What We Do All Day

This month’s carnival topic couldn’t be more appropriate for us. Last week was our first official week as homelearners. Of course, as the carnival theme points out, “we’re all home schoolers” and “children, of whatever age, are learning all the time” whether they attend traditional schools or not.

In fact, our daily routine this past week really didn’t differ much from our routine over the summer. The difference now is just that as I’ve officially signed up with a home learning program, I’m responsible. Ack. How nerve wracking!

The program we’ve signed up with is called SelfDesign and it isn’t curriculum based. We can learn any way that we want and follow our kids’ whims and interests. There really are very few constraints and I love that the program recognizes exactly the theme of this month’s carnival: kids are learning all the time, just by going about their daily activities. We are assigned a learning consultant who helps us come up with a learning plan for the year. They encourage you to do mind maps with your kids so they have input into what they want to do over the year. The learning plan becomes the road map that guides us. The more overwhelming part is that we must report weekly to our learning consultant. The report includes a journal and reflection on our weekly activities and we must log a certain number of hours spent in these activities each week.

Initially I felt really worried that we wouldn’t DO enough to account for all these hours. I have ordered some books and art supplies and other project materials that I intend to have in a cupboard to dig into when the little sister is napping. But alas, they haven’t arrived yet. Swimming lessons don’t start until October. We’re still deciding on some other group activities. What were we going to do every day?!

It turned out that the answer to my dilemma wasn’t to rush to the computer and start googling and printing off worksheets for my not even 5 year old, pre-literate little one. The answer was to just start observing our day with fresh eyes (funnily enough our reports are called Observing For Learning).

What did I see?

The first day, Rain was outside in the garage with his dad. He came inside with a board. Onto the board he had screwed some fasteners to hold down some flexible hose. He had attached some plumbing bits to the hose, including a spout and a tap/valve. He showed me his handiwork and then went straight into the bathroom to test if his valve worked. Sure enough, it did. Water poured from the faucet at the bathroom sink, through his hose, past the valve (which he had put in the open position) and straight onto the bathroom floor. Success!! We mopped up the water, and put him in the bathtub with his contraption and he proceeded to play experiment for another 30 minutes. Early science experiment disguised as play.

Later that day, we went for a walk on the beach for an hour. Rain ran about and dug for crabs by following the air holes in the sand at low tide. He identified various types of shells, filled our van with rocks and driftwood and watched some kite surfers playing in the wind. A walk at the beach became both science class and gym class.

And what about the questions I answer all day long? In the last couple of days, I’ve answered questions on why the tide always changes, how to identify an evergreen tree, why someone might lie or steal and whether or not it’s a good thing to do, what is in the center of the earth, and a surprisingly tricky one to answer: what is math?

It’s a little tricky getting the hang of logging our “schooling” hours but it’s not from lack of time spent learning. It’s more a matter of quantifying all these little moments spent in conversation through the day, as we drive, as we grocery shop, as I keep  a little one on the toilet company, as we eat lunch, as we pick up toys, as we tuck them in to bed at night.

I do look forward to the arrival of our supplies and to using them to add a bit more routine to our day but I’m certainly a lot less worried about what we’re doing in the mean time.

How do you observe your kids learning at home? I would also love to hear some of the great questions your little ones ask!

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This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting. This month our participants have shared how their children learn at home as a natural part of their day. Visit Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama to find out how you can participate in the next Carnival of Natural Parenting!

Please take time to read the submissions by the other carnival participants:

