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.

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......