Carol Gilliam

I am interested in hearing a little of a typical day in the life of an
unschooling family.
Does each child have a project they are working on?
How do you approach the art of writing with unschooling?
Carol in NC

[email protected]

In a message dated 01/04/2001 9:52:24 PM !!!First Boot!!!,
jeannie@... writes:

<< I am interested in hearing a little of a typical day in the life of an
unschooling family.
Does each child have a project they are working on?
How do you approach the art of writing with unschooling?
Carol in NC >>


Today was typical -- it all fell apart -- how's that for a plan?

Son (7 yo) had his piano lesson scheduled for 2:00. He practiced as much as
he felt he needed to. (His teacher is very pleased. And we like her.) We
went. The class had been cancelled. We went for ice cream cones
anyway--something we do after most piano lessons -- the teacher's house is on
the way!! :)

My daughter (6 yo) and I usually go to the library while son is at piano. So
now that has been postponed until tomorrow. Along with haircuts. Also
conveniently located. But last time my daughter freaked out at haircuts
because she said the barber looked scary -- so we'll see.

Projects -- we have (maybe because they are younger) few long-term need a lot
of commitment type projects. We have a couple of raised bed gardens and the
kids and I putter there, we feed the birds (we did a birdwatching project
last year), we take care of the cats and fish. But art and science and
reading -- any of that is usually done at a sitting. Or at most involves a
trip to the store to get supplies -- plaster of Paris is now on the list --
my MIL got us a cool "science projects" book for Christmas -- mostly fun
stuff -- how to make goop and a volcano and your own spray paint -- hmmm,
maybe she doesn't like me a much as I thought! :)

Handwriting -- my son is an extremely reluctant writer and I don't push it.
He uses the computer when needed.

My daughter, otoh, has lovely handwriting for 6 and likes to make up stories
and, latest, do crossword puzzles.

So we putter and do a lot of different things and keep a lot of materials
available -- computer and art supplies and microscope and, yesterday we
downloaded Beatles songs and danced and so what subject is that -- is that a
project?

Math is a series of CDs and a chalkboard and books and graph paper and money
to spend (yesterday my daughter and I totalled up her life savings -- over
$21 so she is happy), etc., etc. Just one darn thing after another.

Today's "lesson" also included a trip to the Goodwill drop off location in
our town. Along with the appropriate answers to the usual questions.

Good luck.

Nance

Samantha Stopple

--- Carol Gilliam <jeannie@...> wrote:
> I am interested in hearing a little of a typical day
> in the life of an
> unschooling family.
>
> Carol in NC

Well...The kids slept in today (yippeeH!) So I got to
eat my toast and jam and drink my coffee in peace and
quiet. While the youngest/ds woke up off and on and
nursed. Finally...about 11:30 the kids decided to wake
up. Ds wanted to go outside and ride his bike so we
got dressed. He rode around the apartment complex.

By the time we got back dh(he works from home) had
started some lunch and dd was dressed. Dd was playing
with her dolls. I finished fixing lunch then we sat
down to eat. after lunch dd did some drawing she is
really getting into drawing faces and making sure all
the body parts are accounted ie. noses, hair etc. Ds
joined in with her drawing. Then ds wanted a marker dd
had so we did some talking about taking turns sharing
etc. The conflict never really got resolved.

Dd went to her room and drew for a while then she came
out to watch a Magic School Bus Video. Several
conflicts arose with dd saying ds was being loud and
where each of them wanted to sit. All those needed to
be worked out then finally peace they watch the video.
While the kids did things independently I tried to
pick up the house a little and read a book.


Tried to get the kids outside a bit today but not
motivated so we didn't. Dd is getting ready to get
some special dad time running some errands with her
father. Ds will be going down for a late nap most
likely. ---woops change of plans dd decided to stay
home, ds will go with dad.

What will the evening hold? Good question. Most likely
diner. Lots of questions like how do I spell this mom.
Reading books. Watching videos.

I can't say we have a typical day ever. We have a
loose weekly schedule of going to library at least
once a week and dd has dance class. My dh and I and
the kids attend a weekly class for some studies we are
doing together.

Things my kids have known to do during the day
include: Make flour salt etc. concoctions, paint,
draw, watch lots of videos, read, practice writing, go
grocery shopping, thrift store shopping, I check my
email, bake cookies, play, and play, and play...

>Does each child have a project they are working on?
No projects currently here kids have their focuses.
ds-2 likes me to read him anything about big trucks
and big concstruction equipment. Dd-5 is practicing
writing some words. Sometimes she writes them herself
but often she uses a stencil.

> How do you approach the art of writing with
> unschooling?
Writing as just learning how to write letters or
writing to get accross ideas or both? dd-5 is
practicing her letters. She likes to type some words
on the computer, especially her name. As far as
getting ideas accross. I figure when getting something
accross in words on paper become important to them
they will.

