Our Unschooled Year So Far

Now that Echo is getting to be preschool aged things are really starting to take off in her education and it's such a joy to watch. We have had a very busy start to Fall and have been lucky to connect with a fantastic group of homeschoolers and unschoolers who are so inspiring and supportive. We've been doing a lot more out of the house with these other families and Echo's preschool alternative program that I take her to on Wednesdays but we have still had time to do lot's of fun stuff at home too.

As you can see in the top photo we have been doing some simple science experiments like the classic baking soda and vinegar volcano. We also found a really neat caterpillar which we observed and identified (FYI it's a Spicebush Swallowtail Caterpillar)

The girls have also been really in to painting lately and Clover is showing a lot of artistic talent just like her big sister! I have been moving the painting outside quite a bit because it tends to get messy. I love every minute of it though.

They really work well together and like to do a lot of collaborative work.

Echo also enjoys painting on Three dimensional objects like rocks. I love watching her get creative with her painting substrates.

We feel so fortunate to have stumbled upon a homeschool group that encourages and inspires us while we do project work both in and out of the home. It is such an exciting time in the lives of the girls and I love watching them each blossom in their own unique ways.

Home Made Model Magic

Oh goodness I have gotten behind on the blog! We've been on vacation and it takes us some time to recover plus We have lots of exciting new things starting up this Fall including a preschool(ish) program for Echo, connection with a fabulous homeschool group, me starting yoga, and a lot of doctors visits for me and Eric, so it's been a whirlwind.

I'll get back in the swing of things by sharing this short project (I'm dying to share my vacation photos but that will have to wait a little longer).

I recently tried a recipe from Pinterest (where else?) for home made Model Magic clay, which is a Crayola product. I have used Model Magic in the past while teaching art and loved it! The texture reminds me of marshmallow fondant, so fun to play with! It's super expensive though so I thought I'd give the home made stuff a try. All you have to do is mix 2 cups baking soda, one cup corn starch and one and a half cups cold water. Bring to a boil over medium heat while stirring constantly and continue to stir until it thickens to the consistency of mashed potatoes. Remove the pot from heat and allow the clay to cool (cover with a dish towel to keep it from drying out too much). If it is too wet and sticky like mine was you can kneed a little corn starch in to it. I also scented mine with a little lemon essential oil because it smells a little weird on it's own.

It was really fun to play with and Echo and I loved making things with it. It wasn't quite the same as Model Magic but it still had a great texture and was fun to use. Our sculptures all cracked and fell apart when we left them out to dry so I'm not sure what we did wrong there but if you just want to use it like play dough it works great.

Learning and Growing

As the kids are growing up we are really starting to get to the fun stuff! I love doing projects and activities with them, I feel like our homeschooling career is really starting to take off and it will only get better from here. Recently I bought some things from a teacher supply store and got a free lesson planning notebook. I'm not using it to plan lessons but I did start writing down what we do every day and categorizing it loosely. It's truly amazing how much we do each day, I really didn't realize until I wrote it down! 

A typical day looks something like this.

Art: Made pipe cleaner animal tails, painting with glitter glue

Science: water beads, magic growing sea animals, blowing bubbles

Language: Dictated a story, read Thumbelina, Beauty and the Beast and The Hat

Math: practiced counting with candy corns

Life Skills: Helped make lunch

Music: Listened to Disney Pandora Station

Physical Education: Dance party!

We don't plan our days very much but we sure manage to squeeze a lot in! It's exciting to watch the girls grow and learn all the time, they are so busy!

I've included a few photos of some of the activities we've been doing lately. It's impossible to document everything so this is just a little sample. Sorry for the poor quality, they were taken on my phone. 

The first two are the girls working on a collaborative painting together. Clover is doing really well in art making and is eating the art supplies less and less ;-). She seemed to really enjoy finger painting which is something Echo never really got in to. I was also happy that the girls worked so well together on this. The moments when they work on something together without fighting are brief but it is starting to happen more and more. In the top photo you can also see that they are enjoying some green beans picked fresh from my garden.

In the above photo you can see a letter Echo wrote to me. Her interest in writing has been steadily growing and her pretend letters are starting to look more like actual letters. She also dictated a story to me the other day, giving me a high hopes that she will be a writer just like her Uncle Logan some day. She told me this letter says "Dear Mommy, I love you".

 Last but not least, Aunt Jessie sent us an awesome stomp rocket! This thing is seriously fun and is great to shoot in our high ceilinged living room. Both the girls were fascinated with it. Jessie also sent us a book of science experiments from my Amazon wish list that looks really cool. We've only done one experiment so far but it was a lot of fun and the girls loved it!

We are doing so many fun and interesting things lately and planning so much more for the Fall. It's a very exciting time for us, watching the girls develop is such a joy!

