mjjarocki

I began home-schooling just this year for my daughter for
kindergarten. I do school-at-home, but for many aspects of the
curriculum I chose, my daughter is bored and I feel if I would have to
force her to continue, which I don't want to do. Unschooling is a
"theory" that intrigues me, but what is a typical day, week like for
someone this young. She is too young to do her own research or plan
activities around her interests. I also have two younger children, so
the preplanned curriculum is helpful to me on those days the other
children are needing more of my time and energy.

I know a few homeschoolers, but no unschoolers. Is there a support
group in the Carol Stream, Illinois area where I could go and interact
with other unschoolers to see examples of unschooling at work?

rumpleteasermom

--- In Unschooling-dotcom@y..., "mjjarocki" <JAROCKI9@A...> wrote:
> I began home-schooling just this year for my daughter for
> kindergarten. I do school-at-home, but for many aspects of the
> curriculum I chose, my daughter is bored and I feel if I would have
to
> force her to continue, which I don't want to do. Unschooling is a
> "theory" that intrigues me, but what is a typical day, week like
for
> someone this young. She is too young to do her own research or
plan
> activities around her interests


I think a lot of this boils down to the parents needing to unlearn
what they were "taught" at school. Too many people believe that you
have to learn the same things the same way as everyone else. Once
you are past that idea, it gets much easier.

Really, look at the problems in today's public schools . . .
everything is geared (and becoming moreso) toward uniformity. Every
kid is supposed to do the same things at the same time in the same
way. That concept is a lot of cause of the demise of our public
school system. If your child is not dead average in every subject,
schools are not going to be what works best for them. And that does
not even address the "socialization problem" in the schools. The say
our kids aren't properly socialized, have you ever watched what goes
on in a high school? It can be barbaric.

And this uniformity is relatively new. Up until about 75 year ago,
our schools were one room school houses where multiple age groups
shared a classroom.

So, my advice is to stop and look around! Do you believe what you do
because it is how you grew up and therefore must be "right" somehow.
Have you every really stopped and pondered it all?

Bridget

Fetteroll

on 12/7/01 9:55 AM, mjjarocki at JAROCKI9@... wrote:

> She is too young to do her own research or plan
> activities around her interests.

Actually she isn't too young. She's been reaseaching and planning (or at
least persuing) activities around her interests since she was born.

It helps to realize that unschooling *won't* look like kids persuing
schoolish activities on their own. Unschooling looks like the way she
learned to speak English, which was as a side effect of using it to get what
she wanted. You didn't care that she was talking about squishy peas and
poopy diapers ;-) You knew she'd *get* English no matter how she used it.

Kids playing *is* their learning. They play for a reason because *that's*
how they learn. :-) It doesn't look at all like school or learning but it
is.

Help her learn more about what she's interested in, even if it's a video
game or making mud pies. She'll *use* -- and learn -- the basics because
they're basic to living.

Joyce


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Tia Leschke

At 02:55 PM 07/12/01 +0000, you wrote:

>I began home-schooling just this year for my daughter for
>kindergarten. I do school-at-home, but for many aspects of the
>curriculum I chose, my daughter is bored and I feel if I would have to
>force her to continue, which I don't want to do. Unschooling is a
>"theory" that intrigues me, but what is a typical day, week like for
>someone this young. She is too young to do her own research or plan
>activities around her interests. I also have two younger children, so
>the preplanned curriculum is helpful to me on those days the other
>children are needing more of my time and energy.

You might also want to consider just what your daughter would actually be
learning if she went to kindergarten. Around here, they learn a bit about
their communities. Homeschoolers learn that just by being out of school
and going out into the community with their parents. They learn to play
with other kids. That's not too hard to provide, either through
homeschooling groups (large or small) or with after school classes. And
they learn something about letters and numbers. Kids that age are so
naturally curious about letters and numbers. If they aren't curious yet,
it's probably either because they aren't ready or there aren't very many
letters or numbers in their environment. Both are easy to fix, the first,
by waiting, the second by changing the environment so that it includes more
of them. (Lots of books, counting things, refrigerator letters, books
lying around, alphabet posters, figuring out how many plates and cups to
put on the table) There are tons of things you can do to encourage
exploration of these things without using curriculum. The main one is just
talking about what you're doing.
Tia

Tia Leschke leschke@...
On Vancouver Island
********************************************************************************************
It is the answers which separate us, the questions which unite us. - Janice
Levy





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Cindy

mjjarocki wrote:
>
> I know a few homeschoolers, but no unschoolers. Is there a support
> group in the Carol Stream, Illinois area where I could go and interact
> with other unschoolers to see examples of unschooling at work?
>

I have a first grader and a 4 year old. What I do when I get an urge
to teach them is watch them play for awhile. I can then see that they
don't need my help. *But* I've been on this path for some time and on
lists like this one to help. At first it was hard to see how they
were learning "school" things when they played...

Our one typical day is like this :
Mondays are our out of the house day. Megan signed up for nature walks
and a Spanish for non-reader class. We leave at 9:30 and get back about
4. They play with friends some of the time too - between the classes.

All the other days don't follow any pattern. This week my daughter
decided that we were having a mushroom party on Tu. so she made a lot
of mushroom shaped pictures, a picture of a mushroom princess. We also
went walking outside to see what types we could find. The past few
days we've been doing lots of Lego (math), reading and artwork. On Momday
I copied some pages out of books for them - things I knew they'd like.
So we have dot-to-dot dinosaur pages and mazes all over the living room
floor now. We saw albino redwood trees on Monday and so we've had
some interesting discussions about why they were white. We are planning
on taking my DH to see them this weekend!

They have several PBS shows they like (Reading Rainbow, Sagwa, Zooboomafoo,
Clifford). Going to the store with me is an opportunity to learn more
about our community. Sometimes we see police or fire vehicles and we
talk about them.

I hope this helps!

--

Cindy Ferguson
crma@...

Diane

My kids aren't quite that old, but they're great at planning their own
activities--my 4-year-old regularly asks me to get him his train set, and my
nearly-two asks to go on a merry-go-round.

Seriously, though, kids rarely plan their own workbooks and phonics lessons,
but they do ask what signs say, or ask you to read them a book, or ask what,
why, or how. Remember, too, that watching you interact with the little ones
is important social (interpersonal) studies.

:-) Diane

mjjarocki wrote:

> I began home-schooling just this year for my daughter for
> kindergarten. I do school-at-home, but for many aspects of the
> curriculum I chose, my daughter is bored and I feel if I would have to
> force her to continue, which I don't want to do. Unschooling is a
> "theory" that intrigues me, but what is a typical day, week like for
> someone this young. She is too young to do her own research or plan
> activities around her interests. I also have two younger children, so
> the preplanned curriculum is helpful to me on those days the other
> children are needing more of my time and energy.
>
> I know a few homeschoolers, but no unschoolers. Is there a support
> group in the Carol Stream, Illinois area where I could go and interact
> with other unschoolers to see examples of unschooling at work?

Tia Leschke

> We saw albino redwood trees on Monday and so we've had
>some interesting discussions about why they were white. We are planning
>on taking my DH to see them this weekend!

Albino redwood trees? Where? I assume you're in California somewhere. I
never heard of such a thing all those years I grew up there.
Tia

Tia Leschke leschke@...
On Vancouver Island
********************************************************************************************
It is the answers which separate us, the questions which unite us. - Janice
Levy





----------


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