Tree stumps in the sun

Today the weather was in the upper 60's, I like to call these gift days. What a wonderful gift we are given to have a springy day when it is supposed to be frozen tundra weather.

We played outside for a while rediscovering all the wonderful things in our backyard.

A couple of days ago our neighbor had some dying trees cut down.

I thought, what a great learning moment. I showed Big the rings and told him what they meant. About how some were close together and some were far apart. After inspecting it for a while he was done with the topic and moved on. The next time we go out he may go over and inspect the tree stump again or he may not. My aim was to provide a rich learning environment and pay attention to his level of interest in the topic.

I on the other hand wanted to sit and count the rings to see how old the trees were. For some reason I didn't get too... must have been interrupted. Maybe I will go back out and do that...

Why unschooling?

As I mentioned previously,coming from teaching public education, someone may ask "Why in the stinkin' dirty socks would you ever be unschooling?" And I would politely answer... "It is what my son needed to learn, and kindly leave my laundry out of it."

After I stopped teaching I didn't have any CLUE as how to homeschool except to teach the same way I had before. And let me tell you out there... having a degree does not make one any less trepidatious when it is time to take on the weight of your child's entire educational career!

We survived through a good while of this type of schooling, both of us growing more and more frustrated, crabby, annoyed, grumpy etc. Finally I started trying to examine what was going on here!! This shouldn't be the way homeschooling is. Shouldn't we all be hugging and planting daisy's and making highly detailed monuments out of macaroni? I didn't even have macaroni in the house! And there was no dried pasta time in my schedule.

Why doesn't my son like to learn? Why do I have to constantly say get to work, get to WORK, GET TO WORK!?!? Why does my child need incentives to do his school? Why are we so frustrated? Why is my relationship with my sweet, precious son suffering?

In my examinings I pondered... is there another way to do homeschool? Is this the reason we are having so many issues? I started looking online and I can't tell you what I saw that led me to want to know more about unschooling... totally can't remember to save my buckskin. But glory hallelujah, I am here to wave my hankie and thank the Good Lord above that somehow I did.

The following weeks we fully embraced this new style of learning. I unschooled myself about unschooling and swam around lavishly in all I was learning. Each new book I read was a warm ray of sunshine. Like a heat wave in the cold month of January. Like a warm cup of cocoa. Like the warm socks I got for Christmas....Ok, I am just cold right now but you get the idea. It was GREAT!

What a difference in my son--his desire to do, to try something new, to have an opinion, to use his imagination, his want to READ (by and to himself!!!!), his ability to examine the world, his trust in me that he is heard and understood.

Why in my dirty socks do I unschool?


Simple.


His new desire to learn.

Welcome to Living in Unschooling

Welcome!

My name is Kelly and I currently unschool my two young sons, Big and Little. (obviously not their real names)

Big is 6 and Little is 3 1/2 going on 6. He thinks he is just as big as his brother and should be entitled to all the perks and privileges that accompanies a six year old. This is fine with me because it includes him in our schooling even at this early age. He thinks has few limits and will dive right into whatever unschooling project we are undertaking.

My background is in teaching preschool and public elementary school. It seems to me that I would make a very unlikely candidate for unschooling. My opinion is if I can deprogram myself and unschool, ANYONE can, having convinced themselves of it's merits.

An expert in unschooling, by any means, I am not. Just someone who is steeping herself in the philosophies and trying to humbly practice it everyday. There are many things I have yet to learn, practice and achieve in this area.

The purpose of this blog will be to share what I have learned about unschooling, to encourage if you are traveling the same road, and to provide practical examples of things we have done in our everyday lives.