• A is for Apple {But right now it’s more fun to pick apples!} — Kat at Loving {Almost} Every Moment has a four-year-old who wisely knows she must forgo the worksheets for now and do things with her mother if she’s going to learn.
• Baby Talks — Amy at Anktangle talks, talks, talks all day long to her preverbal baby, about simple things and complexities. (@anktangle)
• Baby University: Little Man, My Teacher — The ArtsyMama shares how her relaxed and patient “teaching” at home resulted in a confident little one when she returned to work.
• Creating a Sensory Garden — A sensory garden has given Marita at Stuff With Thing and her girls practice in math, science, budgeting, fine motor skills, and more. (@leechbabe)
• Despite the Big Yellow Bus — Seonaid at The Practical Dilettante has surprised many friends by sending her kids off to mainstream schooling — but their learning doesn’t stop there. (@seonaid_lee)
• Down on the Farm — Megan at Purple Dancing Dhalias describes the multitude of skills her children learn by homeschooling on a farm.
• Early Childhood Education — First Do No Harm — Laura at Laura’s Blog provides an incredible list of tips to facilitate learning at home.
• Education Starts At Home — Luschka at Diary of a First Child was happy to realize that learning at home isn’t limited to older children. (@lvano)
• Every Day Is A School Day — Summer at Finding Summer lists the ways her family learns in this poem of a post. (@summerminor)
• hands on — the grumbles at grumbles and grunts read her little one Sherlock Holmes in utero. She’ll continue to make learning fun now that he’s on this side of the womb. (@thegrumbles)
• Have a Happy Heart — Erica at ChildOrganics has days of poop on the couch and oatmeal down the pants when sending her children to school seems like the perfect solution — until she regains her perspective. (@childorganics)
• Home Sweet Home Schooling — Check out CurlyMonkey’s Blog for a photo montage of how her kids are learning anatomy, architecture, and more — all at home. (@curlymonkey_)
• Homeschooling — My Needs? — Do you homeschool for the kids, or do you do it for you? Read some thoughts from Home Grown Families. (@momtosprouts)
• Homeschooling: A Way of Life — Kimberly at Homeschooling in Nova Scotia has children who meet learning with enthusiasm and are becoming self-sufficient at a young age. (@UsborneBooksCB)
• How We Homeschooled — Deb at Living Montessori Now details in retrospect how her two lifelong learners spent their homeschooling years. (@DebChitwood)
• Learning at Home With a Preschooler and Toddler — Need some inspiration? Michelle at The Parent Vortex shares her tips and resources for lifelong learning. (@TheParentVortex)
• Learning at Home: Are We All Homeschoolers? — Kristin at Intrepid Murmurings incorporates homeschool ideas even though she plans to send her kids to school. (@sunfrog)
• Learning From Life — Mamapoekie at Authentic Parenting doesn’t even have to think about how her daughter learns. She just does it. (@mamapoekie)
• Learning Through Play — What better way to learn at home than through play? Dionna at Code Name: Mama lists the many ways children learn through play, whether they know it or not. (@CodeNameMama)
• Learning With Savoury Pikelets — Deb at Science@Home breaks down how cooking facilitates learning. (@ScienceMum)
• Lessons Learned by Bowling (Yes, Bowling) — What life lessons can you learn from bowling? Ask Jessica from This is Worthwhile. (@tisworthwhile)
• Life is learning, learning is life. — Kristin, guest posting at Janet Fraser — Where birth and feminism intersect, defends the truth that children are hardwired to learn. (@JoyousLearning)
• life learning… — Mandy at Living Peacefully with Children found that structured schooling is about teaching, whereas unschooling is about learning, and her family resonated with the latter.
• Live to Learn Together — RealMommy at True Confessions of a Real Mommy knows that children learn in all different styles, so only one-on-one attention can do the trick.
• Natural Parenting and the Working Mom — Jenny from Chronicles of a Nursing Mom shares how natural parenting in the Philippines — and learning at home — includes “yayas” (nannies). (@crazydigger)
• Not Back to School: How We Learn at Home — Denise at This Holistic Life has learned to describe what unschooling is, rather than what it isn’t.
• Our Learning Curve — Andrea of Ella-Bean & Co. has a special bookshelf set up where her daughter can explore the world on her own terms.
• School at Our House — Where is learning happening at Kellie at Our Mindful Life’s house? It is pouring all over the floor. It is digging down deep in the earth. It is everywhere!
• Schooling Three Little Piggies — Despite the mess and the chaos, Melissa at White Noise lets her children into the kitchen.
• SuperMom versus The Comic Books of Doom! — Mommy Soup at Cream of Mommy Soup realized that if “getting the kids to read” was the goal, it didn’t matter what the kids read. (@mommysoup)
• The joy of learning at home — Heather at Life, Gluten Free has a daughter who sees magic in the stars and understands the honeybees. (@lifeglutenfree)
• those who can’t teach — Do you need a superiority complex to homeschool? Stefanie at Very, Very Fine wonders.
• Too lazy to unschool? — If unschoolers aren’t lazy, Lauren at Hobo Mama wonders if she’s too lazy to live her dream of free-form education. (@Hobo_Mama)
• Unschooling the School of Me — Rachael at The Variegated Life considers what she’s teaching her son about work as a work-at-home mother — and the extreme work ethic she doesn’t want him to emulate. (@RachaelNevins)
• What We Do All Day — Alison at BluebirdMama discovered that it’s easier than she thought it would be to quantify how her child learns all day. (@childbearing)
• Who taught that kid ‘exoskeleton’? — Nervous about how you will facilitate learning at home? Don’t be – they will absorb things on their own! Joni Rae at Tales of a Kitchen Witch Momma shares her story. (@kitchenwitch)