at (schooled) children wandering round the house aimlessly asking: "What can I do?" when the resources available to them are enormous!
So today I tried even more than usual to not make any suggestions or comments on what my little people wanted to do, and what a day we are having! They did start off with wanting to watch television so I let them, after a while they moved to the dining room, got stuck into painting, cutting, pasting and similar so forgot about the tv. Reuben then remembered there was a lot of snow outside and asked for his snow suit spending quite some time outside making snowpeople and chasing the chickens... In the meantime Isaac pulled out a roll of freezer bags and streamed them all round the house, Reuben came back in and in no time they had made trails all over the place. We then moved on to lunch followed by yoga, tai chi, jigsaw puzzles, then Reuben did a bit of a maths workbook, got fed up and started trying to work out how many things he could do with the number 8. He took 8 crayons and, all on his own, tried to work out what happens when you add things or take them away, which numbers are bigger or smaller, just with the 8 crayons, reminding me of something John Holt said: children would probably learn maths better if it was illegal. And now they are running round the house with their little cars... The joys of unschooling, I'm so glad I took this approach, at times it is hard for me as I can feel lost without a fixed structure but days like today, when I see that they can do it without coercion, make it worthwhile.

Trip to Warminster and New Forest

We just got back from a very nice break, I took the boys to see relatives and friends for a few days. We stayed in a very picturesque village just outside Warminster, lots of great woodland and things for the boys to do, we will probably go back and camp in the Summer. We also went on a day trip to Lymington and greatly enjoyed the drive through the New Forest, sheep in the road being the high point! Reuben was very upset there wasn't a proper beach with sand there so we didn't do much exploring but were spoilt rotten by our lovely friend instead!

What is unschooling?

There has been some controversy these last two days on my UK Unschooling Network group about "letting children do as they please" as if this was worse than (and possibly leading to...) dealing drugs or setting fire to the neighbour's dog...
So I would like to post part of an article by Pat Farenga, friend and colleague of the late John Holt and editor, on the subject of unschooling. Clearly I agree with it all!

When pressed, I define unschooling as allowing children as much freedom to learn in the world, as their parents can comfortably bear. The advantage of this method is that it doesn't require you, the parent, to become someone else, i.e. a professional teacher pouring knowledge into child-vessels on a planned basis. Instead you live and learn together, pursuing questions and interests as they arise and using conventional schooling on an on-demand basis, if at all. This is the way we learn before going to school and the way we learn when we leave school and enter the world of work. So, for in...stance, a young child's interest in hot rods can lead him to a study of how the engine works (science), how and when the car was built (history and business), who built and designed the car (biography), etc. Certainly these interests can lead to reading texts, taking courses, or doing projects, but the important difference is that these activities were chosen and engaged in freely by the learner. They were not dictated to the learner through curricular mandate to be done at a specific time and place, though parents with a more hands-on approach to unschooling certainly can influence and guide their children's choices.

Unschooling, for lack of a better term (until people start to accept living as part and parcel of learning), is the natural way to learn. However, this does not mean unschoolers do not take traditional classes or use curricular materials when the student, or parents and children together, decide that this is how they want to do it. Learning to read or do quadratic equations are not "natural" processes, but unschoolers nonetheless learn them when it makes sense to them to do so, not because they have reached a certain age or are compelled to do so by arbitrary authority. Therefore it isn't unusual to find unschoolers who are barely eight-years-old studying astronomy or who are ten-years-old and just learning to read."

And Isaac?

I'm sorry, I do go on about Reuben a lot as he's at the forefront of our Home Education experience. But of course Isaac learns all the time, his vocabulary is huge and he is happily speaking in long sentences, he seems attracted by numbers and is trying to count as well as understanding that letters are connected to that catchy ABC song Reuben sings. But the biggest learning experience is trying to make sense of the whole world around him and he is so cute while doing it!!!