Help with ideas for nestling deeper into chosen topics of interest
learningwithoutschool
I'm posting today as i reflect on the principles underlying unschooling, and joyfully encourage the ideas and helpful insights from the members on this great discussion list on how to nestle even more deeply into chosen topics of interest; on how i can respectively help to facilitate and bring more resources to my child in fun and creative ways.
We are deschooling :). We are living. We are being. It feels awesome. My son, Christian, newly age 8, is slowly getting excited again. He currently lights up when he is exploring things about the solar system. A family outing to the Dunlop Observatory, where the largest telescope in Canada is situated, revealed his developing excitement to me. Becoming a more heightened careful observer of my children, is one of the most treasured of things to happen to me since embarking on our unschooling journey.
All these years living in York Region, and we have had the largest telescope right in our 'own backyard' all this time. It is joyful to have slowed down the pace of life, enough to discover what exists right under our noses. Since that outing, we look up at the night sky, and now know that the bright star near the moon, all by its lonesome, is actually Jupiter. Jupiter has been added to my son's favourite planet list at the moment (his number one favourite planet is Earth, and then Mars *smile*). He has unearthed a book on the planets from his room; he has awakened early in the morning recently to excitedly share with me about his dream of seeing blue planets, and wanting to know whether there are such things. He had a need to know what planet was first discovered and when; and has been playing around in his mind with the idea of scale and size where all the planets are concerned, in relation to the sun and moon. In a half-awakened state, and not wanting to miss a beat on his pressing excitement, i found myself alongside my little guy, doing google searches online to find out some of the answers to his inquiries, and that search led to a vast plethora of other fascinating discoveries about our solar system and its planets.
The act of 'strewing' has become very fun for me as i get to witness my son's reactions to discovering new links on his laptop to planet/space episodes of The Magic School Bus, Bill Nye The Science Guy, etc. He has joined me in watching an interesting documentary featuring Galileo and the making of the first telescope. Christian is fascinated and has been asking deeper questions about origin and creation of the world, i.e. whether God created other worlds with life, etc. All this has been an evolutionary topic of interest spanning about three months now.
To add, Christian is a train enthusiast as well, and has been one since he was a little babe. He is often found orchestrating a railroad scene using his wooden train tracks and trains. His daddy often engages with Christian by building some elaborate railroad projects together; it isn't always clear who is having more fun! One of Christian's wishes is to ride the 'Thomas the Tank Engine' train in St. Thomas, Ontario. He loves steam engines and little 'tank' engines. We did some research together and came across a Heritage Train Association very near us that operates leisurely train rides. We discovered that volunteers and retired train engineers help operate the Heritage Train, and Christian has shared with me that he would like to 'interview' one of them, and perhaps ask if he would be able to arrange an apprentice scenario. Any help with additional ideas and thoughts for creatively facilitating this long-time interest of Christian's would be so welcome!
Sunniest of blessings,
Mary
We are deschooling :). We are living. We are being. It feels awesome. My son, Christian, newly age 8, is slowly getting excited again. He currently lights up when he is exploring things about the solar system. A family outing to the Dunlop Observatory, where the largest telescope in Canada is situated, revealed his developing excitement to me. Becoming a more heightened careful observer of my children, is one of the most treasured of things to happen to me since embarking on our unschooling journey.
All these years living in York Region, and we have had the largest telescope right in our 'own backyard' all this time. It is joyful to have slowed down the pace of life, enough to discover what exists right under our noses. Since that outing, we look up at the night sky, and now know that the bright star near the moon, all by its lonesome, is actually Jupiter. Jupiter has been added to my son's favourite planet list at the moment (his number one favourite planet is Earth, and then Mars *smile*). He has unearthed a book on the planets from his room; he has awakened early in the morning recently to excitedly share with me about his dream of seeing blue planets, and wanting to know whether there are such things. He had a need to know what planet was first discovered and when; and has been playing around in his mind with the idea of scale and size where all the planets are concerned, in relation to the sun and moon. In a half-awakened state, and not wanting to miss a beat on his pressing excitement, i found myself alongside my little guy, doing google searches online to find out some of the answers to his inquiries, and that search led to a vast plethora of other fascinating discoveries about our solar system and its planets.
The act of 'strewing' has become very fun for me as i get to witness my son's reactions to discovering new links on his laptop to planet/space episodes of The Magic School Bus, Bill Nye The Science Guy, etc. He has joined me in watching an interesting documentary featuring Galileo and the making of the first telescope. Christian is fascinated and has been asking deeper questions about origin and creation of the world, i.e. whether God created other worlds with life, etc. All this has been an evolutionary topic of interest spanning about three months now.
To add, Christian is a train enthusiast as well, and has been one since he was a little babe. He is often found orchestrating a railroad scene using his wooden train tracks and trains. His daddy often engages with Christian by building some elaborate railroad projects together; it isn't always clear who is having more fun! One of Christian's wishes is to ride the 'Thomas the Tank Engine' train in St. Thomas, Ontario. He loves steam engines and little 'tank' engines. We did some research together and came across a Heritage Train Association very near us that operates leisurely train rides. We discovered that volunteers and retired train engineers help operate the Heritage Train, and Christian has shared with me that he would like to 'interview' one of them, and perhaps ask if he would be able to arrange an apprentice scenario. Any help with additional ideas and thoughts for creatively facilitating this long-time interest of Christian's would be so welcome!
Sunniest of blessings,
Mary
BRIAN POLIKOWSKY
Mary as for Thomas have you looked into Thomas Day Out? We did it twice when my son was into Thomas. I got to say that I loved
every minute of it.
