need your help
Nicole Willoughby
please go here ....
http://findingthewonderful.blogspot.com/
Nicole
Don't worry that children never listen to you : worry that they are always watching you--Robert Fulghum
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
http://findingthewonderful.blogspot.com/
Nicole
Don't worry that children never listen to you : worry that they are always watching you--Robert Fulghum
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Latha Poonamallee
Nicole,
I remember reading (in the archives) about keeping a log of unschooling activities. Perhaps if you do that, I am sure you will find that Courtney is doing a lot in fact and not 'nothing'! When I was talking to my dad about this last week (he is concerned about about what Viyan is learning too), he was suggesting extracting 'nuggets' from these logs to translate it into 'traditional educationalese' and suggested that perhaps it is my job to connect the dots. I agree. I also believe that such reflexive journaling can help the learner/s make sense of their own experience. Perhaps something like that may help you relieve your dh's anxiety and it may be something that may be done collaborative done by him (you say he has time on his hands) and your daughter. It may either end up being a joyful experience for both of them strengthening their relationship and enhance his trust in your daughter's generative learning capacity and process. Or
ofcourse they may get tired of doing it, and it may fall off the wayside!
I am sorry that my suggestions for activities themselves are not more concrete, I think it depends on the child's interest. For example, Viyan loves Scooby Doo and geography, a wierd combination, huh? Upon watching Scooby Doo and Pirates Ahoy, he was very interested in learning more about the Bermuda Triange, so we read a little bit about it on Wikipedia and other online resources. After a couple of more viewings/discussions, for example, we talked about how Bermuda Triangle mystery (especially how the compass goes crazy around those parts) is similar to the Mystery Spot he visited in the summer with his grand parents where he saw how for some inexplicable reason, gravity did not work as usual!
A couple of nights ago, he picked up his globe and drew the map of the eastern coast, drew a triange where BT is supposed to be, put apporpriate titles (Atlantic ocean, Miami etc.), drew a compass on the map marking directions, drew a pirate ship with Scooby and the gang. He also drew a boat moving from North Atlantic ocean moving towards the BT and drew an arrow to illustrate its movement. Finally, he tilted the whole thing, Scooby Doo and Pirates Ahoy. It was a completely self-initiated activity. Based on this activity, I could identify some formal academic nuggets like geography (East coast, Atlantic Ocean, directions), science (gravity, compass-magnetism), cartography (how colors are used in maps, arrows/directionality), social science/humanities (legends of BT) versus science (reason-magnetism), critical analysis (comparison of Mystery Spot and Bermuda Triangle), Spelling/Writing (he is six, does not write much, even when he plays restaraunts, he
draws pictures of different foods for making the menu, so it would count as a great learning to write exercise) etc.
I may do this on rare occassions, partly because the process of thinking about situations/experiences/stories, analyzing it, identifying disparate elements and connecting the dots gives 'me' intellecutal pleasure. But I don't have the patience or the time nor see the need to do this for every activity. But I wouldn't mind deliberately doing it every so often for my dad, not because I believe that I have to legitmize our educational choice but because I know my family loves him and wants to know what he is upto. Given that we live thousands of miles apart and that we are not together in real time very often, it gives them an insight into his everyday life. And, more importantly, being a single parent, if I were to be incapacitated or die, it will be my family who will be his guardians and I believe it serves my son well to educate my family about my choice and how it works so they know how to continue raising him if such a situation should
arise.
Sorry about this long response. I hope you find something helpful in this long ramble.
Cheers
Latha
I remember reading (in the archives) about keeping a log of unschooling activities. Perhaps if you do that, I am sure you will find that Courtney is doing a lot in fact and not 'nothing'! When I was talking to my dad about this last week (he is concerned about about what Viyan is learning too), he was suggesting extracting 'nuggets' from these logs to translate it into 'traditional educationalese' and suggested that perhaps it is my job to connect the dots. I agree. I also believe that such reflexive journaling can help the learner/s make sense of their own experience. Perhaps something like that may help you relieve your dh's anxiety and it may be something that may be done collaborative done by him (you say he has time on his hands) and your daughter. It may either end up being a joyful experience for both of them strengthening their relationship and enhance his trust in your daughter's generative learning capacity and process. Or
ofcourse they may get tired of doing it, and it may fall off the wayside!
