The Best Week of School, When the Kids Learned Nothing

A couple of weeks ago Papa took the boys backpacking in Yosemite for the week. We pointed out to them that this was their school assignment for the week. They left on Monday and came home on Friday.

The trip plan from Tenaya Lake to Happy Isles (red), with side trip to Half Dome (blue)

After spending the night in Yosemite Valley on Monday night, they were up early on Tuesday catch the shuttle bus that would take them to the trail head. From Tuesday through Friday they hiked almost 22 miles with a total elevation gain of about 13,000 feet. They summited both Cloud's Rest and Half Dome along the way.

The first day on the trail

They came home full of excitement. They'd had a great time!

Back at the car, before getting a shower

I was pretty disappointed to hear, that in the rush to get to the shuttle bus on time, the camera had been left behind in the car. I was really feeling jealous of their adventures (while I stayed home with Little Miss, age 2) and was eager to relive their trek with them through the pictures they had taken. As luck would have it, they met a nice couple on the same route who took some photos of them along the way and e-mailed them to us!

A view from Cloud's Rest towards Half Dome and Yosemite Valley

A couple of days after the trip Curly announced, "That was the best week of school, EVER!"

"Great!", I responded. "What did you learn?"

"Nothing."

I just laughed. I wasn't about to argue with him, and ruin his perfect week of school. I know how much time Papa has spent with them, teaching them to read topographic maps, using a map and compass, learning how to read a trail map, how to start a fire (about 10 different ways), how to pack for a trip, how to write out and leave an outing plan, how to calculate the right weight of your backpack based on your own body weight, and just about everything else there is to know about backpacking, hiking, rock climbing, and camping.

About to get on the cables on Half Dome

The boys told me all about a movie they saw their first night, camping in Yosemite Valley and things they had learned (oops!) about the history of the park. They know, and I'm sure learned more, about the local rocks, fora and fauna than most people. They told me that they saw one marmot. They did not see any pika, but apparently there were some pretty cool pika finger puppets in a the camp store.

Heading up the cables (not learning anything)

At the top of Half Dome with Clouds Rest behind them

I'm feeling pretty good about the nothing they learned that week with their dad!

World Geography

My kids often come up with much better lessons than I plan for them. This "World Geography Lesson" is one of many examples. 

The best geography lesson I never came up with.

Now, if was at the point where I was ready to 100% embrace unschooling, this is what school would be like all of the time. I've talked about toying with unschooling in some of my previous posts, ( Homeschool Changes and (F)unschooling), but is not something we do 100% of the time. From what I've learned, you are not really unschooling unless you do it 100%. I'll be honest here, this annoys me a little bit. I, like so many homeschoolers, have a very eclectic approach. I like to take the parts of things that I like.


According to Carol Edson,

“Unschooling to me means learning what one wants, when one wants, in the way one wants, where one wants, for one’s own reasons. The learning is learner-directed; advisors or facilitators are sought out as desired by the learner. There are no curricula, lesson plans, schedules, or agendas. Most of the learning is quiet, even invisible, as there is not a focus on creating a lot of ‘products.’”

Mary Griffith defines it more precisely as needing these three factors:
From On Unschooling

1. An Environment Conducive to Exploration and Experimentation.
2. Adults as Models and Facilitators
3. Trust That the Child Will Learn.


I do really well with "rules" 1 and 2. I kind of agree with number three, but I'm unable to completely "let-go" and not guide my child's learning in some way. I DO give "assignments". We use the Workboxes System which is, by its nature, parent directed. The assignments I give, and put into the workboxes, are based on my kids and how well I know them. Scootch told me, at the end of the summer, that he wanted to study geometry and physics. So, when I give him math and science assignments, they are in these areas. I ask him to pick out experiments he wants to try from the book on physics experiments. I put books and magazines in their boxes that I think they would want to read. I assign them lego projects from Lego Quest.

We only spend a couple of hours a day (if even that, and rarely 5 days a week) on assignments I give them. The rest of the time they have available to get creative and come up with their own great learning activities (although they think they are just playing!).  The majority of their time is spent with lots of "1 and 2". I don't want to spend any more time than that on math lessons I think they need to learn. In the words of Mark Twain, I don't want their schooling to get in the way of their education.

Last week they came up with a great World Geography lesson. They asked if they could take down the large world map that is on the wall. They often use this map while doing another great learning activity they came up with: One child is on the computer on Google Earth, and the other child stands at the map. The child at the computer "flies" around the world, and the one at the map charts the course, and gives directions as needed. I'll hear things like, "NO! You need to go North of France!" and "Don't go that way, you'll end up in the Arctic Ocean!" When Scootch found that I had put a Google Earth App on the ipad he was so excited!