I see that is one in Ontario but it sounds like you did see that!
as for the solar system here are some ideas:
There are lots of great shows on TV about the solar system and all outer space stuff.
I think they are on the Discover Channel or maybe even the History Channel ( sorry cannot remember now)
Have you downloaded Stellarium ( it is free and
awesome!):
http://www.stellarium.org/
Here is NASA for kids
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash/index.html
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/kids/index.cfm
A fabulous game to play is Super Mario Galaxy ( the one and the 2 game)
Playing out in space going from one planet to the other subject to black hole pulls, gravity and all!!! It is for
the Wii. It is an absolutely awesome game. I played it a lot along with the kids!!!!!
Do not make them into lessons or "learning opportunities" share them, let him play with those or not.
Have fun exploring yourself.
Alex Polikowsky
________________________________
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
every minute of it.
I see that is one in Ontario but it sounds like you did see that!
as for the solar system here are some ideas:
There are lots of great shows on TV about the solar system and all outer space stuff.
I think they are on the Discover Channel or maybe even the History Channel ( sorry cannot remember now)
Have you downloaded Stellarium ( it is free and
awesome!):
http://www.stellarium.org/
Here is NASA for kids
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forkids/kidsclub/flash/index.html
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/kids/index.cfm
A fabulous game to play is Super Mario Galaxy ( the one and the 2 game)
Playing out in space going from one planet to the other subject to black hole pulls, gravity and all!!! It is for
the Wii. It is an absolutely awesome game. I played it a lot along with the kids!!!!!
Do not make them into lessons or "learning opportunities" share them, let him play with those or not.
Have fun exploring yourself.
Alex Polikowsky
________________________________
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Meredith
"learningwithoutschool" <learningwithoutschool@...> wrote:
Is he bored? From your description, it sounds like he's coming up with lots of ideas on his own, so if he's not bored and because you're still deschooling, I wouldn't offer anything more unless he asks. Help him look things up and follow up on his questions, for sure, but realize that you're jumping on things that look obviously "educational". You're doing a lot already! Don't go overboard though - if he's passionate about something, he'll go overboard without your help and you'll be racing to stay caught up. Maybe that's what you mean and I've misinterpreted - that he's clamoring for more, more, more - that's different ;)
In that case - we're a big lego family, so I tend to suggest legos ;) There are lots of space-related kits. For that matter, there are Tons of movies and toys related to space in a general sense once you step away from thinking in terms of "educational". Rent space movies - fictional movies, fun stuff for the fun of it. Star Trek and Dr Who, Star Wars and Planet of the Apes - don't shy away from goofy stuff.
There are lego trains, too... I believe they're even Thomas compatible ;) If he likes playing with trains, let him enjoy playing with trains. Help him build trains from boxes or watch train movies or read all the Thomas books if he likes. What does he like about trains? Some kids have very particular interests in that regard - like they enjoy building tracks but don't care about scenery or steam engines. Or they like steam engines but don't care about scale models. Or they like scale models and lord help you if you buy an accessory that's M scale rather than O. Train geeks are extra specially geeky that way ;)
---Meredith
> Any help with additional ideas and thoughts for creatively facilitating this long-time interest****************
Is he bored? From your description, it sounds like he's coming up with lots of ideas on his own, so if he's not bored and because you're still deschooling, I wouldn't offer anything more unless he asks. Help him look things up and follow up on his questions, for sure, but realize that you're jumping on things that look obviously "educational". You're doing a lot already! Don't go overboard though - if he's passionate about something, he'll go overboard without your help and you'll be racing to stay caught up. Maybe that's what you mean and I've misinterpreted - that he's clamoring for more, more, more - that's different ;)
In that case - we're a big lego family, so I tend to suggest legos ;) There are lots of space-related kits. For that matter, there are Tons of movies and toys related to space in a general sense once you step away from thinking in terms of "educational". Rent space movies - fictional movies, fun stuff for the fun of it. Star Trek and Dr Who, Star Wars and Planet of the Apes - don't shy away from goofy stuff.
There are lego trains, too... I believe they're even Thomas compatible ;) If he likes playing with trains, let him enjoy playing with trains. Help him build trains from boxes or watch train movies or read all the Thomas books if he likes. What does he like about trains? Some kids have very particular interests in that regard - like they enjoy building tracks but don't care about scenery or steam engines. Or they like steam engines but don't care about scale models. Or they like scale models and lord help you if you buy an accessory that's M scale rather than O. Train geeks are extra specially geeky that way ;)
> The act of 'strewing' has become very fun for me...I think you've misunderstood the concept of strewing - what you describe is more like "following up on an interest". Strewing is providing new things to explore on the off chance they'll be of interest. If you're providing things that Aren't about space and trains, to see if anything catches his eye, that's strewing.
---Meredith
emint78
--- In [email protected], "learningwithoutschool" <learningwithoutschool@...> wrote:
-Erin
>If you haven't yet, definitely check out YouTube! If your son loves "Thomas", he will find loads of great videos there. There are collections, all types of stories, songs, re-enactments, discussions of different models, anything and everything related to Thomas.
> To add, Christian is a train enthusiast as well, and has been one since he was a little babe. He is often found orchestrating a railroad scene using his wooden train tracks and trains. His daddy often engages with Christian by building some elaborate railroad projects together; it isn't always clear who is having more fun! One of Christian's wishes is to ride the 'Thomas the Tank Engine' train in St. Thomas, Ontario.
-Erin