Peace,
Samantha


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos - Share your holiday photos online!
http://photos.yahoo.com/

Tracy Oldfield

A typicla day... hmmmm... well, maybe I can tell you
about today instead :-) The kids usually get up before
us unless there's a particular reason for getting up.
They play together (they're 5 and 4, wow, I can't
believe it!) until we get up or they get hungry, we
eat, they play some more, they draw or paint or
whatever. Today we de-trimmed the tree, and they found
a cd-rom which hasn't been in circulation for a while,
so they did some of that. Later, they watched Madeline
while I made meatballs to freeze, and now they're
asleep. This was a fairly quiet day, we didn't have
anywhere to go or particular to do (except for the
meatballs :-) )

Tracy

I am interested in hearing a little of a typical day in
the life of an
unschooling family.
Does each child have a project they are working on?
How do you approach the art of writing with
unschooling? 
Carol in NC

Tracy Oldfield

So we putter and do a lot of different things and keep
a lot of materials 
available -- computer and art supplies and microscope
and, yesterday we 
downloaded Beatles songs and danced and so what subject
is that -- is that a 
project?

Ooooh, technology, music, history, phys ed,
drama/dance... any more? LOL

Tracy

Have A Nice Day!

This isn't always a typical day, (I wonder if there is such a thing??).  But here is what we've been up to.  My kids are son (12), daughter (8), and daughter (5).
 
Over the past 6 weeks we have been truly "unschooling".  Most of the time I'm more of a relaxed homeschooler, and not a strictly unschooler as it is defined by many.
 
This week we went back to "structure" which only includes one sentence of copywork, some kind of math, and reading.  The rest is entirely up to them.
 
I'll tell you about today:
 
We got up, showered, ate breakfast, worked on our Bible verse for the week (we're doing some catechism work), prayed together.  Then we did a handwriting exercise in lieu of copywork.  After that we did some Saxon math.  My son picked up some books on Wed from the library on coin collecting.  He decided to check out the US Mint online and read about different states and their state facts, as well as looked at some of their state quarters. He decided he'd like to design his own quarter...and thinks he will have to look up facts about another state (since PA is already done).
 
My daughter has been working on fabric painting.  My son joined in briefly but we didn't have enough supplies and then we had to leave for the pediatrician.  After that, my daughter had swim team practice.  Tonight, my son is watching discovery channel, and my daughter is probably reading a book.  My youngest daughter kind of dabbles in whatever the others are doing.
 
Kristen
-----Original Message-----
From: Carol Gilliam <jeannie@...>
To: [email protected] <[email protected]>
Date: Thursday, January 04, 2001 1:50 PM
Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] typical day?

I am interested in hearing a little of a typical day in the life of an
unschooling family.
Does each child have a project they are working on?
How do you approach the art of writing with unschooling?
Carol in NC


Message boards, timely articles, a free newsletter and more!
Check it all out at: http://www.unschooling.com

Addresses:
Post message: [email protected]
Unsubscribe: [email protected]
List owner: [email protected]
List settings page: http://www.egroups.com/group/Unschooling-dotcom

LisaKK

> I am interested in hearing a little of a typical day in the life of an
> unschooling family.

I'm not sure we have typical days, but we do have seasonal patterns that I
pretty much count on. Winter finds us content to stay at home more and we
tend to eat more 'meals', as opposed to just snacking.

> Does each child have a project they are working on?

Depends on how you define project. The kids stay busy most of the time.
Today two of my children have guests over, as school is still out here. So
they are playing and talking and generally well, driving me nuts. Lego
cities or K'nex marathongs happen sometimes. Major outside play will take
over in the summer. I forgot to buy binoculars for one child.. shoot. My
10 year old reads a great deal in his bedroom, leaving me clueless as to
what he's into. For about 6-8 weeks in the early fall we were playing board
games for hours every day. Chess, Quarto, Set, Five Crowns, and whole host
of others. That has since slowed down to just playnig with
Dad at night and on the weekends.

What kind of projects were you thinking of?

> How do you approach the art of writing with unschooling?

Mine are too young or not interested in writing stories or essays at the
moment. I'm sort of at a loss to define how we approach it? I suppose we
don't approach it at all. Does it sound weird to say we either write or we
don't? My current 10 year old son has a different times written out battle
scenes and when he was in that phase he just did it. He'd ask me to spell a
word here or there, but he never wanted me to actually read his work. With
my 18 year old we went through a few books that talked about writing and I
found Write Source to have some great sourcebooks that showcased different
kinds of writing, but she's never been interested in actually producing
anything for a reading audience.

What kind of writing are you thinking of?

Lisa

Janet Hamlin

Around here, both kids pretty much play all day.  They build and re-build
tracks with the Thomas the Tank Engine set.  My daughter will play with her
doll house, arranging and re-arranging the rooms and creating scenarios with
the people.  She also will plan to buy certain doll house items from her allowance and is learning how to do the math to find out how much money she needs. 
 