I allowed the removal of the wall map, although at first I was a bit skeptical, as I often am about their plans. They took it into their room and proceeded to play a game where they had Lego guys and vehicles that were going around the world claiming territories (kind of their own version of Risk, a board game they have never seen). They had very detailed rules about how you moved, how you could claim or take over countries. I'm pretty sure I heard, "That's not fair! I'm stuck over here in Australia!" The next day they took the game to the next level by inventing and creating their own world map using construction paper taped together, with made up land forms. I think that counts for both art and social studies!


The next day they took the game to the next level by inventing and creating their own world map using construction paper taped together, with made up land forms. I think that counts for both art and social studies!

A whole new world!

If nothing else, at least they know their geography! 

Different Ways to use Workboxes

When we started using Workboxes I began by setting them up like I had seen on different websites and blogs. Each child had his own set of workboxes on his part of the shelves. I posted last fall How Workboxes Work in Our House.

My first big innovation was to create "sister" boxes. This is where the older kids have a workbox that has a "sister" tag on it (kind of like a "mom" tag that means take this box and work with mom, only it is take this box and work with your little sister).


I have two boys ages 9 & 10. There are a lot of things for school that I like to to together: Read aloud, Social Studies, Science, a board game, to name a few. I found that if I didn't put something into a workbox, it often didn't get done! I'd tell myself "When they finish their other work we will play a game of Scrabble." When the time came around and they had finished all of their other boxes I'd tell myself, never mind, I'm too tired. Also, when it is in a box the kids seem to go along with it without complaint for some reason. When I have a book I want to read to both of them, whose box do I put it into?

Most of the workboxes have two velcro dots on them, room for two tags . I was very proud of myself to decide to put 3 velcro dots on a few of the boxes. This gives me a place to put a number tag for each boy, plus a "mom" tag. It would be easy to add a couple more dots (though you will start to run out of room!) for more kids. This is a box for the three of us to do together.:


Now the boys have some shelves with their individual workboxes:


On a separate shelf we have a few "group" workboxes. With their toddler sister running around, what usually works for us is to do these boxes when little sister takes her nap. Meanwhile, the boys can work on their individual boxes.

I use these tags (and created a sister tag to match):


Download your copy at http://www.spelloutloud.com/2009/08/cassies-workbox-graphics.html

Get Creative!

I try to get creative and put a variety of things into the kids Workboxes. I've been in a bit of a rut lately and I broke it by getting a bunch of "junk" out of the art cabinet. I have lots of odds and ends, many of which are in this jar:



I find I have collected lots of little things that might be good for a project at some point, so you can't throw them away! I filled a workbox for each of the boys with some glue, cardboard, and assorted odds and ends: tongue depressors, corks, toothpicks, popsicle sticks, clothes pins, wooden shapes, magnets, and more. The assignment: Get creative.



It is really Scootch who thrives on this kind of assignment. He is an outside-of-the-box-creative kind of guy. Living with Aspergers, ADHD and anxiety, he has a hard time sometimes, and an open ended, hands on activity like this is very calming for him. He ended up creating two airplanes and a tank:






Scootch spent a lot of time on his projects. He was focused, and patient, even though the creations kept falling apart. By the time he was finished, in addition to his three creations, there was about 1/2 a bottle of glue on the kitchen table. Fortunately, glue is cheap and pretty easy to clean up.

The next day he asked for a similar assignment. The way he responded reminds me that I need to provide this kind of activity for him more often. Even if it is just to put playdough or clay into one of his boxes, every day. The more I think about it, I wounder what effect it might have on his behavior to make sure and include something like this on a daily basis. I know what that means for me: Get creative!

Chemistry!

I asked my 8 year old what he wanted to study in Science next. "Chemistry!", was his response. A quick shopping trip on amazon.com got us one kit, and 3 books on chemistry, and we were on our way to becoming mad scientists!

Wow! 30 experiments in one kit, and real glass test tubes!



A few reading assignments for the next couple of weeks, check.





I have also assigned some time on a favorite website, ptable.com. What is not to love about a dynamic periodic table of the elements?

The hardest part is waiting for the baby to take her nap so that we can uninterrupted "lab time". Here are my little scientists hard at work:

Homeschool Changes!

Well, we did it. We have gone out on our own.

This is our second year of homeschooling. Last year we were able to enroll in the "Homeschool Academy" with our local school district. That gave us access to the district curriculum. We worked one on one with a teacher there, meeting with her about every 2 weeks. She really gave us complete flexibility in what we did. There was no pressure to have certain lessons or curriculum completed. She could see that we were doing appropriate work and that the boys were working above grade level, so she pretty much left us alone.

