Unschooling

I think at this point its probably prudent to explain what I am doing with our 'school' and my philosophy on learning in general.

I plan on unschooling A & G. I wont attempt to explain it fully as I think it really means something different to different families. In essence though unschooling to me is learning through experiences and being motivated by interests rather than a predetermined age or stage in life.

Technically what I am showing on this blog probably wouldnt be classed as unschooling. Because I am setting up activities and talking specifically about what A is getting out of each game, lesson, activity (whatever you want to call them) its me guiding and A following. I however have taken my cues from him in the sense that these games are what he LOVES doing and at such a young age he isnt really able to resource his own materials. I asked him what he wanted to do this morning and he said "shapes", now what he was referring to was a puzzle of shapes that he has so I asked if he would like to play with some big shapes and create a game with them. He said yes. So essentially he lead me in the direction of playing the game that we did. If he had not been interested then we would not have played. When he is a bit older and has more interests we will be following his lead a lot more.

G may be a whole different kettle of fish and not enjoy these kind of games at all.... and that is fine! She may want to play endless games of pretend and not want or be interested in her shapes and colors until she is a bit older..... fine. If this is the case she will still be learning, just learning different things.

I guess this is my whole philosophy. Let them lead you. And I guess we fall under the unschooling umbrella because we dont plan on doing 'lessons' as such.

If you are interested in learning more about unschooling check out the web. There is heaps of info out there by people a lot more eloquent than I am.... A great book if you are interested is 'How Children Learn' By John Holt.