Heather Woodward

This swimming discussion made a lightbulb go off in my head - Being new at unschooling... I still sometimes feel that I am not doing my job! - we won't get into that - preconcieved notions and all that baggae...

In any case, my daughter who is 8 swims great - I would never have dreamed of giving my kids swimming lessons. Why? Becuase I learned by swimming all summer in my pool with my dad - who was a teacher and off for the summer. It was just natural - It was hot and swimming was fun... I just learned as I went. It is the same thing that has happened with my kids. Now my younger two - obviously are not at that point - but they are now starting to want to try without their swimmies - and swimming underwater seems to come first for them. - My sil put her baby in those swimming lessons thinking if she then fell into the pool she would swim - she is still afraid of the water!

My whole point of this is - I didn't DO anything - teach the swimming; she just did it. I feel the same about her reading - however- every September I start to feel a little nervous about the fact that everyone is getting ready for school - even the other homeschoolers all ask - "so what curriculm are you doing?" and I start to consider - well maybe I'll have some sort of plan.... The problem is life gets so busy! I am so afraid I will neglect some educational moment! I am taking college classes myself and my kids go to their grandma's two afternoons a week - They are plastered to the television because they have "the dish" and we don't ;) I get a little worried that I am neglecting my role in the process... they are not watching ther history channel or A&E or anything - but Spongebob - and Playhouse Disney etc. - I know I've read the virtues of these discussed on the list ;)

In any case, the swimming made me go ahhhh - so this may be working after all! Thanks!

Heather

PS - I enjoy hearing all the discussion - even Ned's politics ;) I know where my delete key is if I need it!

----- Original Message -----
From: freeform@...
To: [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002 1:17 PM
Subject: Re:Re: [Unschooling-dotcom] What exactly is PRE-Unschooling?


---------- "zenmomma *" <zenmomma@...> writes:
>>>I'm often asked where Casey took swimming lessons. Parents seem to have a hard time blieving that she learned to swim by going with me to the pool and being in the water. It's odd how things have turned around so. My parents
would never have thought to put me in swim lessons. That was what my older brothers were there for, to show me how to swim. ;-)<<<

I'm thinking 9 is a good age for swimming lessons :-) Rain already knew how to dog paddle around, and float, and have tea parties on the bottom of the pool, and stuff like that, just from being in the water all the time... but she wanted to learn to swim actual strokes, and I wasn't doing very well at showing her (maybe because I'm not very good at it). So she's been having private lessons with an 18 yr old former hser and current college sophomore, and it's been wonderful. They talk about what she wants to learn, he knows swimming inside and out and can break every skill down into the tiniest parts, if need be. He knows all sorts of little tricks to help her refine the techniques. She enjoys it a lot, and he's talked about how much faster she learns than the 5 yr olds he teaches - probably mostly because she's not 5.

I also think she would have been fine paddling around the rest of her life, she didn't *need* to know the freestyle and the backstroke and the breastroke. But she wanted to, and I didn't know them all.

I'm thinking of signing her up for singing lessons for the same reason- she wants to know stuff that I don't know (she told me I sing alto, which was news to me) and learning something like that from an actual person sounds much easier than trying to do it from a book.

Dar




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

[email protected]

>This swimming discussion made a lightbulb go off in my head - Being new
at >unschooling... I still sometimes feel that I am not doing my job! - we
won't get into >that - preconcieved notions and all that baggae...
>

You could consider that your job is to let your child learn in their own
way and at their own pace.

>In any case, my daughter who is 8 swims great - I would never have
dreamed of giving my >kids swimming lessons. Why? Because I learned by
swimming all summer in my pool with my >dad - who was a teacher and off
for the summer. It was just natural - It was hot and >swimming was fun...
I just learned as I went. It is the same thing that has happened >with my
kids. Now my younger two - obviously are not at that point - but they are
now >starting to want to try without their swimmies - and swimming
underwater seems to come >first for them. - My sil put her baby in those
swimming lessons thinking if she then >fell into the pool she would swim -
she is still afraid of the water!
>

We rarely put floaties on Serena. However, we have a pool that has a
large shallow end, so she didn't have to swim in order to be in the water,
and if she felt like swimming, she try, and if she couldn't do it, she
could simply put her feet down and be safe.

>My whole point of this is - I didn't DO anything - teach the swimming;
she just did it. >I feel the same about her reading - however- every
September I start to feel a little >nervous about the fact that everyone
is getting ready for school - even the other >homeschoolers all ask - "so
what curriculm are you doing?" and I start to consider - >well maybe I'll
have some sort of plan.... The problem is life gets so busy! I am so
>afraid I will neglect some educational moment! I am taking college
classes myself and >my kids go to their grandma's two afternoons a week -
They are plastered to the >television because they have "the dish" and we
don't ;) I get a little worried that I >am neglecting my role in the
process... they are not watching ther history channel or >A&E or anything
- but Spongebob - and Playhouse Disney etc. - I know I've read the
>virtues of these discussed on the list ;)
>
>In any case, the swimming made me go ahhhh - so this may be working after
all! Thanks!
>

I felt the same way. When she learned to swim on her own, it was a big
relief for me. Also, some ammunition to use when people ask, "she's not
going to school? How will she learn?"

Kevin

>Heather
>
>PS - I enjoy hearing all the discussion - even Ned's politics ;) I know
where my delete >key is if I need it!

kayb85

> In any case, my daughter who is 8 swims great - I would never have
dreamed of giving my kids swimming lessons. Why? Becuase I learned by
swimming all summer in my pool with my dad - who was a teacher and
off for the summer. It was just natural - It was hot and swimming was
fun... I just learned as I went. It is the same thing that has
happened with my kids.

My kids learned to swim in our own pool too. My daughter took
swimming lessons, though, because when she wanted to learn how to
dive I was no help to her and our pool isn't deep enough to practice
diving. When you kids want to go off the diving board, it's nice to
have a strong swimmer treading water, ready to catch them if they
need it.

Sheila

Heather Woodward

My daughter took
swimming lessons, though, because when she wanted to learn how to
dive I was no help to her and our pool isn't deep enough to practice
diving.

That makes sense - we take gymnastics becuase the facilities are there as well as those who have the know - how...
Heather A. Woodward
Longaberger Independant Sales Consultant
http://www.longaberger.com/heatherwoodward
"Handcrafted, American-made products that both are beautiful and functional!"


----- Original Message -----
From: kayb85
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, August 14, 2002 12:26 PM
Subject: [Unschooling-dotcom] Re: Swimming



> In any case, my daughter who is 8 swims great - I would never have
dreamed of giving my kids swimming lessons. Why? Becuase I learned by
swimming all summer in my pool with my dad - who was a teacher and
off for the summer. It was just natural - It was hot and swimming was
fun... I just learned as I went. It is the same thing that has
happened with my kids.

My kids learned to swim in our own pool too. My daughter took
swimming lessons, though, because when she wanted to learn how to
dive I was no help to her and our pool isn't deep enough to practice
diving. When you kids want to go off the diving board, it's nice to
have a strong swimmer treading water, ready to catch them if they
need it.

Sheila


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