Monday, May 10, 2010

The Unschooling Closet

I read this article from the Creative Mama and found it fascinating. Here's an excerpt.....

"{Strewing


I love this one. So the idea is for the child to find interest in a subject and seek out further information. Oh, I hear you out there! “My kids would search out video games and television.” I can attest to strewing working big-time in our house. I have tested it even further in the last week and can tell you it works. Basically, you leave things strewn about your children’s environment that you would like them to learn. The hope being that they pick the book/subject up and find interest.



An example for us: Last week, I laid out an insect encyclopedia at the breakfast table. The kids come down to breakfast and find the book. They pick it up and by 9:30 am they have grabbed tons of mason jars and lids out of my canning closet and have run outside to find every bug they can. They bring them all back in and then proceed to find each one in the book and learn about each bug. Not to mention, my youngest is reading because she is dying to know about these darn bugs! By noon, they had a whole “bug club” going and microscope out as well. All this merged into a trip to a little pond to gather tadpoles and into learning all about tadpoles and amphibians.

Strewing can make a day full of learning."

You can read the rest here.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

What is the Charlotte Mason Method?

 "Education is an atmosphere."
         "Education is a discipline."
               "Education is a life."
                              ~Charlotte Mason

This method is all about spending time with your kids. I love that it's about spending time outdoors; taking walks and observing the world around you. I love that it uses quality books instead of a bunch of boring textbooks. I love the flexibility. I have only be using this method for a couple of weeks. I am slowly moving into each area of curriculum.
We started our first chapter book read aloud last week. I chose The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Clearly.We read one chapter a night and I was very surprised how much my son loved the chapter book. I really thought he would get restless and start interrupting. But he really loved hearing about Ralph and his motorcycle adventures. He actually retained several key points of the book as well.

Here's some great resources:
What is the Charlotte Mason Method?

 7 Characteristic of a Charlotte Mason Education

Ambleside

Charlotte Mason Monday

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

The Unschooling Approach

Have you ever heard the term unschooling and wondered what that meant? I found a great article discussing unschooling at Simple Homeschool. You can read it here.

I didn't realize that there was a homeschool method based on teachable moments. I try to make as many moments teachable that I can each day. My son is off to a good start and this article reminded me that I don't have to be so worried about what curriculum I'm teaching. I can just focus on my son's interests and let learning naturally take place.
For more about Unschooling......

Monday, May 3, 2010