Can you stay back, dad? I’m going to do this.
A perfect example of unschooling? I think so!
The five year old was watching youtube. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t about some lady opening toys! He asked if we could do a science experiment…but we needed a syringe and we didn’t have that.
I let him know Walmart probably had them, and I knew of the general area where they might be.
“We need to ask someone if we don’t know where something is,” he reminded me.
A Week of Unschooling : Episode 1 – Mythology, Health & Fitness, Physics, Writing, and Biology
In our introductory weekly episode, the three and five year old visited a skatepark, play-drew Greek Mythology, and they experienced a variety of cutting tools that so far only dad and mom have been using.
There are many ways kids can learn but fun is always better. Let them play; when you’ve shown them how fun knowledge can be, what’s stopping them?
Fun Ways To Educate? Use the Force. Always.
We knew she was ‘officially pregnant’ when she cried her eyes out seeing little Anakin leaving his mom in the desert…again…seriously, we had seen this several times already…)
Star Wars has always been a big part of my life (well, only if you include making a Star Wars reference whenever possible and owning and wearing too often an adult sized Star Wars costume) but the kids hadn’t really shown too much interest…no more than any of the other things they are in to – from every comic book hero to anything that’s in a ‘Flying Bag’ (blind bag)…or anything that they have seen on youtube.
Better Than Travelling Around In A Rollercoaster? A Roof After Being On It.
When pushing your kid in a unicycle stroller is commonplace; even up & down 6 levels of a parking garage
This parking garage has a special place in our hearts. One of the landmarks we pass on our trips to grammas, it was one of the first examples I stumbled across of ‘introducing excitement’ to kids and how easy it is.
Wow! You know what that is??? A PARKING GARAGE!!
Week after week, looking for the parking garage, and staring at/studying it as we passed, it just became ‘our thing’.
When One Kid Is Done Exploring and One Isn’t
So clearly I couldn’t leave one kid on the bench on the bike path and continue on another adventure trail into the woods with the other one. So what’s a dad to do?
There’s a whole bunch of sticks to slow him down…send him into the woods (which you know look a whole lot bigger to him)
This was an exciting opportunity for me to just send him off to be alone on his own. (I could always hear him and could see him from time to time)
But if you look in the video, you can see
Making Changes For Fun: Skyscraper Destruction
It turns out the kids LOVE Lego skyscrapers. They play together, (or alone) for hours. They follow common sense Lego rules like if one kid builds and ‘claims’ something, the other kid can play with but not modify or break it. Or not to worry about things falling apart on their watch if they were trying to rebuild something, but to not break something ‘just because’
Dad, Come See My Swidda!! Introduction to Computers
I’m so glad we found the game called Slither.io, a browser-based game that has helped our three year old start to figure out how to control a computer. I wasn’t trying to find a way to ‘teach her computers’ yet; that’s just what happened. She saw her brother doing it…and well…that’s all she needed.
It’s Been Super Cold. Out to the Snow Pile!
Sometimes the time it takes you to get the kids dressed up and undressed is longer than the time you were outside playing.
Here are some great ways to maximize their enjoyment while being exposed to some pretty harsh conditions.
It’s all about Roblox at the moment
So what do you do if your kid discovers computer games and watches computer game videos on youtube?
You fit as much education into that as possible!
Introducing Children to the Dark Side
Back in my day it was star wars OR lego. or star wars WITH lego!
she hasn’t seen the movies. he’s seen the ‘making of’ 🙂
dad: make sure you put those pieces together very carefully. don’t use FORCE
5yo: good one, dad
Treading Water
Down to one kid in waterwings! Many hours have been spent in gramma’s pool between now and the time he was wearing swimming diapers. Swims with gramma, or grampa, or mom or dad, or his aunt, uncle, and cousins, or any combination thereof.
Just recently he mastered ‘goggles and nose holding’ for new underwater adventures and was excited to show me. (I got him to dip down sans-nose holding a few times, but it didn’t last long)
A Week of Unschool : Episode 3
Another great week of learning! He learned how to more properly navigate a giant ice pile that used to be a snow pile. They even got to climb up and slide down it when it was a snow pile again.
We were on the DIY kick after our homemade playdoh, so we made up some homemade puffy paint. Just self-rising flour, salt, water, and food colour, but oh no, we didn’t have any self-rising flour.
Birthday Terrarium From Gramma
Here’s a fun little activity for the kids…let them grow their own life in a container…Well, actually, let them follow the instructions, give or take, to make their own life in a container…I guess we’ll see in a few days if it worked.
Unschool Math Immersion
The main lego pieces are bricks and plates. (the plates are one third the depth of bricks).
“Hey, can you find this 2 by 3 plate? It’s called a 2 by 3 because it’s two rows of three. How many posts does it have?”
“1,2,3,4,5,6!”
“See how much faster I can count them because of how I am just adding groups of numbers? See how they are organized in rows and columns?”
Play Now. Learn Later. Record Your Edventures.
We went to their first airshow! The were super excited about the first few planes that flew over, the Super Hornet (only during an upside-down fly-by), and the snowbirds…mostly when they drew the heart in the sky.
Firestarting : Unschooling At Night
Excitement from the time he helped me move the wheelbarrow till he put it out like Marshall with a hose #pawPatrol
She was asleep on the couch. He was almost asleep beside her. He got up and got outside as fast as possible.
Advantage Unschool : Skate Parks During School Hours
We didn’t even come here to run, we came to scooter. I had to ask them if they were ready to put their gear on and ride yet..before they tired themselves out!
During school hours, no one is there. Kids as young as brand new crawlers can have a blast here with so many slopes and angles and risk levels.
First Time Randomly Bumping Into Unschoolers – Six Hours Away
Turns out the hens that came in through the treeline also lived with some unschoolers! We showed them about slacklines, they showed us turkeys!
Interesting fact about city kids: They’ll pick up an axe if they see one and you’ve never said ‘don’t pick up an axe’!
Bugs: No Need For Compassion
They hadn’t gotten to interact with so many of them before, they were quite impressed; hopping things have always seemed to hop away before we could investigate. They know exactly what a frog jumping into the swamp right before we get there looks and sounds like
Unschooling? Why You Should Pull Over
It would have been great for the kids to go in and get a tour of what they do there…but also there was a sideroad that we could pull over on and let the kids out. They were pretty impressed!!
LLamas, goats, alpacas, donkeys, reindeer, sheep, pigs, horses… There’s also GIANT DANDELIONS on that side road!
