Thursday, November 29, 2007

Finally Getting Going Again

It's been a long three months. To be honest, we haven't done a whole lot of schoolish stuff, like I said earlier, which I've been feeling guilty about. But now that I'm coming out of the first trimester, I'm feeling a little bit better and we've been doing more. We've done some workbook pages, we've been practicing sounding out/spelling things in Word, and playing with our math manipulatives.

I didn't really talk about Colwyn's birthday party, but we did some fun science-y activities. It was space themed, and here's a picture of the kids in their "space ship" - basically the kitchen, with little chairs and pictures of dials and control panels taped to the cabinet doors. They all have jet packs on that they received after completing astronaut training (which was basically just jumping jacks, toe touches, etc).



And here's where they got to wash the moon rocks they found hidden throughout the house. They were tin foil with a few tablespoons of baking soda inside, along with a little parachute guy. The bowls were filled with diluted vinegar.



Fun stuff.

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2 Comments:

At 1:03 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The birthday looks amazing...so wonderfully creative :0) But why, if you are unschooling ,are you doing worksheets with tiny children? It's probably not as nasty as it sounds- I know my DD loved to do maths from a workbook when she was 2...still, I can't help feeling it is a very artificial, and mundane way to learn.
http://www.freewebs.com/ohthethinksyoucanthink/index.htm

 
At 5:39 PM, Blogger Rachel said...

According to my understanding of unschooling, you follow the child's interest and don't force learning. It's not about leaving them alone, not providing any educational materials, and hoping that they'll learn in an absence of a stimulating environment. I'd be a horrible parent if I didn't let my child do workbook pages that he wants to do, just because it doesn't mesh with a few people's definition of unschooling. It's perfectly fine to suggest and initiate activities (like I do with anything - 'Hey, wanna go to the park?') so long as you don't require their participation. I agree that in most cases, hands on learning with real life materials is superior to workbooks, but I'm not going to deny my child something he sincerely enjoys.

 

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