Wired For Noise

Welcome one and all to the 14th edition of Unschooling Voices! I am super excited to be able to host April’s edition. Though I know it is April Fool’s day I’ll try not to joke around too much here. Oh heck, let the joking commence!

Laura from Sea Bird Chronicles shared a very important holiday with Poem in my pocket, saying “April 17 is the first annual Poem In Your Pocket Day! The idea is to carry a poem with you on that day and read it aloud whenever you like. A fun activity to do with kids!”.

How about What I’ve Learned at School by Robert Pottle:

At school I’ve learned a lot of things
I really like to do,
like running in the hallway
and eating gobs of glue.
I’ve learned I’m good at making pencils
dangle from my nose.
I’ve learned to hum and pop my gum.
I practice, and it shows.
I’ve learned I like to cut in line
and love to cut the cheese.
I’ve learned to fake a burp, a cough,
and even fake a sneeze.
You’d think with all this learning
I’d be doing well in school,
but everything I learn to do
appears to break a rule

I found that poem at Giggle Poems, a fun site of silly poetry for kids. Laura has also been collecting fun sites in her post Favorites: web sites for children posted at SeaBird Chronicles. She says “For months now I’ve been bookmarking sites for children that are truly delightful to visit. The sites below are well-designed, fun, clever, and probably just as interesting to you as to your children!”.

Rose shared a little of her family’s day in An Uncredentialed Day posted at Learning At Home. Behold, the horrors of an uncredentialed parent teaching her children. Oh the terror, oh the pain, oh… look pancakes! Mmmm.

Karen shared a perfect example of unschooling in action in 98 Seconds on YouTube Leads to Hours of Fun and Learning posted at Two Boys and a Dragon. Not only is that spark of creativity pretty cool, but her blog name totally beats mine. I’m so envious.

Stephanie W has a post near and dear to my mom of boys lovin’s heart called Interest Led Learning, “All Boy” Style over at the always great group blog Life Without School. She shares that “I’ve found that most of our formal interest-led learning richochets off things I would never have tagged as “educational.” We’ve followed rabbit trails from interests like trading card games and ended up in new and sometimes unexpected places.” OK, but what about burping contests at the dinner table? Cause my boys are excelling at that right now.

Feeling a little hesitant by all the super cool unschoolers around you? Don’t worry, Kevin has some Unique Learning Adventures For Homeschoolers that you can take advantage of from his blog M4K Homeschooling and Education.

Ending on a more serious note, Jennifer Price shared her thoughts on the passing of unschooling advocate Lisa Heyman at her blog Cosmic Mama. Her life touch so many and she will be greatly missed.

I hope you all loved this edition of Unschooling Voices as much as I did.  For more information on next month’s edition and for links to all the previous editions check out the Unschooling Voices main page. Thanks!

Tags: unschooling, unschooling voices, home education, family

Having a niece that is only 2 months older than Evan and in preschool sometimes leaves the door open to comparisons. As she is learning to write her letters there have been some comments about how Evan hasn’t even begun to draw lines and circles, much less attempt to create the marks needed for letters. I was a bit worried, I’ll admit.

But the worry didn’t need to last long. Last Christmas my mom got Evan several coloring and activity books. The kinds with mazes and connect the dots and little pictures to color. They also had pages with letters and numbers written out in dotted lines to be traced and copied. Evan asked me once what they were for, I explained, and he shrugged.

Until recently. I keep the activity books on the shelf with his crayons and coloring paper for him to get down whenever he wants. The last few days he has been very interested in using his activity books, especially the pages with letters to trace. He has begun tracing up a storm, carefully following the dotted lines to form letters and numbers all on his own. Without any coaching, worksheets, or gold stars he is teaching himself to print for nothing more than the joy in doing so.

As proud of him as I am, and trust me I really am proud and excited, it is kind of nice to have some bragging rights. Or at least to have one less thing for people to assume Evan can’t learn unless he is in school too.

Tags: homeschooling, unschooling, preschool, learning, writing, children

I’m the kind of girl who gives in to peer pressure. First I saw this posted over at Relaxed Homeskool and Schoolless, and then Doc mentioned it. And now I have no choice but to join in the fun.

 *Your favorite resource

*One field trip they loved and learned on

*The game they love so much they don’t realize it is educational

*What you’ve “strewn” lately

*Everyday task where they pick up lots of info

* A resource you have always wanted to purchase for the children but keep putting off (not really put off as much as can’t afford it all)

*What your kids think school is really like

* Best place to unschool

Tags: meme, images meme, unschooling meme, unschooling

On Friday a book that was meant to be a Christmas gift came in the mail. But me being me couldn’t wait and immediately opened it up for Evan to enjoy. I was originally excited when I found A Child’s Garden of Verses at PaperBackSwap and swiped it up. I expected to get an older book, well used from years of reading. Instead the book I hurriedly pulled out of the package was brand new! The book had never been opened as far as I can tell. We spend a big part of the afternoon curled up on the couch reading the poems one after another, breathing in that new book smell.

With each book we add to the collection the more I wish for a sudden lump of cash to fall in my lap. I could easily spend a few thousand dollars on gently used books and still yearn for more. Especially during the winter months when it is cold and grey out. There’s nothing like curling up to hot cocoa and a good book after flinging snowballs. Make that a doulbe of hot cocoa after being the sole target of the snowballs the entire time.

