Our Unschooled Life

De-schooling/Unschooling is an interesting phenomon. There are all sorts of definitions. You can read some here and here and here. Most of a kid's life in our society is quite scheduled. They go to school and are told what to do. They are then shuffled off to piano and soccer and swimming and elocution and who knows what else....and don't always have a lot of time for free-play. As a result many children are losing the ability to just play. I believe that a lot of learning comes through free play and unstructured time. I've also learned that if my kids don't get enough unstructured time they get a little snarly and crazy and are just not that fun to live with - so we're careful not to get our lives too scheduled.

I've found my kids adjust quite well and quite quickly to being out of school. I think it comes quite natural in our house. They've always been quite good at figuring out what they'd like to do and what they're interested in. We don't have a big problem with boredom in our house (probably because they've learned that if they tell me they're bored I find chores for them to do!)

Today P wanted to learn how to make Pigs in a Blanket....so we dug up a recipe on the internet and made some from scratch! We only had four hot dogs in the fridge so we just made crescent rolls with the rest. It's always interesting to see how when we take the time to do little things like this P is content and happy and clearly feels loved. He must be a quality time kid.

Peirce rolled the dough out himself. I showed him how to use the pizza cutter to cut the triangles and rolled one crescent roll for him...and then he was off and running.
The finished tray of crescent rolls....
Pigs in a blanket for lunch!! It always tastes better when you get to help with the baking!

Mmmmmmmmmmm!!! Good! :0)

J has been busy making a dictionary. I thought this was quite interesting. If I had given her an assignment to make a dictionary, well, I'm pretty sure that would go over like a lead balloon. However, lately she's been telling me about words she loves: whisper, splat, pink, etc. Mostly the words she picks are ones that she thinks sound neat, or sound like what they mean. She decided she'd make a dictionary of these words and today she decided she'd illustrate it as well. She has worked on it for hours! I love it when that happens.

Hard at work.....
Here is one of her pages of illustrations. I love her drawings!