Another month done! This was a fun ending to the month for Ethan because of Halloween, so let’s check out how this week of unschooling went.
October 28
Sunday started with adding an extra coat of glitter paint to the accretion disk of his black hole costume.
We then went to my uncle’s house to pick up some stuff, as they are renovating and trying to get rid of stuff. They asked us to go over to get my cousin’s bass guitar for Ethan so that was exciting. Nice to see family, too.
Next, it was off to IKEA to find some storage solutions for Ethan’s room. We like coming here to hang out, eat the food and rest on the big leaf-shaped cushions.
Back home to check out the bass and finish organizing Ethan’s room.
Room is organized!
These are the rocks Ethan has collected over the last few years. He wanted to display them.
October 29
A wet morning but Ethan still went jogging.
Oops! Still have to organize the closet and his clothes.
New comic book…Adventures of a Blade of Grass.
He really enjoys The Secret Garden and was reading it this morning.
Another comic…Adventures of a Rubik’s Cube.
There was a lesson about weather and it featured a story about Salvador Alvarenga, the El Salvadorian man who survived alone for 14 months at sea. He drifted from Mexico to the Marshall Islands.
Then some violin practice to round out the day.
October 30
Heading out for his jog.
He made a chart to track the growth of the fern on his desk.
He did an assignment about robots and there was a section about building your own robot.
Here is the robot and what it can do. He drew the sphere and gave the robot different functions. The robot is like an assistant that can get things for you.
He wanted to practice Minuet 1 and 2 on the violin.
He likes following along to someone playing the piano as an accompaniment because that’s what his music teacher does. He said that he likes the sound of the piano and also that the piano starts the song, which helps him with his timing.
He wanted to draw the notes to help him remember them, so he made his own music staff paper.
After music, he practiced math and worked on ratios, rates and proportions.
He read about how killer whales need help and did some comprehension questions about it.
He learned some Chinese history by reading in his history book.
He also learned more about China from Khan Academy.
He wrote in his diary for the first time in a long while.
Some grammar lessons about nouns and parts of speech from Khan Academy.
He also read some of Roald Dahl’s The Witches.
Time to go out and play.
After dinner, he had to finish up his black hole Halloween costume.
We were worried it would rain so we did some research on how to waterproof paper. We found out that we can rub candle wax onto the paper so that’s what we did.
After rubbing on the wax, Ethan melted the wax to help it spread evenly and possibly soak into the surface. The wax mostly stayed on the surface, though, because we were using foam core.
Next, he had to connect the two halves of the black hole together. We tried wire used for hanging picture frames because we had some at home. We try to use what we already have, instead of buying something new to be a little more resourceful and creative.
We also connected a couple of straps from gym bags and Ethan’s violin case so that Ethan could wear his costume.
The next step was attaching the LED lights. For this, we used brass paper fasteners that we punched through the foam core to hold the lights in place.
And it worked! Occasionally, the lights would shut off, possibly due to the brass fasteners but for now, everything worked.
October 31
Off to nature school with his new backpack and the rain cover that makes him very easy to spot.
After he arrived home, he spent some time reading.
But his costume wasn’t 100% complete. He needed a more secure way of holding the two halves together. The wires we tried wouldn’t keep the costume perpendicular. So Ethan decided to try hot gluing craft sticks to hold the two pieces together.
Success!
We met up with Ethan’s friends and went trick-or-treating. Ethan had a fun time, of course.
His costume would eventually not hold up because the craft sticks and glue weren’t quite strong enough. The positives were that Ethan had learned how to make something new and had a better sense of how to make it stronger next time.
Pretty decent haul.
November 1
We learned about Simply Merino through Ethan’s nature school. Nice to find 100% wool products that Ethan could wear for nature school, skating or any other activity when it gets cold.
