Unschooling

I homeschool my five children. And over recent weeks we have become unschoolers and I love it! Susannah (8) broke her arm a few weeks back and so any 'work' we were doing has stopped...I haven't given them any work to do since! Yet more learning and more interest and more creativeness has been done in the last few weeks than all year!

So for the next year we will unschool.....Chris (13) has a whole list of things he wants to study....and he also has his interest in film making...he wants to work in the movie industry.

Laurence has been doing a LOT of reading....has been obsessed with drawing cartoons and studying books on drawing...and has been reading up on history - Egypt and the Middle Ages amongst others...and he has been designing creatures on some animation website.

Susannah has been looking at all the links I have been sending to her...and has been watching a lot of science and 'how it works' shows on tv....as well as helping Lloyd on the coop and helping me with Sam a lot.....

Abigail is always wanting to learn...she loves to do 'schoolwork' and do writing and loves to be read to......and she has been learning about penguins and frogs too! How can she not learn naturally just by living here amongst chickens and frogs and birds and nature and her siblings and LIFE!!!!

So we are choosing to go with an unschooling friendly schoolboard this year and are totally relaxing.....Chris can focus on his portfolio instead of his diploma and can enjoy learning whatever interests him...as can the others!!!

We went to the splashpark on Thursday...and met up with a whole bunch of homeschoolers...it was such a great day. Very hot and the water was so lovely and cool. We were there for 5 hours and had lunch there. The schools aren't closed for summer yet so it was really nice and quiet and was great to see it filled with homeschooled kids - especially so many older ones...they ahd all taken their water guns for a big 'water battle' and swapped numbers at the end of the day.

The local homeschool group meets on Tuesdays....this week they are having a curriculum sale....I'm interested to see if anyone is selling books......not curriculum but anything the kids would enjoy reading......I love books...I must spend an absolute fortune on books...mainly at yard sales or www.bookcloseouts.com which I just LOVE!!!! I am constantly running out of shelf space for them but you just can't have too many books :)

I love homeschooling here in AB. I homeschooled in the UK for a while but the experience was dreadful really, compared to here. There are just so many choices, resources and such support here. I feel very lucky!