What can they learn from ______? <insert video game or tv show or whatever most people consider “not educational” – pick your favorite non-educational thing and talk about what YOUR kids learned from it. :D->
Category: How Kids Learn
How Value Bias Blinds Us
“I refuse to allow my kids access to the addictive agents such as video games and leisure tv (cartoons) all day.”
– Christian Unschooling forum user
“refuse” – That is problematic.
“addictive” – That is problematic.
“all day” – That is problematic.
You have set up beliefs on false information that seems reasonable and true because it is touted by “experts” and from “pulpits” and “tradition” etc.
Getting to the root of your “why” on such things will help you to see that they are fear based. Continue Reading
Technology and Unschooling
Technology, and giving our children unlimited access to it, plays a big role in their learning. It has provided wonderful opportunities for our family to connect and strengthen our relationships.
Before I share some of our favorite resources, I wanted to share a bit about the common “objections” to technology & the word “screen time”. Continue Reading
Inside the Lines (Part 2): An Unschooling Conversation
The first half of this discussion appears here.
JEN: Oh, that brings back memories! I don’t remember how my son got graded on coloring, but he HATED coloring. If he decided to go along with the assignment, he would color the picture somewhat with colors that “made sense” and then he finished it by scribbling black all over the top of it not caring where the lines were. I was certain they were going to think he was depressed and refer us to a psychologist. LOL Continue Reading
Inside the Lines (Part 1): An Unschooling Conversation
This discussion appeared recently on the Christian Unschooling Facebook Group:
MARI: One of my public school teacher friends repinned this on Pinterest and it made me so sad I had to share. “Colors make sense”??? Green cows with purple teeth make perfect sense to ME – who are you to judge my artistic sensibilities? It makes me wonder about Salvador Dali’s first grade teacher or Pablo Picasso’s kindergarten teacher. Sorry, Seurat, no smiley face for you – too much white space in pointillism. Too bad, Andy Warhol, your colors don’t make sense.
Not Meeting Expectations: An Unschooling Conversation
This discussion appeared recently on the Christian Unschooling Facebook Group:
How do you explain your educational approach to people who expect your child to be at a place academically that they aren’t? For example, I started my daughter reading at six. There was a lot of stress and frustration. I decided to let it go because she obviously wasn’t ready. So we just started up again; she’s seven now, and I always hear from a few certain people in my family “She’s seven! She should be reading!” I tell them we use a child-led approach and find greater accomplishment waiting till they are ready. I always get treated like I’m making excuses for not “schooling” my children properly. How do you handle these type of situations?
From Haphazard to Awesome: When God Provides Learning ‘Coincidences’
We don’t have any required subjects in our house. We discover and learn about things we’re interested in, and we follow our passions. And when we start to “fade out” of one topic of interest, we often “fade into” the next thing with little to no fanfare. Continue Reading
The Things You Didn’t Expect Them to Like
Earlier this month, Carma talked about Strewing Vs. Self-Discovery – and how, while strewing is an awesome way to help introduce your family to new things, the fact is…
Your children are PEOPLE.
And, like all other people, regardless of age or educational background, they know what they like.
Fighting a Double Standard
I get kind of annoyed at the double standard so many people have with children. Continue Reading
Panicking About Preschool
I do a bit of Virtual Assistant work that puts me smack dab in the middle of the mainstream homeschool culture online. I not only spend time daily scrolling the #homeschool hashtag on twitter but updating many free homeschool deals around the web in a given week. And doing this work I’ve noticed a pattern. It’s a predictable formula that goes a little something like this: Continue Reading
Math Think
One of the questions we run into a lot, as a radically unschooling family, is how will they learn higher level math if kids aren’t forced to learn the math facts traditionally, especially if they want to go to college and go into a math or science field. Continue Reading