I am sorry that my suggestions for activities themselves are not more concrete, I think it depends on the child's interest. For example, Viyan loves Scooby Doo and geography, a wierd combination, huh? Upon watching Scooby Doo and Pirates Ahoy, he was very interested in learning more about the Bermuda Triange, so we read a little bit about it on Wikipedia and other online resources. After a couple of more viewings/discussions, for example, we talked about how Bermuda Triangle mystery (especially how the compass goes crazy around those parts) is similar to the Mystery Spot he visited in the summer with his grand parents where he saw how for some inexplicable reason, gravity did not work as usual!
A couple of nights ago, he picked up his globe and drew the map of the eastern coast, drew a triange where BT is supposed to be, put apporpriate titles (Atlantic ocean, Miami etc.), drew a compass on the map marking directions, drew a pirate ship with Scooby and the gang. He also drew a boat moving from North Atlantic ocean moving towards the BT and drew an arrow to illustrate its movement. Finally, he tilted the whole thing, Scooby Doo and Pirates Ahoy. It was a completely self-initiated activity. Based on this activity, I could identify some formal academic nuggets like geography (East coast, Atlantic Ocean, directions), science (gravity, compass-magnetism), cartography (how colors are used in maps, arrows/directionality), social science/humanities (legends of BT) versus science (reason-magnetism), critical analysis (comparison of Mystery Spot and Bermuda Triangle), Spelling/Writing (he is six, does not write much, even when he plays restaraunts, he
draws pictures of different foods for making the menu, so it would count as a great learning to write exercise) etc.
I may do this on rare occassions, partly because the process of thinking about situations/experiences/stories, analyzing it, identifying disparate elements and connecting the dots gives 'me' intellecutal pleasure. But I don't have the patience or the time nor see the need to do this for every activity. But I wouldn't mind deliberately doing it every so often for my dad, not because I believe that I have to legitmize our educational choice but because I know my family loves him and wants to know what he is upto. Given that we live thousands of miles apart and that we are not together in real time very often, it gives them an insight into his everyday life. And, more importantly, being a single parent, if I were to be incapacitated or die, it will be my family who will be his guardians and I believe it serves my son well to educate my family about my choice and how it works so they know how to continue raising him if such a situation should
arise.
Sorry about this long response. I hope you find something helpful in this long ramble.
Cheers
Latha
--- On Mon, 1/5/09, Nicole Willoughby <cncnawilloughby@...> wrote:
From: Nicole Willoughby <cncnawilloughby@...>
Subject: [unschoolingbasics] need your help
To: [email protected], [email protected]
Date: Monday, January 5, 2009, 3:57 PM
please go here ....
http://findingthewo nderful.blogspot .com/
Nicole
Don't worry that children never listen to you : worry that they are always watching you--Robert Fulghum
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Kelly Lovejoy
I am going to ask two things:
1) Please ask for *specific* help in the subject lines. Help with *what*?
2) Don't ask me to go anywhere. This list is meant to help people *here*. I don't want to have to go browsing everyone's blog to answer questions.
All you need to do is to cut and paste your blog entry here.
Thanks.
~Kelly
-----Original Message-----
From: Nicole Willoughby <cncnawilloughby@...>
please go here ....
http://findingthewonderful.blogspot.com/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
1) Please ask for *specific* help in the subject lines. Help with *what*?
2) Don't ask me to go anywhere. This list is meant to help people *here*. I don't want to have to go browsing everyone's blog to answer questions.
All you need to do is to cut and paste your blog entry here.
Thanks.
~Kelly
-----Original Message-----
From: Nicole Willoughby <cncnawilloughby@...>
please go here ....
http://findingthewonderful.blogspot.com/
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]