Caroline also has taken to writing notes for her door, using
phonetic spelling or asking me how to spell certain words.  She will also
make up charts for how she plans to care for her new kitten (that she wants
but doesn't have yet).  At some point in the day they both will watch a
little PBS or a video.   Lots of imagingative play as well.  Today Caroline was "surgically extracting" items from the stuffed alligator's mouth.  Yesterday they were playing with the cash register and taking turns buying and selling things.  At one point, unbeknownst to me, Caroline made up more paper money to go in the register.
 
Several times a week the art supplies come out and
they keep busy with that (anything from crayons to paper and glue, to
pipecleaners, paints, etc).  They play with the pets and help care for them
by getting their food and water.  All this with a few chores thrown in
(putting away laundry, cleaning up messes made, etc). 
 
Before bed either my
dh or I will try to read the kids stories (together or separately).
Sometimes this is difficult because both kids are so kinesthetic that
getting them to slow down to listen is a problem (I don't mind reading while
they're bouncing around but when they're talking and making noise over my
voice they can't possibly hear the story). 
 
If we're out and  about in the
car, lots of different topics come up.  Spelling, math questions, geography,
medical stuff, whatever. 
 
They catch bugs to put in the bug house.  We kept
a cricket alive for 2 weeks once.   We watched a baby fish grow up and was
finally released with the big fish (we have a 10 gallon fish tank).  In the summer we have a garden and the kids help with planting, weeding, tending, and harvesting, and freezing.

Most days it seems like nothing much is going on but play, but they are both
learning.  For Christmas we got several new games including Brain Quest,
Stick Around, Set, Junior Scrabble, Junior Clue, Uno, Mouse Trap and
Continuo that we have played a lot.  Even the 2 yr old gets involved, even if he's too young to follow the rules.

Some days the kids play a lot on the computer.  We have fun stuff (Freddi
Fish, Toy Story) and "educational" stuff (Jump Start, Reader Rabbit).

Once a week we go to our homeschool group and get together with the other
kids, plus the kids take swimming once a week and Caroline takes ice skating
once a week with one other practice session.

Hope this helps!  In the midst of it all I try to keep house, make lunches,
and run my business!

Janet, mom to Thomas, 2, dx ALL low risk 10/17/00, COG 9904, currently in
remission, and Caroline, 6, homeschooled.
 

kalima

I can't say we have routine. I sometimes wish we did but then I am glad
we don't either. Only routine thing in our day is my 1 year old's naps
but lately those have not been so routine. *L*

Today we got up ate breakfast together. Nathan 9 job is to feed the dogs
and take them out so he does that while Chelsea 8 feeds her cat when she
can find him. Cody 6 and Chelsea decided to play house most of the
morning. Brittney 11 was reading about Greek Myths (her latest passion)
and then got the little ones to play chess with her.

Nathan played legos and built more contraptions. I am amazed at what he
does with those things. Then asked if I would help him with his new
Tarot deck. All my kids have a tarot deck. They use them for readings or
dream work (which they then write into journals) or sometimes a card
will spark a story. Nate likes Dragons so he got a dragon tarot deck and
we had fun looking at the pictures and figuring out what they said to
him. Then he asked me to do a reading with my deck for him which we did
and led us to talk about Ancient Egypt ( my deck has Gods and Goddess
from different cultures on it). Lunch time brought us all into the
kitchen to cook mac and cheese and check on the stew in the crock pot.
Chelsea then deciced she wanted dessert to go with dinner so we made a
cake in my bread machine to see if it worked.

Next we read some poems on snow (it started snowing) and danced around
the house like snowflakes. Acted out a snow man poem and then made
snowflakes for the window out of silver pipe cleaners and crystal beads.
Made some popcorn and watched The Willows in Winter.

Later we will make dinner rolls and eat dinner. Clean up and it will be
reading time and journal time. (ok so that is sort of routine part of
the day) Kid will play games and then later go to bed.

Thats our day ...today anyhow.

Shelly

[email protected]

In a message dated 1/5/01 12:36:28 PM Pacific Standard Time,
moblpetvet@... writes:

<< Sometimes this is difficult because both kids are so kinesthetic that
getting them to slow down to listen is a problem >>

My 15yo son and I are studying American History. A lot of the time he's
simultaneously playing sports video games on the computer and listening to me
read or having discussions while hanging upside down in the chair.

Bobbie

" All my kids have a tarot deck. They use
> them for readings or
> dream work (which they then write into journals) or
> sometimes a card
> will spark a story. Nate likes Dragons so he got a
> dragon tarot deck and
> we had fun looking at the pictures and figuring out
> what they said to
> him. Then he asked me to do a reading with my deck
> for him which we did
> and led us to talk about Ancient Egypt ( my deck has
> Gods and Goddess
> from different cultures on it)."

way cool. only in an unschooling home can you find
learning experiences such as these. In Public School,
sadly, if your son wanted to use his tarot deck in the
supposed "free time", he most likely would not be
encouraged, and would almost definitely be viewed as
"wierd" for it. I say again, way cool.
-Bobbie

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices.
http://auctions.yahoo.com/