Ethan learned about how to classify numbers from Khan Academy. It’s interesting to see what he’s interested in these days, especially since this is an 8th grade topic. We know that Ethan would never have the chance to explore topics outside of his grade level if he was in school, so when we see this, we realize what a good decision it was to let Ethan be an unschooler.
Dong Eun saw a Korean program that talked about some of the great artists and minds in history, such as Michelangelo and Leon Battista Alberti. She saw how they used one point perspective so we wanted to find some books about those people and about perspective for Ethan.
Onto Mystery Science and a lesson about what plants eat.
Ethan practiced the violin.
And he did some coding with Tynker.
He listened to his favourite podcast, Wow in the World. The episode was about how the shape of one’s ear affects the way they hear. Cool.
He learned more about plants and what they need to grow.
He had taekwondo class and afterwards, we went to the library.
We found a book about perspective and Ethan really enjoyed seeing how perspective can be used in different ways.
Among the books we got were books about Greek mythology and the first of C.S. Lewis’ Cosmic Trilogy, which is Out of the Silent Planet. We want to have more classic books at home for Ethan to read so we’re now starting to collect more of them.
We also borrowed some documentaries about black holes, China’s Forbidden City, Vincent Van Gogh and a new BBC series called Earth’s Natural Wonders.
We ended the night reading The Secret Garden. We’ve now met Mr. Craven’s son, Colin, who had been living in the house with Mary but we didn’t know until now.
While I was reading, Ethan measured how much space he needed for a 1000 piece puzzle set. We got a few of these from my uncle’s place. Anyway, Ethan found out that he can put the puzzle together on the side of his desk.
And he even put a small part of it together.
November 2
Friday and with a beautiful morning, we set out for a jog. I’m playing with Hipstamatic on my phone, which explains why there are some different looking photos starting today đ
After our jog, Ethan made a face with his breakfast.
Ethan and Dong Eun looked for some classic kids books on Amazon to read on his Kindle.
He really enjoys playing the violin and got in some practice before heading out.
Ethan and Dong Eun went to the new Indigo bookstore downtown. Dong Eun wants to take Ethan to the bookstore more often because there are new books that we can’t find at the library. And since bookstores tend to carry books that they can sell, we think it might be easier for Ethan to find good books about topics he’s interested in.
And of course, bookstores have classic books, too.
This was also a kind of date day with mom, so they enjoyed some Korean food for lunch.
And picked up some snacks for the Vancouver library’s Central Branch because that was their next destination.
We did some grocery shopping and headed home. That night, we watched the black hole documentary and learned about the super-massive black holes that exist at the centre of all galaxies, how black holes were first theorized and discovered, along with how our universe may not exist if it weren’t for black holes. Very cool stuff.
November 3
Saturday morning and Ethan had his orchestra practice. He was very excited about going today, as he is about violin class.
The older kids also practice in the same space. Ethan’s group is in a smaller room.
On the main level of the community centre is a weekly craft market. Ethan saw signs for a flea market and asked if this was the flea market. We had talked about what a flea market was because of some signs around the neighbourhood so that’s why he was curious.
When we got home, Ethan wanted to practice violin with a piano again. He’s really improved a lot. It’s such a joy to hear him playing.
My parents came over for brunch.
After brunch, Ethan started doing some math on Khan Academy. Here, he’s reviewing order of operations.
More order of operations, but using his math book.
He wanted to play the violin again so this time, Dong Eun asked him to stand up on the coffee table like it was a stage.
After that, he learned some grammar by watching videos about nouns and verbs.
Ethan practiced coding with Code Monkey. They give you challenges and you have to write the proper code to complete the challenge.
He watered his fern. It’s growing quite well.
He then made a video about types of numbers. He used his laptop to create a screen capture video. He drew/wrote using a drawing program and narrated his lesson.
We then went over the blog to make sure I wrote everything accurately. We also talked more about Salvador Alvarenga because Ethan didn’t know that he wasn’t alone at the start of his journey.
