We had a great few days thanks to unschooling. Now, ours isn't really an unschooling family. We use some more traditional things (work books, print outs, spelling tests, etc), but we have an unschooling flair. I like to take a natural learning approach to school.
On Sunday, I went shopping. Many items were half off. We've dealt some with fractions and multiplication, but we haven't done division at all. Still, both girls were able to accurately and easily tell me what the items would be at half price. They did it over and over again as they brought me item after item of (what they deemed) cute clothing and asked me to buy them because, "It's half price, so it's only...."
We have a map of the U.S hanging on the wall. They like to look at it to see how to spell the states and then they put them into a song and end with the Postal Service's abbreviation (don't ask. I have no idea why they do it, but they like the song). Today, Girl2 noticed the scale on the map and asked what it was. So we busted out rulers and measured how wide certain states are. Then we measured the distance between different states and translated that into miles. We looked at the map and talked about the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Girl2 studied Mississippi which she adores even though she's never been there. When I asked her why she likes it, she said, "Because it's pink on the map and because it has lots of s's and i's. I like those letters."
Very neat and took almost no effort on my part. That's a good thing with a new baby in the house.
Oh and Girl1 was moved into a different class in Hebrew school a few weeks ago. She's in the group doing lessons 2 years above where they currently are. This is the child who doesn't read English as well as her sister, so I'm floored to hear her read Hebrew. Some of her homework simply involves reading the word to an audience and she has read every single word correctly ever since she was put in that class. I've mentioned before how I feel about them learning to read Hebrew, so my daughter has made me very proud.
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3 comments:
Saw your comment on my guest post on Stesha’s Hot Chocolate Caramel Mocha blog last week. Thought it would be fun to stop by and check out your site. So glad that I did too. You’ve got some great stuff here!
Off to read your thoughts on your kids learning Hebrew.
Let’s do this again sometime! :)
-Francesca
Reading posts like that make me want to homeschool. When I was teaching - even though, sadly, this was not part of the curriculum - I used to have my first graders look at the US or world map and just ask me questions. We had so much fun doing that and they retained the info so well.
We've been unschooling for a couple years now and it's amazing how much more kids learn when they are interested and self-propelled. Zeb couldn't do math until he started playing Yugioh and needed to figure out his points. And he never enjoyed reading when it was required of him but now we read for pleasure all the time.
I so wish learning to read or write or speak another language came as easily for me as it must your DD! Congrats to her!!
~Tara
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