Friday would normally be the end of the school week, but with unschooling, everyday is a day for learning. And we love that. I’m sounding like a broken record, but Ethan has loved being home and following his interests and curiosity.
The mornings have changed radically for our family. No longer are we forced into following a set time to get ready for school. As a result, we enjoy a slower pace in the morning and spend more quality time together, instead of just trying to get ready for the day.
For example, just about every morning, Ethan comes into our room and crawls into our bed to snuggle with us. It’s a far cry from when we used to get up early, get food and lunch ready, then wake him up and hurry to get him to school on time. Now, we let the morning unfold and enjoy the little moments we have together as a family.
One thing that happened today was that he wanted to play at the playground with some of his old schoolmates. However, none of his old friends stayed to play today so he didn’t stay there for too long.
Morning
Ethan came into our room and watched the home learning video from yesterday.
For today’s theme, he chose “Second Game Day.”
He then read the STEAM and comets and meteor showers books.
Later, he worked on Snap Circuits and learned about testing each component to discover if there was a faulty part in his kit. We made a simple circuit where we could swap out one piece to individually test each piece. We repeated this process for every piece in the kit and found that there were no faulty parts.
However, we still couldn’t make one of the projects function after repeatedly checking the circuit.
So Ethan decided to read on the Kindle, then read the Minecraft Guide to Exploration book. He also read Charlotte’s Web, which he’s read before. Interestingly, he said that he read the entire book in one sitting this morning. He explained that he’s reading every word but that he’s just doing it so quickly that he can finish a book in a short time.
And to wrap up the morning, him and Dong Eun played Monopoly Deal.
Afternoon
After lunch, I took Ethan to the dentist. It was only a quick visit but Ethan got a little red stuffed puppy.
Shortly after arriving home, Ethan and Dong Eun went to the school playground to find some of Ethan’s old classmates. There weren’t any, so they came home.
They decided to go to the library to pick up some books on hold. Ethan rode his bike and on the way, they stopped and Ethan played at the playground. He also took some photos, which is something he has been experimenting with.
When the arrived at the library, it was already closed.
Afterwards, they stopped by the store to pick up a pizza for dinner.
Evening
At dinner, he asked what was better than incredible. He Googled and found: terrific, awesome and amazing.
After dinner, Ethan began working on his learning plan by creating a mind map on the wall. He cut out shapes from coloured construction paper, labeled each piece with a topic/subject, and taped the shape on the wall. Each part of the map was then joined together by string. It isn’t complete so we’ll continue to work on it.
He then wrote his observation for the day and called it a night.
Before bed, he came to our room and talked to Dong Eun. Ethan said he once had a scary dream about a woman chasing him. He Googled the meaning of chasing in a dream. Dong Eun talked about Sigmund Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams book. Each of them said they would try to remember their dreams and search for the meanings tomorrow.
Nicely done, you published week 2 Observation for Learning already!
Your online journaling is awesome! I am just now getting into it and will respond more specifically soon. Ethan is busy doing so many projects and documenting them as well. I love it! I will look at his home learning journal and take note of some of the highlights of learning for me to track.
Since you are ahead of the game, I would like to direct you to working on the Learning Plan Slide Show. Filling out the slide show will be due for week 3 September 17th. You can find the slideshow when you click on Ethan’s name under my class with Natasha. Then click on Learning Communication, select Learning Plan
and then this will pop up, click on the pink link titled Ethan’s Learning Plan Slideshow. The Slideshow will open in a new tab. We can both edit and add to this living document at anytime. All the changes are saved automatically. You can follow the slides and begin to fill them out, bullet point style, images or words are fine. Be sure to also include the resources you hope to use (especially those you wish to purchase withe $600 learning resource money) Slides 4, 5 and 7 are the most important. Also take time to check out the Learning Library and include any of the titles of Learning Experiences which interest you. There are direct links to the Library both on slide 5 in the right hand corner or on the Learning Platform as well. Happy planning!
One quick note since you are done with week 2 and when you are done with week 3 and all subsequent week submissions I will need you to fill out a quick Weekly Connection Confirmation, just write in Ethan’s name, the type of submission and the week #. This lets me know that it is submitted and also puts a timestamp on it for the Ministry. Thank you!
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