Ethan wanted to make a circle/ball shape by folding paper into 60° angles. I asked how he knew the angles were 60° and he said that angles on an equilateral triangle were always 60°. Ok.
Dong Eun was going to prepare dinner but she was tired so Ethan and I helped.
While throwing out some trash, Ethan and I also checked the mail. He received a new issue of Bark, the magazine put out by the BC SPCA.
This issue featured a kitten, which Ethan really liked.
Ethan wanted to play board games tonight and specifically, he wanted to play Scrabble.
He was the scorekeeper.
He ended up beating me and even got Bingo. Bingo is when you use all 7 of your tiles to create a word. He used a website that tells you if a word is a Scrabble word to help out, but it was still pretty impressive that he got Bingo.
We then finished the night by watching Loving Vincent, a movie about how Vincent Van Gogh died. The movie was painted by over 100 artists, so that it looked like we were watching a moving version of Van Gogh’s paintings. All the characters in the movie are found in Van Gogh’s paintings, which was very cool.
And that was the past week in Ethan’s unschooling journey for the end of October and into November. See you next week.
My name is Abbie! Greetings! Iâm the Learning Consultant that is subbing for Natasha for weeks 10, 11, and 12 while sheâs on her adventure in Nepal. Itâs nice to meet you, Dong Eun, and Ethan. So, as an outsider coming in, here are some things that jump out at me about this past learning week:
First, in the way of Self Designing, I can hear that Ethan is learning that âevery second of every minute of every hour of every day of every month of every yearâ that learning is taking place. Si, an unschooling approach to learning means that as emergent topics arise then Ethan can engage and learn. You give examples of this with the topics of Perspective, Classifying Numbers, and Vincent Van Gogh. Heâs also learning how to honor himself by requesting to have the piano played while he is on the violin, being eager to go to orchestra practice, watching his favorite podcast, and wanting to display his favorite rocks.
Second, in the way of Self Designing, Iâm also hearing that under âLearning to Learnâ he is learning and having modeled for him how to access different resources to further experiences and understanding. In my eyes, this is a key piece, to being enthused and engaged about learning. Not only is Ethan exposed to online resources, such as Khan Academy, Tynker, and Mystery School, but also contributions from Family Members and Community Resources, such as music classes and Indigo and the Public Library for books and documentaries.
Now, another concept under âLearning to Learnâ is âthrough reflection and expression learning how to make thinking and learning explicitâ. As such, by asking him questions such as âHow he knew the angles were 60 degreesâ he is using his strong mind to demonstrate his knowing. I can hear that Ethan was also engaging in problem solving as he continued to work on his Black Hole costume and make it better. He’s also learning how to make artifacts to demonstrate his understanding (i.e. the costume, the videos)
Here are some other questions that could also be used and then shared in weekly reports, as they relate to learning activities that heâs engaging in:
This had me stumped until …
A strategy that worked for me was …
I got this question wrong because …
I particularly liked ……. because …
This was where I realized …
I still don’t understand …
I used to think ….. but now I think …
I see evidence for this in real life when …
I am proud of this artifact because …
What I learned from doing this is …
What I want you to notice about this artifact is …
The strategy I used to figure this out was ….
This is the same concept as …
Another way of solving the problem is …
Third, research has been done around learning and the use of three modalities â 
.I can certainly hear this happening with Ethan as he is encouraged to view and read things (thanks for the update on the wide variety of books and documentaries) and engage hands-on (i.e. building his own robot with technology, charting the growth of the fern, measuring space for the puzzle, and helping to make his own costume). That’s such a cool costume!!!
As well, the use of movement with the physical action of jogging and Taekwondo helps to cement learning. Further, having movement after learning activities, such as jumping on a rebounder, doing 20 jumping jacks, or running around the apartment building/house does the same thing. Have you seen this book before?
Well, another very full learning week for Ethan. Keep me posted about activities at the Nature School. Take care! Abbie 
Recent Comments