Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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Michelle in IL
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Joined: June 23 2006
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Posted: June 23 2006 at 12:58pm | IP Logged Quote Michelle in IL
I am new here so bear with me.

I am very intrigued by the whole concept of unschooling. It makes sense to me for the most part. Of course people (kids included) are going to learn more, retain more when they are interested in what they are doing. Got it. I do think that there are things that they might not be interested in that is definitely important for them to learn--ie spelling. So radical unschooler I would never be. LOL. I also lean toward control freak so I definitely have a LOT of relaxing to do.

But here is my question. So far we have been doing 'school' in the morning. We do spelling/language arts, then Five in a Row, then Shiller math. I have a 5yo son and 6yo daughter. When I work with one individually, the other can do as he/she pleases in the school area--coloring, drawing, puzzles, legos, blocks, marble runs, and MANY other Montessori activities in sensorial, practical life, math, science, phonics, etc. It has worked very well for us so far.

After "school" is officially over for the day (I know you guys are groaning here--lol), my kids are stuck to each other like GLUE. They do have different interests--Tessa is a horse FANATIC and thinks about little else except for dancing, my son, in typical boy fashion, loves anything with wheels--monster trucks being his current obsession. He also loves to build and has a great talent at it. But even with these different interests, they play together 95% of their waking hours. I would say most of the time, it is pretend play that they do together. Horses, trucks, baby animals that need rescued, that kind of thing.

Now I know that very few homeschool families have just 1 child (few being an understatement, here--lol). So how do your children immerse themselves in their own learning when others are around ALL the time.

I was reading some things on the Bonny Glen blog and just loved the story about the 8yo butterfly expert. So how does my 6yo become a horse breed expert (or whatever it is she wants to do) if she and little brother cannot stop pretending to be baby tigers in need of a mother?

Any insight for me here?
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cathhomeschool
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Posted: June 24 2006 at 8:17am | IP Logged Quote cathhomeschool
Gosh, personally I think you ought to let them be.    They are happy playing together and they are very young. And maybe (you never know) pretending to be a baby tiger in need of a mother is exactly what will help her become what she wants to be some day.....So just enjoy the moment!

If you really want to nurture the horse interest, spend some time reading about horses to both children. There are quite a few good chapter books written by Marguerite Henry. Jan Brett's Fritz and the Beautiful Horses is good too. There's a unit study to go with it at Ami's site. FIAR has a unit on Wild Horses of Sweetbriar, but my library doesn't carry that book so I haven't seen it yet.

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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
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