Water and Ice Play

The Georgia heat this Summer has been pretty intense and to be honest it makes everyone in our family pretty grouchy. By late afternoon the kids are at each others throats and I am snapping at everyone. The heat just wipes us out and keeping our cool (literally and metaphorically) can be pretty difficult.

Basically the only way to survive is to get wet! My parents got Clover a water table as an early Birthday gift and it has been such a life saver! The girls play with it every day and it really seems to sooth frazzled nerves. My other recent discovery is the simplest thing in the world but is definitely a big hit with both girls and is something they can do together without fighting (mostly). Just giving them bowls of cold water with ice cubes has been a revelation! Clover loves to chase the ice around the bowl and eat it and Echo loves scooping and pouring in the ice cold water.

What a great hot weather play idea for those rough afternoons!

Giving Up

The above is a picture of our living room from shortly before we got our Christmas tree this year. Before I had kids I never thought I would have such a mess of toys and brightly colored plastic all over my living room, and even as the kid stuff started to pile up I was able to keep it out of this space (the focal point of our whole house) for a long time. At some point I had to give up on it though and this is the result.

I had different ideas about keeping the toys and art materials in the loft or in Echo's bedroom but it never seemed to work out, we would always end up bringing whatever we were doing to the living room. It hit home to me after reading a book on project based homeschooling (and a conversation with Eric) where they talked about the importance of keeping materials in the heart of your home. If you keep materials put away in a distant room no one will use them and then what is the point of having all these great toys, games, books and art supplies?

So I gave up on having the front room of our house be a showpiece an gave in to having kid stuff strewn everywhere and I'm totally ok with it. For one thing this is their house too, why shouldn't they be allowed to have their things where they want them? Also, when I get down about all our kid clutter I just remember that as a unschooling mom my number one job is the kid's education, having materials easily available and being available myself are the most important important things I can do for them. If these means having a messy living room so be it.

Lastly whenever I find a little scene like the one in this picture:

It makes me so unbelievably happy. Echo explained to me that this was her and her sister sailing in a boat with their animals. Joy doesn't even begin to cover what these kids make me feel :-)

Our Decision To Unschool

Eric and I spend a lot of time talking about how we want to raise our children. It's been one of our favorite pastimes since before we were even married. I'm lucky to be married to a man who is openminded enough to embrace a radically different form of education than what most people are used to and he is kind enough to listen to me ramble on about it on a regular basis. Even though Echo is nowhere near school age we discuss her education at great lengths and have a pretty cear idea of how we want things to go. I was raised with an educational philosophy known as unschooling, a form of home schooling that most people aren't familiar with. I had such a positive experience with unschooling and after my experiences with the public school system when I was student teaching, I am positive this is how I want to raise our daughter.

This is such a huge topic and one I don't often go in to detail with people about. Of course once you get me going I won't shut up about it :-) The heart of the unschooling movement is centered around the idea that children are natural learners. They love to build, explore, create and learn, in fact they are positively joyful about it. When I tell people I was home schooled I'm pretty sure than many of you picture me sitting at a desk in front of a blackboard while my mom spouts off facts about history and math. This image could not be further from the truth. With unschooling there are no scheduled lessons, no memorization, no drills, no tests and no grades. There are no "school days" because every day and every hour are opportunities for learning. We don't take Summers off and we don't take attendance. Basically we embrace the idea that we are all learning, all the time, and by following our natural curiosity and interests we eliminate the need for structured schooling.

This idea sounds pretty radical to most, can you really do that? I'm sure I would be skeptical too if it weren't for the fact that I lived this way until my college years. I have to give my mother credit for her tremendous courage in choosing to unschool my brother and I at a time when even the legality of homeschooling was questionable. She had no way to know that this crazy idea would work other than her own conviction that this was the right choice for her family. I used to worry that I wouldn't measure up with my traditionally schooled peers but my mother had never ending faith in my intelligence and ability to learn. Now both my brother and I hold advanced degrees and and are happy and successful members of society. Clearly our unschooling didn't put us at a disadvantage. In fact I feel that it was quite the opposite. Through unschooling we became intrinsically motivated, enthusiastic learners and we still love to learn to this day. We also didn't have to waste any of our precious childhood cramming for pointless tests that we would forget as soon as they were over. We were allowed to be children and explore, read and experiment with vigor and gusto. We pursued things that mattered to us and delved deep in to the subjects that interested us most.

I wouldn't presume to say that this is the right choice for everyone and I respect others feelings and choices about their own children's education. However I hope this will give some of you a better understand of where I am coming from and maybe open your eyes to a new way of thinking about education. I'm so grateful that I was raised this way and that I will be able to give my children the benefits of an unschooled education.