Hi I am new
Shawn and Kelli Scott
Hi I am new to the group, but I do not think we are really new to
unschooling, just thought we did things our way, yet not totally
unschooling either....here is what we do, tell me what ya think.
Ok our jouney started in the 3rd grade (our son, now 12.5 went to a
private school), we started schooling at night on things that he had
an interest in and they were not teaching him. 4th grade we went to
homeschooling completely, but we used a prepackaged curricula for
about the first 12 weeks and chucked it, then we went to a "gentle
approach" for schooling. From 4-6 we used this, in 7th we switched
to a classical curricula, and have used that for 7tha nd 8th (we
tried the schoolbook approach and hated it). I guess we have always
been child centered learning, if he doesn't like something we toss it
aside and move on, if he does we stick to it (even if my "lesson
plans" say otherwise). Ok so now I guess I have gotten even
more "relaxed" as my dear husband says. I allow our son to study
what he wants, he has read every magna he can get his hands on, he
has designed his own video games, and he is currently working on
making claymation movies.
Now I am fine with this, feel that he is learning so well, we are
also switching to organic foods, so he has been looking up what foods
contain the most chemicals.
My husband does like to see things like spelling test and math
worksheets. He also like to throw in a good book or two for him to
read, but does not require any reports, he says just tell dad about
it. Right now he is to read The Hounds Of Baskerville.
We have never tested formally in our school work, as we do not
believe in testing, yet our state does require some type of test
scores or teacher thing at the end of the year (Ohio) so we use the
CAT/Survey test through Seton Home School. I do not time him though,
I feel that it puts stress where it is not needed (I do glance at the
time, and he is well within the time limit). He scores very well on
these test, so I really am not worried.
Ok now here are my questions.......
Should we use a spelling text and vocabulary, he loves learning new
words?
Should we use a math book, we have been studying algebra, he hates
it, we are moving on the geometry I think, just not sure what books
to pull from (he loves geometry)?
How should we do English?
Thanks so much for all of your help.
Kelli
unschooling, just thought we did things our way, yet not totally
unschooling either....here is what we do, tell me what ya think.
Ok our jouney started in the 3rd grade (our son, now 12.5 went to a
private school), we started schooling at night on things that he had
an interest in and they were not teaching him. 4th grade we went to
homeschooling completely, but we used a prepackaged curricula for
about the first 12 weeks and chucked it, then we went to a "gentle
approach" for schooling. From 4-6 we used this, in 7th we switched
to a classical curricula, and have used that for 7tha nd 8th (we
tried the schoolbook approach and hated it). I guess we have always
been child centered learning, if he doesn't like something we toss it
aside and move on, if he does we stick to it (even if my "lesson
plans" say otherwise). Ok so now I guess I have gotten even
more "relaxed" as my dear husband says. I allow our son to study
what he wants, he has read every magna he can get his hands on, he
has designed his own video games, and he is currently working on
making claymation movies.
Now I am fine with this, feel that he is learning so well, we are
also switching to organic foods, so he has been looking up what foods
contain the most chemicals.
My husband does like to see things like spelling test and math
worksheets. He also like to throw in a good book or two for him to
read, but does not require any reports, he says just tell dad about
it. Right now he is to read The Hounds Of Baskerville.
We have never tested formally in our school work, as we do not
believe in testing, yet our state does require some type of test
scores or teacher thing at the end of the year (Ohio) so we use the
CAT/Survey test through Seton Home School. I do not time him though,
I feel that it puts stress where it is not needed (I do glance at the
time, and he is well within the time limit). He scores very well on
these test, so I really am not worried.
Ok now here are my questions.......
Should we use a spelling text and vocabulary, he loves learning new
words?
Should we use a math book, we have been studying algebra, he hates
it, we are moving on the geometry I think, just not sure what books
to pull from (he loves geometry)?
How should we do English?
Thanks so much for all of your help.
Kelli
Pamela Sorooshian
Those are easy questions. The answer is "No, don't."
You don't have to, and you risk damaging his love of learning.
Go even further in supporting his interests - think about how you can
help him get even more in-depth into the things he is interested in
and think about how those might connect to other things in the world.
Better yet - forget all about what he is "learning" and let it take
care of itself because....it will take care of itself if you live a
joyful life together.
-pam
You don't have to, and you risk damaging his love of learning.
Go even further in supporting his interests - think about how you can
help him get even more in-depth into the things he is interested in
and think about how those might connect to other things in the world.
Better yet - forget all about what he is "learning" and let it take
care of itself because....it will take care of itself if you live a
joyful life together.
-pam
On Feb 27, 2008, at 7:51 AM, Shawn and Kelli Scott wrote:
> Ok now here are my questions.......
>
> Should we use a spelling text and vocabulary, he loves learning new
> words?
>
> Should we use a math book, we have been studying algebra, he hates
> it, we are moving on the geometry I think, just not sure what books
> to pull from (he loves geometry)?
>
> How should we do English?
>
> Thanks so much for all of your help.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
carnationsgalore
> Hi I am new to the group, but I do not think we are really new toHi Kelli,
> unschooling, just thought we did things our way, yet not totally
> unschooling either....here is what we do, tell me what ya think.
> Kelli
I think you're stuck in the schoolish mindset. You're still looking
at subjects and categories as something that needs to be tackled
individually and in a certain way. Relaxed homeschooling is
definitely better than strict, forced homeschooling. However,
relaxed homeschooling is not unschooling. My son is 11.5 and has
sort of done the same thing as your son as we have transitioned from
relaxed homeschooling to unschooling. There were subjects he liked
better than other subjects when we were doing schoolwork at home.
He was happy to drop the disliked subjects but wanted to keep the
interesting subjects. In his mind, that was his idea of his choice,
choosing what schoolish subjects to study. I have helped him
understand that he's really free to choose to do or not do any
studies at all. And he's not asked to do those subjects one time
since we've been unschooling. He's still interested in History and
Science but he does them in his own way, totally and completely.
No, you don't *need* to do any particular subject.
Beth