>From: "John and Pam Hensley"
>Reply-To: HomefiresJournal@yahoogroups.com
>To:
>Subject: Re: [HomefiresJournal] Re: Deedee's house/ ot asking michelle to
>share about her unschooling
>Date: Fri, 6 Oct 2006 23:53:11 -0500
>
>Michelle,
>Would you mind sharing a 'typical day' in your unschooling household?
>Wondering, what are the ages of your children.
>My son was talking about his hs'd friend telling him that he 'had not yet
>begun biology this year' and another ps'd aquaintance not getting 'weekend
>priveleges' due to falling down a grade in biology. Then he asked more
>questions and I tried to tell him learning is life and living it, not
>regurgitating memorized facts out of a biology text book. He asked one more
>question about biology and I said, 'well, it is what we are doing with that
>catepillar who is currenly living in my hat box due to the fact that your
>little brother sat on and broke his bug catcher/holder and we did not have
>one to put the bug in to watch it turn into a lovely butterfly; That is
>biology in our home school :) ' I think he understood...
>Thanks for sharing. I just wonder what other unschooling mommies are doing
>these days.
>I'd love it if you would also share about your new business.
>We have been self employed the 16 years we have been together; it is a
>love/hate thing lol.
>we are basically retired now but have tried many small homebased
>businesses; it has been rather frustrating but God is always faithful to
>provide.
>I wish you all his blessings in your venture!
>Pam
Hi Pam!
Thanks for asking! I am curious about your typical "school" day as
well. I love being on the homefires list, but it's nice to talk to or email
other moms directly and see what they do.
My kids are 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, and the baby is 25 weeks in utero. My 8, 6,
and 4 year old's birthdays are coming up real soon, though.
We started homeschooling with the A Beka Book Christian curriculum when
my son was in first grade because that's what all the homeschooler's I knew
were doing, and I had only read one book on unschooling, (Mary Griffin's,
which I love) but being a first timer, had no confidence in the "no
curriculum" idea.
My mother in law was actually a kindergarten teacher until she retired to
be a full time grandma, so she has taught my first 3 children how to read,
amoung other things during their "kindergarten year". They would go to her
house for 3 hours or so, and learn from her. After that, I began the
"school at home" with them, with the classroom and all. I taught 1st, 2nd,
and 3rd grade all the way through to my first son, and 1st all the way
through to my 2nd son. Then when they were in 4th and 2nd grades, and my
daughter was in kindergarten with her grandma, I started really researching
unschooling.
All I knew was that my boys hated "textbook time", and therefore assumed
that they hated school. I was sick of forcing it on them, and wanted
learning to be fun. We would attempt fun projects here and there, but still
try to "get our other work done", and it was all really stressful.
We went to the Unschooling Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, in October of
2005. My mother in law went with us to help take care of Jaidyn my
youngest, who was a little over a year at the time. This allowed James (my
husband) and I to go to the talks and listen uninterrupted. We were
partially convinced that this was something we wanted to try before we went
(actually James more than myself, although I knew what we were doing wasn't
working), and by the time we left the whole family was excited about putting
the textbooks on the shelf and learning through living. It took some time
for my inlaws to "see" it working... in fact my Father in law was highly
doubtful! But within the last year, we have all seen so much learning
taking place in my children's lives, that we aren't looking back, and my
father in law is now advocating this "method" of learning to his other sons
for their children. :) One of his favorite ways to contribute is to tape
and watch classic movies or educational shows, or just plain interesting
stuff for them to watch. A lot of times they watch it with him. (We don't
have cable right now, so this works great for us, plus I don't have to spend
the time surfing the cable channels!)
Sorry if you didn't want that much detail.... I love to write.
Especially about my kids.
So... a typical day.
We have no set "learning" time anymore. My kids get up when they want,
and usually get their own breakfast. If I've had a late night, I'll sleep
in, and the older kids help the younger ones with their breakfast. They
know to come get me if they need help with a diaper or something, though. :)
I do the finances for our business (Yay! We are self employed too!),
and that means I'm at the computer usually for at least part of most days.
Some days I do nothing for the business except check the P.O. Box, and we'll
go to the park and play. We'll get pizza at the local place and walk to the
park on a nice day. We live in a small rural farm town.
How do you describe an unschooling day? My kids build things with
household objects, like tents from blankets, pillows, and chairs. They
build golf courses, and miniature houses with the many books we have piled
on the fireplace hearth. They also pick up these books and read them.
