Today is a Friday. It is a typical day...sort of. My son is sick, so he has to take it easy. He has been playing with his Angry Birds Go cars, watching some Youtube videos, and successfully keeping food down. He even tried something new to him today...Tang. My husband and I loved it growing up. He now seems to have mustered up the energy to play on the Wii. Funny how that works when they don't feel good.
Today has already been busy. Laundry. Unloading the dishes. Feeding the kids breakfast. I even did a little fall cleaning (ok, so I looked around and noticed a lot of dust, and since I did a lot of cleaning up yesterday--still trying to find where to put stuff since we moved--the dust was even more noticeable!). Ceiling fans. Spider webs. Dusting. I am also getting the floors prepped to lay new flooring. Half our house just has sub-flooring at the moment from having ripped up the carpet. My daughter has been busy chasing the cats, dressing up like Elsa, trying to make her glider fly, jumping on the trampoline, riding the four wheeler, and playing with plastic animals. I'm sure later she will want to watch Disney's Cinderella again. We got it from Netflix yesterday. We got to sample some chocolate we bought from a local school fundraiser too. I hope the boxes last a few days. Maybe I need to let my son hide them from me and my daughter....
Later, my son and I are going to finish a Minecraft Creeper costume and read some more about Pilgrims. My husband is a history buff and believes having a sense of our history is important (I agree. It is the only way we can actually appreciate humanity and understand the struggles that people can survive.) With Thanksgiving right around the corner, why not learn about its roots? The writer of The Magic Tree House series has a great collection of fact checker books to go along with some of the stories she has written. My son is much more open to them than reading some other non-fiction book on the same topic. He is already connected to the author and characters from the books. We will probably finish up one of the Cub Scout achievements today. We have been learning a little about Tall Tales. His favorite is John Henry. He gets to put the US map on the wall to use and see where some of the stories took place. I have also been told my son and I are going to make a stuffed Mario poison mushroom today. If we get to it, my son will get some thread and needle practice. Then we need to start preparing for the Cub Scout Space Derby that takes place in a few weeks. That means sanding and painting practice.
Lately, we have had a full plate of activities that are also enriching. We went to a Spanish Colonial Days at a museum and saw several demonstrations--blacksmithing, grinding corn, learning how an old flour mill worked, weaving, making rope, etc. We all learned something. The Pumpkin Chunkin contest is held down the street from where we live. A special guest came to story time this week and showed us how a smaller cannon worked. He used gourds as ammo. Every week both kids go to story time for their age group and hear a story and do a related craft. We got to go on a fire station tour last week for Cub Scouts and made fondant at 4-H. At some point soon, my son will get to try out an art class through 4-H and possibly photography and practicing his bow and arrow skills. Next month we get to participate in charitable giving for different groups in our community and some community service projects through Cub Scouts and 4-H. We also get to visit a popcorn company and learn about how they make it and how their company operates.
In addition to all that, there are several books we got from the library...some fact checker books about twisters and mummies, some other Magic Tree House books, which all have an element of history in them, a book about Brazil (the Rio movies brought on this interest) and Washington DC, and a book about spies that just sounds fun. We also spent a lot of time recently learning about the Revolutionary
War (thanks again Magic Tree House for the fact checker book, a
historical fiction book we read, and Liberty Kids).
The thing is, there is so much to learn just through living an active life. I love that I have discovered the freedom of unschooling. All the things we have studied have been influenced by my son's interests. These are just some of things he has been interested in all on his own. When he was younger, he had a great interest in space and the human body brought on by The Magic School Bus video series. Right now, with his interest in Minecraft, he has been able to make connections to things he learned from the blacksmith and things he saw at the history museum and the zoo. It also encourages him in his spelling since he hates having misspelled words. Math concepts come up all the time, whether he is playing Minecraft, a board game, or is just plain curious. At the grocery store he likes to use the scale. In addition, he has learned about sales tax and comparison shopping because of wanting to spend his allowance. Then there is the bits of information I come across and share with my kids. I tell my son about things like the blood moon and partial solar eclipse and other things that come up in the news or other interesting things I hear about.
When we can learn so much through our own passions and interests and by being around others, why is it necessary to box ourselves in with curriculum and standards? I realize I am fortunate to be able to homeschool my kids. What I consider even more fortunate is that I have come to truly understand learning. Sometimes, for a moment, I get sucked back in to the school model of learning...and then I catch myself. Old habits die hard. I remind myself that just because it is school does not mean it is the best or only way to do things. As long as my children can learn who they are and learn their strengths and weaknesses and passions, and as long as they can learn to read and write and do some math along the way, none of the rest matters. Some of the things they do throughout their journey will help them discover themselves, so it is important I always offer new information and resources and not let life get stagnant. Other than that, there are no other rules. If they figure out what they are best suited for, they will have such and interest or passion that they will learn the skills and knowledge needed in order to pursue that interest. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs did not get into computers because it was a classroom requirement. Ben Franklin did not become a great inventor because he was required to be an apprentice for his brother. The list of anecdotal evidence could take a lifetime to write about.
The most important gift we can give our kids is to help them unlock their potential and help them find the path intended for them. The method may be different for each kid, but one sure way not to unlock it is by creating fear of failure and by not supporting them when they try to explore what interests them or spread their wings.
So what have you done to help your child or someone else discover who they are?
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