Homeschooling comes in many forms, some are literally school at home that follow the school curriculum, while others follow a total unschooling method of letting the child dictate what they learn. We are unschoolers in the sense that we want Ethan to follow his interests, but we do want to introduce some school subjects, such as math and writing.
How Things Are Going
We’ve been so happy with homeschooling that we wonder why we didn’t do it before. We know the answer… we just weren’t ready for it. We needed that time with Ethan in public school and the time for a suitable way for us to homeschool to present itself. We have so far found SelfDesign to fit with our lifestyle and Ethan’s way of learning. Everything in good time, as they say.
Morning
Before going out this morning, Ethan decided that the theme of the day would be “origami day 2” because there were some projects he wanted to work on.
Ethan then went to the skatepark and rode his bike for almost two hours. He enjoys riding his bike at the skatepark early in the morning when there aren’t many people there.
When he came home, he started making more origami flickers like the ones from yesterday.
After, he started making an infinity cube out of dice. He tried making an infinity cube a few days ago, but it didn’t really work out. He decided to try again and watched a few different videos to learn how. It was on the third video that he found a way to make the infinity cube so that it actually worked.
We liked how he didn’t give up and kept looking for a way to complete the project. He can be determined to find a solution for things he’s interested in. I guess that’s one of the main benefits of being an unschooler… the time and freedom to explore.
Afternoon
Ethan helped with planning our cross Canada road trip. We got him his own maps (a brilliant suggestion from his friend’s mom who we met up with yesterday) and he drew a route across Canada along the Trans Canada Highway. He also found where Disneyland and Disneyworld are, as those are obviously the places he’d like to visit.
Afterwards, he went back to working on making more origami designs, but he mostly made more origami flickers. He even made an origami wristband to hold the flickers, which I thought was pretty cool.
Evening
He spent more time working origami because as the theme of the day was origami, he went full force with the paper folding. We like that he is so focused on one thing and will only do that one thing all day long.
Of course, it needs to be something he finds interesting but that’s the whole point of unschooling… allowing a child to be in the moment where they are fully engaged and to allow that moment to last as long as they desire.
He finished the day by finding a colour by number worksheet online, printed it out and coloured it. Not sure why he suddenly wanted to colour and ice cream cone; maybe it was hint that he wants ice cream.
This next week will be an interesting one for our family, as we embark on a cross Canada road trip in our VW Westfalia camper van. We’ve been wanting to go since the beginning of summer but feel like now is an ideal time, as there will be less crowds and the beautiful changing of seasons. We will continue with the homeschooling but in a slightly different way. How it will work out, we don’t know, but we’re excited for the journey ahead.
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