Sometimes to themselves, sometimes to their younger siblings. We try to go
to the library every couple of weeks to purge and replenish this supply. We
take our bag from the unschooling conference every time! :) It says, Birds
Fly, Fish Swim, Humans Learn.
What else... my boys love to play the Pokemon Card game and also another
strategy game with comic book character figurines on a map called HeroClix.
Have you or your kids ever heard of it? If you have trouble with any of
them liking math, and they like make believe... get one of these games! My
8 year old sat for half an hour by himself yesterday "doing Math". :) I
smiled to myself. If you asked what he was doing, he'd tell you that he was
figuring out which one of his Hero Clix characters was the strongest. Each
character has different points assigned to it for it's strength, it's
attacks, and weaknesses, etc... it's very complicated. So, he sat their
adding, subtracting, etc., for about a half hour. Turns out his Superman
Blue is the strongest.
My 6 year old girl and four year old boy also have their own Pokemon
cards, and Savannah (the 6 year old) actually plays at the free play
tournaments when we go, and she battles her brothers at home too. The older
kids have made up a simplified version of the game for their 4 year old
brother to play with his cards. He doesn't really understand the points
system yet, though, so when he trades cards, he trades based on how much he
likes the Pokemon, and they have to watch out for him so he doesn't get
traded down, especially at the free plays with other people.
Oh yeah, the boys learned about HeroClix from their uncle who loves
video games and comic books, and now they are getting their other uncle into
it. Last night they all got together at Uncle Tim's to have a HeroClix
tournament! The neighbor boys, who are my boys ages, came over to watch and
learn.
My oldest, Jesse, loves all things scientific. He gets this from his
dad. We go camping as often as we can, and usually the fireside talks end
up being about something scientific because the kids ask all kinds of "why?"
questions, and James loves to answer them, or look them up if he doesn't
know. At a camping trip this year they made a flame thrower with a can of
OFF! :) He did caution them multiple times of the dangers, even telling
them about how he singed his arm hairs once by not doing it correctly, and
explaining the scientific reasons behind why there is a correct way of
making a flamethrower. I don't know them, I'm more of the writing reading
type.
That's another thing we do is I like to read books to them before bed at
night. Recently we've fallen out of the habit since I am usually too tired
being this far along in my pregnancy. But I did read to my daughter in the
evening the other day. She absolutely LOVES horses! So, we were reading a
horse story.
I am on an email list for a homeschool field trip group. It's a fun way
to meet new people, and this woman does a fabulous job coming up with a
variety of field trips. This month we will be going to a play of "The
Jungle Book", we went to a pizza place for a behind the scenes tour, we'll
be going to a historical 1800's farm to learn about the agricultural
lifestyle, and a pumpkin patch to learn Ohio's history.... Next month, I am
taking my daughter to a Horse Hospital with this group. She is sooo looking
forward to it.
Well, I'm describing a lot of things my kids do, but not really what a
typical day is like.
In a typical day, my kids find things for themselves to do. They ride bikes
and scooters, they take walks (lucky for us their grandma and grandpa, and
now their cousins, all live in the same neighborhood), they visit friends,
and occasionally watch TV. They play their HeroClix and Pokemon games, and
they make up games with each other. They discuss things with me, or we bake
and cook together. One of their favorite things to do, with or without
their neighbor friends is to play "Town" in the basement. The basement is
what we call "Kid Kingdom"... to the eye of an ordinary adult it looks like
a trash dump with piles of boxes scattered here and there. The boxes are my
storage containing clothing mostly, and some picture frames, holiday decor,
etc... But when the kids take you on a tour of the basement, you see it
come alive into different stores, daycares, a cafe (where you can watch tv
while you eat), a bank, even a mobile advertising bike (based loosely on my
husband's mobile advertising business). They have a mini economy going.
Their currency is a combination of Monopoly money, and some play money.
They have auctions, and stores, they combine and dismantle businesses
regularly. Their neighbor friends who play store the most with them are an
11 year old girl, and a 15 year old boy.
Although, since the beginning of this school year, the 15 year old has,
I think, begun to be busy with his teenage school life, and hasn't been
around. My boys are disappointed, but we've been warning them for about 2
years that it'd happen soon.
So, I don't know if this LONGGGG email has answered your question
or not... :)
Write me back and let me know, and please feel free to write me your own
long email describing your children's activities! Oh yeah, and please tell
me about your self employment too! My husband and I have been self employed
most of our working lives. I would love to share about it with you in
another email, but fear that it would make this one way too long.
Thanks for reading!
Michelle Schooling
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