mabeitzel

My five yr.old has asked me this question a couple of times: "Mommy,
why don't we do real school anymore?" When I started hsing we used
the workbooks and curriculum, but within a few weeks shifted to
unschooling. I explained to her that when we go to the zoo or to
the tidepools at the beach or when we read together...we are still
learning and that is real school. I also explain to her that the
workbooks are still on the shelf if she ever wants to work in them
and I can help if she needs it. I feel bad though...but I want her
to become comfortable with unschooling and not feel like she needs
worksheets...she hasn't even been in much traditional school. My 8
yr old on the other hand is now at the opposite corner. No reading,
no writing, no math at all!!! Of course baking cookies is okay :)
And playing the game with coins where you have to trade them in for
larger coins until you get to a quarter and then you get to keep the
quarter! That is okay too :) And we just got the placemats...they
love them. I just let them look through them all and discuss with
them what they want. My son is fascinated with maps...any time he
sees one it stops him dead in his tracks and he is always making his
own...I find that intriguing.
Michelle B.

[email protected]

You could tell her it's a kind of real school called "the open classroom,"
and since you're not even limited to one room, or even your one house, it's
kind of like the whole world is her school.

And after she gets into the swing of it, you never have to make those kinds
of definitions anymore! ,g>
(Maybe)

[email protected]

On Tue, 19 Nov 2002 23:44:34 -0000 "mabeitzel" <mabeitzel@...>
writes:
> My five yr.old has asked me this question a couple of times: "Mommy,
> why don't we do real school anymore?"

How about turning it around to him - "Is there something you miss about
when we did 'real school'?", or something like that, and then you can do
exactly what he liked about it. And you could explain that when you did
workbooks and stuff like that, you thought kids had to do workbooks and
stuff so they'd learn the right things, but now you know that they will
learn the right things when it's the right time without anyone making
them do workbooks... so now you're just going to be with them and all of
you will be learning and doing the stuff you like to learn and do. And if
he's worried that he won't learn stuff without workbooks and schooly
stuff (so young to have that school-mindset :-( ) you could tell him
stories about kids you know from the internet who did...

Dar