Hopefully the snow isn’t so bad as to cancel the homeschooling moms meeting tonight. We had to postpone it last Monday because of the ice that covered everything. I’m looking forward to getting out tonight. Ahhh, adult interaction!

Tags: books, A Child’s Garden of Verses, children, Winter

If there is not an inherent attracting power in the material then … the teacher will either attempt to surround the material with foreign attractiveness, making a bid or offering a bribe for attention by ‘making the lesson interesting’; or else resort to … low marks, threats of non-promotion, staying after school …. But the attention thus gained … always remains dependent upon something external…. True, reflective attention, on the other hand, always involves judging, reasoning, deliberation; it means that the child has a question of his own and is actively engaged in seeking and selecting relevant material with which to answer it.

-John Dewey, 1915

This quote begins chapter 11 (Hooked On Learning: The Roots of Motivation in the Classroom) in Punished By Rewards by Alfie Kohn. The entire book is a great look at how bribes, grades, and rewards can hurt rather than help. Especially when the reward is McDonald’s.

I admit I’ve used bribes to get a short term effect. Stop screaming while I’m on the phone and we’ll go to the park later, let me use the bathroom in peace and I’ll read you another story, stop playing and eat your dinner and I’ll make a dessert. But bribing kids, especially with nasty food, for good grades just irks me. I’m not a fan of grades themselves. They don’t always show that a child has learned the material, simply that they can spit it back out in an accepted manner. I’ve known a few straight A students who were barely able to function in the real world, but they could test well and always turned in their homework so their grades looked great.

It seems to me that helping kids love learning would create better adults than helping kids chase after that carrot. Help them hold on to the wide eyed wonder that they had as toddlers all through out their years. Because the world is an amazing, creative, beautiful, magical place. Learning about it should be breathtaking, they shouldn’t need a Big Mac for correctly marking the little circles on a piece of paper.

Yes I’m an idealist and a dreamer, but I think it is possible. I know that I’ve learned more as an adult motivated by my own interests than I ever did as a student motivated by rewards. I was one of those straight A students, with a high GPA, ACT scores that got me into any school of my choice, and more scholarships that I could count. What did it all mean? That with the right rewards hanging over my head I could jump through hoops like a pro. It was like teaching a rat to push the red button for a treat. What joy comes form pushing the red button alone? None, so there must be that treat to entice him to push it.

Learning for the love of learning is a far greater reward and more powerful motivator than anything external could ever be.

Today was a dreary, rainy day. One of those days where you just stay inside and grumble all day. Luckily E found his red bandanna from his pirate costume and converted it to something new. Suddenly the living room became the scene of a shoot-out as E the bandit and Sheriff Mom battled it out. It was a scary day in the Wild West. The Bandit E tried jumping on the train as it went by but missed. Luckily Sheriff Mom was there to catch him. He ducked into his cave trying to wait me out, but I went in guns blazing. Unfortunately Sheriff Mom was shot down. Th long arm of the law just couldn’t catch him this time.

After the 400th time of playing out outlaw and sheriff we finally tired enough to curl up on the couch. Unfortunately I don’t have any good books with tales of the lawless West. I do have the book Mistresses of Mayhem which has a short blurb on Belle Starr, but that’s about it. Tomorrow we’ll have to take recycling in so maybe we can make a trip by the library and see what they have. Living in Oklahoma we should have a pretty good collection to choose from.

And while I’m there I might try to use the library printer really quick and print off a couple western coloring pages for him. I think he would get a kick out of coloring a cowboy or two. Maybe I could make a tinfoil badge and make a “wanted” poster with a photo of him. And of course, I better figure out a way for him to have a pretend gun. After all, the shoot out is the best part of the fun!

Children learn about the rain forest, but usually not about their own region’s forests, or … even just the meadow outside the classroom door.

I’m finally getting close to being done with Last Child in the Woods. The more I read the more I love this book. It’s one that I really think every parent needs to read.

I’m in a part where he is talking about children’s experiences with nature shaping how they feel about it. Sitting in a desk reading about rain forests thousands of miles away may teach them the logistics of being environmentally friendly, but it does nothing to teach them to love the environment. When we love something we are more likely to want to protect it, we feel a deeper connection that stays with us.

I didn’t learn about pollution or rain forests or destruction as a child. What I learned was the best way to climb the old apple tree in my grandmother’s yard, how the wet grass felt between my toes, and what animals would come close enough if I offered the right treats. I fell in love with the prickly silver tinted plants that grew along side the dirt road, the ones with the purple flowers shaped like stars. And I found peace on warm nights when not a single cloud covered the billions of stars in the sky. Learning the natural history of the world around me.

I do think that kids need to first know the nature around them before they can begin to love the nature they will probably never see. Learn the names of the lizards and bugs that crawl around outside, find out which local plants are edible, and most importantly feel the grass under bare feet running. Louv talks about how important nature is for emotional and intellectual health in children. He says that children exposed to nature are better socialized, are calmer, and are learn at a better rate than those who live in concrete world full of video games. He also emphasizs that kids need to really get out in it. Not just take walks but build tree houses and chase lizards. Fall in love with nature first.