This year that program was cut. For some reason I have felt very insecure about homeschooling independently. To do that in California you file a Private School Affidavit. When you do that you really answer to no one. My fear of going independent lead me to join a charter school and I enrolled the boys in the California Virtual Academy (CAVA) which uses the K12 curriculum. At first I was happy to have the use of all of the curriculum, supplies, books and a new desktop computer. I thought I could do the bare minimum of jumping through their hoops to be able to use the materials. Well, I really tired, but it did not work out. I felt too much pressure to complete THEIR curriculum. This was fine for some areas, like math. When it came to science, I'd find my kids interested in a different subject, and we would not have time to focus on that because we had to do the K12 science. They were interested in writing, but not on the writing assignments they were supposed to be doing. I finally realized that it was keeping us from doing things that we wanted to be doing. We were doing things just to get them done. It was not homeschooling, it was school at home. I wrestled with the idea of taking them out of CAVA for several weeks. Lets face it, I'd have to box up and send back all of that stuff and that is a big pain.

Don't get me wrong, I think K12 is a good curriculum and CAVA is an excellent program. This is especially good if you have no teaching experience and are concerned that your child is meeting all of the state standards. I was just finding more and more that I wanted to take more of an unschooling approach and that was just not possible with that program.

Maybe I CAN be an unschooler, I thought. Maybe I can trust my children and follow their lead. I bought a book on unschooling. I bought The Unschooling Unmanual for some reassurance and inspiration.




So, on Thursday October 7, 2010, we suddenly stopped what we were doing in the middle of the school day and I called the CAVA teacher to let her know that we would be un-enrolling from CAVA. I felt FREE!

I went ahead and bought a subscription to an on-line curriculum, time4learning. The boys like being on the computer and I thought this would be a good resource that we can use as we like. (even though Scootch REALLY hates the little mouse logo)
Yeah, Ed Mouse is kind of lame.

On Friday I sat down with each of the boys and had them choose what they would work on in math and reading for the next few weeks. They decided together on a science topic, and I decided that for social studies we would continue our study of US History. Writing? They had both just started working on books on "How to torture my brother". I told them that they could continue to write about and illustrate ways to torture each other in their little books. I figure it is much better than them actually doing it. Normally trying to get Scootch to write is like pulling teeth, so if he has something that he is motivated to write about, we go for it!

On Tuesday I made the leap. I filed as a private school in the state of California. Now we are doing what WE want to do. I had to give our school a name so I named it Tadpoles, Trails and Trees Academy.

They are doing an awesome job so far of working through some on-line lessons at their own pace. (In fact they are doing more than I expected!)

I still set up workboxes for them every day, but I put in things that I want them to do. I don't feel the pressure to get certain things done and I'm able to put things in the workboxes like lego building tasks, like some of the ideas at LEGO Quest Kids, or ideas from Think! I am feeling so much more relaxed abut letting them get creative and explore and do their own thing.

Scootch was inspired by a 3-D model of Jamestown we made (we're currently learning about colonial America) to build a fort of his own. He went onto Owl & Mouse: Make a Town and downloaded some patterns which he adjusted and cut out to build this fort:



Curly spent a lot of time engineering this sled for Baby. He made sure to make the bottom so that it wouldn't scratch the wood floors. When it turned out that it tipped over too easily, he re-engineered it for safety:



Heck, who needs a curriculum? I think we can just use old cardboard boxes!

Peanut Butter Playdough

Playdough is both fun and educational. If you make peanut butter playdough it can double as a snack!

Developmental Benefits of Working with Playdough
"When given modeling compound toddlers are instinctively motivated to explore its soft and responsive sensory qualities. They poke it, squeeze it, pat it, pick it up and push it down. The compound responds to each of their actions and the child is learning that his/her actions have consequences. Manipulation develops the child’s large and small muscles and fosters eye-hand coordination. The child’s brain is taking shape along with the compound as the visual and tactile experiences generate new neurons and synapses in the brain."


Peanut butter playdough is quick and easy to make (and even gluten free!) and the kids LOVE it! You only need three ingredients:

1 cup powdered milk
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey

If you do a search on-line you will find a variety of recipes, some which include powdered sugar, some which make large amounts. This recipe is simple and makes just enough for a few kids.



How is this educational? Math! Measure out one cup of powdered milk.

Measure out one half cup of peanut butter. You can do such a range of math problems when cooking. Measurement, simple fractions, addition and subtraction of fractions etc.
For the really little ones this is a great way to explore with the fingers and it is okay if they eat it! Fine motor development, exploring with sight, feel, smell and taste. This is a great way to develop and expand vocabulary in young children.
Little and big alike have fun exploring and tasting this yummy treat!