Live life. Have fun. Enjoy each other. Cook, sing, dance, play. Watch movies, read books. Garden, go for walks, look for mushrooms, follow bugs. Ask questions, make up answers, look up answers. Draw, paint, write, play with play dough. Splash in puddles, make sand castles, jump in piles of leaves, get dirty. Be silly and spontaneous. Talk to people, ask more questions. Visit museums and galleries. Snuggle and talk about your day. Cook dinner together. Eat dinner together. Ask more questions and read more books. Did I already mention have fun?
I don’t believe that unschooling means that as a parent I get to step back and do nothing. If anything, unschooling will be more work for me than public school would be. (After all, many parents just step back and trust that the teachers will take care of it.) I want to find a balance between offering my children opportunities, and pushing learning on them when they’re not ready or simply unwilling.
This all has been coming up for me now not because Meredith has reached some magical age when I think things should change, but because she has started asking questions. Lots of questions. Especially “why” questions. And she’s showing interest in specific things. Like dinosaurs and Egypt. I let her pick out a Playmobil from the website for her birthday, and showed her all sorts of cool things: dinosaurs, animals, safari, dollhouses, pirates, etc. She ignored them all and wanted to see the Egyptian stuff. She fell in love with the pyramid. We bought her a little Egyptian robber (which is what she ended up picking out), and then her nana and aunts bought her the pyramid and a few other Egyptian sets. As she played with them, she started asking questions. What is the mummy? Why is he in bandages? Why is he in a sarcophagus? Is the pyramid his home? And on and on.
We found a cool game online that shows how a mummy is made, and she had lots of fun with that. I went to the library and got out a bunch of books about Egypt (and dinosaurs, since that seems to be the other thing she asks lots of questions about). I told her I have them, and she knows where they are, but I’m not planning on trying to force her to look at them. So far, she’s not much interested in any of the Egypt books (though she loves the dinosaur picture books). So I’m reading them. I’m learning a lot. Egypt is actually a very interesting subject! And now, when she asks questions, I have better answers ready for her. I’ll also have an idea of where the answers are and can show her pictures if she’s interested. She did enjoy looking through the DK Mummy book we got and seeing the different mummies. If tomorrow she decides she’s bored of Egypt and wants nothing to do with it, that’s okay too, I’ve had fun learning about it.
My friend Sarah suggested making paper with her. I found an activity book that shows how Ancient Egyptians made paper (a little differently than how some other cultures did it), and I think I’m going to try that with her. Just for fun. And if she learns something along the way, well, that’s life.
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I think that one important thing to do is to seed the environment. Just have things available so they can use/learn when they want. I read a great Reggio thing on seeding the environment. The teachers put out a variety of yellow and green paints at a paint easel with a vase of flowers next to it. They never even mentioned the paint to the kids, and the kids went over and painted the flowers because they wanted to.
This is why I made the perpetual calendar. It is hanging on the wall, but most days we don’t do anything with it. Sometimes they only are interested once a month, but it is there and they are learning. I also have made Sam and Ant each a shelf with workbooks that they have chosen, paper, colouring stuff, scissors, a story telling pad etc. They don’t use it everyday (although Ant is in love with his scissors and putting everything that he loves and wants to keep forever in a box on his shelf).
I am pretty excited for this year, and to see what happens.
I completely agree about seeding the environment. I’ve heard that one mistake new unschooling parents often do is try to do too much, too quickly, and I want to avoid that, but I also want to make sure that when she’s ready and interested that she has access to the information. For now, I’ve decided my way to balance wanting to jump in with both feet and not giving her enough is to just provide access to the materials, make sure she knows it’s around, but otherwise not push it at all. I’ve been reading it, and sometimes she sees me reading it and comes to ask questions or look at the books with me.
I’ve read about workboxes and shelves and such in the past. I think I might set something like that up for Meredith. Probably not yet, but when she’s a little older. I think I’ll set something up in her room that will be a place to show things she’s done, as well as somewhere to find materials to work on or read if she wants.
I also love the idea of the perpetual calendar. You’ve reminded me that I want to do something like that too.
Anthony wouldn’t have a shelf yet, except he has to have what Sam has. It is also a better way of organizing because I am a terrible organizer.