bjackson

Hello! This is my first day of being on this unschooling e-mail list. I'm
not familiar with e-mail lists and I know I'm behind on discussions, but I
have received 14 e-mails today and none of them were related to
unschooling. Is that a typical day? I can talk about other stuff with all
the people I see in person, but I can't talk about unschooling with them.
I'd love to hear what your children are doing and learning so I might not
feel all alone in this lifestyle and so that I might get some new ideas and
perspectives--especially from those of you with young children. Mine are 5,
4, and 3. Thank you! --Becky

[email protected]

> Hello! This is my first day of being on this unschooling e-mail list.
I'm
> not familiar with e-mail lists and I know I'm behind on
discussions, but I
> have received 14 e-mails today and none of them were related to
> unschooling. Is that a typical day? I can talk about other stuff
with all
> the people I see in person, but I can't talk about unschooling with
them.
> I'd love to hear what your children are doing and learning so I
might not
> feel all alone in this lifestyle and so that I might get some new
ideas and
> perspectives--especially from those of you with young children.
Mine are 5,
> 4, and 3. Thank you! --Becky

Hi Becky,

The problem with unschooling is that it is basically not doing
something; i.e. not schooling, so it is very difficult to spend a lot of
time talking about what we are not doing. However to me
unschooling is more of a lifestyle than a method of education, so
this makes any topic at all relevant to an unschooling mailing list,
and pertenant to unschooling itself.

For example my children follow no curriculum & have no
worksheets, they do nothing purely for the purpose of learning, but
after saying that I must add that nearly all of what they do
encourages and fosters learning. Home is a 175 acre farm, with a
600' hill, a valley with two trout stream, ponds, animals etc. They
have a microscope, many books, pencils, paper, computers with
all kinds of programes and they have responsibilities. Right now
my 11 year old daughter has gone to Chicago with a family who
visited the farm two weekends ago, their daughter ended up staying
here last week and when her Mother came back to get her Rhianon
went with them. This is amazing to me considering that I only met
these people 11 days ago, but we meet some really great people
and strong friendships are sometimes formed. Anyway where I
was heading was to say that with Rhianon away, Madeleine [6] has
to take the responsibility of milking the goat, Stephanie [4] is
helping her and they collect the eggs from the chicken coop
without being remended. Milking the goat was Rhianon's descision
as she wanted to bottle feed some kids, so I told ehr that to bottle
feed kids she would have to milk a goat so they could be reared on
fresh goat milk, she took this responsibility on the first day of
February and until she went away yesterday has only missed one
milking when she was sick one day. Nathan [15] bottle rears three
dairy calves at a time and takes care of most of the feeding of the
animals, he can drive a truck, tractor, van and is just getting the
hang of a 4 wheel drive pick-up that we bought from auction a few
weeks ago.

Some days are too long for all of us and the children all help out
with whatever tasks they are capable of, mostly for the girls that
involves care of the chickens and chicks, assisting with candling
eggs and checking the incubators [I'm guessing that we have at
least 1000 chicks that we have hatched this year]. We have 4
cows, 5 heifers, 3 bulls, 12 steers, a boar, 2 sows, a ram, 24
ewes, 26 lambs, a buck, 8 does, 8 kids, 6 turkeys, 6 domestic
geese, 5 Canada geese and their 9 goslings, 4 ducks and 23
ducklings that we have incubated with 10 more due to hatch today
[along with about 230 chicks] and of course about 200 chickens &
at least 1000 chicks with around 200 more every six days. So for
my children between the wild creatures living here and the farm
animals biology lessons take care of themselves(-;

When the daily tasks are done the kids have the freedom to do
what they want with their time, Nathan spends a fair bit of time at
the computer on web design or designing cars for GTA, the girls
watch about 1 hour of television but prefer to spend time writing,
drawing playing legos, playing in the sandbox or out exploring. I
am not actively teaching Maddi [6] and Steph [4] how to read, the
only reading lessons they get is having people read to them and
giving answers when asked what a word says or how to spell
something. I am not activelty teaching math, day to day life and
expenses does that, for more advanced math if the need for it
arises such as for Nathan with work on the computer answers are
found by asking or researching. My children who were in school
[Rhianon for 1 1/2 years and Nathan 6 years] have regained their
love of learning that school all but destroyed with it's mind
numbingly boring games, Madeleine and Stephanie will never have
to endure the hours of sitting at a desk being force fed
unnecessary information [which is mostly forgotten anyway] just to
pass some stupid test, they are free to learn at their own pace, if
they don't read fluently 'til they are 12 it won't matter in fact it may
be good for them as once we become literate the world changes,
yes it can be for the better as we are then able to find all the
information we need in books or on the 'net, but by having the
ability to find what we need from books it partly kills off the
scientist [who has to find his/her own answers] that is inate in all
new-born babies.

Maybe if a few others on the list describe their lives it may help out
any newbies who are looking for answers, we were all there once.




Sue

The Winona Farm in Minnesota Welcomes Unschoolers All Year Round
My website: http://members.xoom.com/sue_m_e
Farm website: http://members.xoom.com/winfarm/
Farm newsletter: http://www.onelist.com/subscribe/Winonafarm

"To believe in something, and not to live it,
is to be dishonest." -Mahatma Gandhi