More Experiments in Unschooling

I have decided to unschool "for the rest of the school year." That sounds funny to me since unschoolers don't technically have a school year. But i plan to reevaluate this summer. I decided to keep track in a notebook of some of the learning we have been discovering. There has been so much I can't write it all down.

I will share about Wednesday. The morning started by the girls making their own scrambled eggs. They counted out and cracked all the eggs themselves. Holly did most of the stirring in the skillet. After breakfast they were being goofy and they each gave me 2 pennies (from our spare change box) to pay for breakfast. I explained to them that as the proprietor I had to pay my staff so each of "the cooks" were paid 1 penny in return.




After breakfast they went off and played all morning. I was doing housework while watching a very interesting documentary series. I entertained the notion of checking on them, since no recordable learning was occurring. But I wisely chose to be patient; learning would come. (And I am sure they were learning while playing)

As we were eating our leftover spaghetti at lunch Holly began talking about the label on the Parmesan cheese bottle. And we were off! Reading words; learning about abbreviations; comparing volumes and serving sizes; adding, multiplying, and subtracting; even fractions, with a little bit of food science thrown in too. We studied the spaghetti package and sauce jar as well. But the lesson didn't end there. At dinner we had to continue with all the bottles on the table, which led to a desire to break out the BOB books. My 3 y/o read books with the assistance of her big sister (and an occasional prompt from mom) while I cleared the table and did the dishes. Heather now loves working on reading BOB books, and Holly enjoys practicing her reading by helping.




They also decided to spend time Wednesday afternoon setting up their magnetic calendar for April. So we worked on calendar skills and number recognition, as well as discussing birthdays (we have several in April) and April weather in different places. Adding and subtracting days between birthdays and ages were also worked into the learning experience.

All of these learning times were initiated by the girls. I just had to pounce on the interest. I am finding that these subjects are coming up every day. Today we counted coins, read more books, discussed geography, and learned about kodiak bears. Tomorrow is Saturday, but with unschooling it will still be a learning day. We even do math on Sunday.

I hope you enjoyed this glimpse at our day. I will be linking up with:

Homegrown Learners Collage Friday