by Tessa | Homeschooling, Resources
Unschooling Reading Resources
Reading is such a huge part of my life so I’m always on the lookout for good unschooling reading resources. That’s a fancy way of saying I love resources that are fun but also actually work to teach kids to read. I now have 4 kids who are completely obsessed with books (granted one of them is still to little to actually read by himself).
The big question to consider when strewing any resources is how do your kids learn? I’ll be upfront and say that I do very little actual teaching to read and my biggest role was to offer the boys opportunities to learn and then sit back to let them choose what works best for them. But I do have some favorite resources that have been popular with all my boys so far that I wanted to share with you.
My three older sons all learned their letters and letter sounds around two. (The newborn obviously isn’t reading yet.) My eldest started reading just before his 7th birthday and now, 2 years later, is reading far above grade level. My second son, age 6, is reading some words and, if he decides to sit and practice more regularly, will be well on his way to above grade levels within the next year. My 3 year old is practicing writing letters and pretending to read by sounding out words.
Favorite Resources to Teach Kids to Read
(disclaimer: some of these are affiliate links which means I may earn a small commission at no cost to you. Keep in mind I only share products that I know and love! Full Disclosure)
” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>Letter Factory DVD
Tad the frog goes to the Letter Factory and Professor Quigley lets him sit in on the lessons as the talking letters learn their sounds. My boys have all loved the characters and Leap Frog has done a fantastic job in making each letter and sound memorable. For example, a “monster” walks into the “A Room” and all the little A’s scream “Aaahh!!!”. Don’t worry, it isn’t a scary monster, just the professor in a fuzzy purple costume. The “P Room” is always a favorite as the P says “P” and pops like popcorn. I recommend this to every mama (or grandma) that I know who wants to introduce their child to letters in a fun way.
” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>Letter Factory Flashcards
We bought the DVD and Flashcards as a bundle and these cards have been played with a ton over the last 8 years. They’ve seen better days but, by some miracle, we have managed to keep all 26 together. The kids love to ask their littlest brother what each letter says and the older two build words and ask each other to guess which word it is. The only downside with word-building is that we only have one of each letter, which limits the amount of words. But they are still a great tool to introduce letters and beginner reading.
” rel=”noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank”>Talking Words Factory
(Can you tell that we love Leap Frog? They didn’t even need to pay me for this.) This show came with our initial purchased bundle and shows the Leap, Lily, and Tad going to the Talking Words Factory. I think some of the talking letters must graduate to this factory because it is all the loved letters from the previous show, except this time they go through the “word whammer” and get stuck together, along with the icky, sticky letters (vowels). This is the movie that has gotten both of my older boys interested in building words and all I have to do is hit “play” while I’m making dinner.
The big question to consider when strewing any resources is how do your kids learn?
These Apps are available for Android and iPhone. We have installed Endless Alphabet (vocabulary words), Endless Reader (sight words), Endless Wordplay (spelling/word building), and Endless Numbers (counting and early arithmetic). The Android version (not sure about the Apple store version) has a few words or levels as a free sample and then you can buy the rest as packages. As of this post, I have not purchased any of the expansion packs for three reasons: I can’t figure out which app I should buy an expansion on (which one the kids would get the most out of), I don’t know if the expansion packs will work with my Google account or if I will have to purchase the pack separately for each tablet. They aren’t cheap, if you move beyond the free versions, but the letters and words make fun sounds and are simple enough for even my toddler to drag and drop. Plus it is really cute to watch my 3 year old kinesthetic learner imitate the goofy motions of the letters!
We started out with the free 2 week trial that they offer new users. The boys ended up liking it so much that I bought a subscription. The gist is that the child does a lesson full of games and catchy songs and fun characters to guide them, and then they get to hatch an egg with an animal in it (or they hatch an acorn if they are doing a Mathseed, as I purchased the companion Math version as well). They boys love figuring out which animal they will get at the end of the lesson and get excited every 10 lessons when they get a new map.
My eldest had issues with the timed lessons so I often sat beside him to turn off the ticking sound and would cover up the timer and tell him we would just practice a few times. He now realizes that the timer is irrelevant and he has learned to turn off the sound and ignore the visual. A great lesson for him to learn how relax enough to think under pressure.
I like that it lets you redo the game as many times as they like, though some of those silly songs from lessons the boys did a couple years ago are still stuck in my head! (1,2,3,4,5, once I caught a fish alive. 6,7,8,9,10, then I let it go again.) You can also get your child to do a placement test if they seem to be struggling or if they’re cruising through the lessons.
My eldest has finished all the maps in Mathseeds and Reading Eggs and isn’t interested in Reading Eggspress (he would rather read paperback books at this point). My 6 year old loves to cruise through 4-5 lessons in one sitting and then doesn’t touch it for a couple weeks. I don’t force him to sit down but I did put a box on his sticker chart. He does his “morning high-5” and then gets to hatch an egg or seed. Again, I’m not super strict about it and give him the option to do it or not. He often decides that he wants to and I have learned to be okay when he doesn’t.
The program is good for toddlers all the way up to tweens and it is is the only program that I consistently pay money for and I’ll continue getting subscriptions for my upcoming readers as well. Getting me to part with my dollar is not an easy task so that’s saying something!
Books, books, and more books
The final resource that has helped my kids with learning and loving to read is to surround ourselves with books. I’m partial to non-fiction books with lots of vivid pictured but I do keep a good stock of quality fiction stories around too. My husband reads a chapter of a read-a-loud every night and I read a lot, both for myself and with them, so reading is just a normal part of their lives. My 9 year old has even started reading a bedtime story to his brothers every evening. I know that the library is ideal for getting fresh books but I love to get books from the thrift store to fill our own shelves. They are super cheap and then the kids can read them over and over again. I also often have a book on hand regarding whatever topic they’re interested in. They don’t have to wait until we make a trip to the library and can delve into that book for however long they want. (Though I have noticed I have a gap in my home library when it comes to geology. Guess I need to make a trip to the thrift store soon, yay!) Sometimes they pull a book of the shelves and get interested in a new topic that way. While I agree that libraries are handy, they do not replace a home library.
You may also enjoy reading:
Book List for Boys (I’m sure they’re great for girls too but I don’t have any girl readers at this point.)
How to Encourage Boys to Love Reading (Again, the advice is sound for girls too but my reading experience is just with boys so far.)
As you can see, we love both technology as well as old fashioned paperbacks when it comes to reading. We don’t do phonics lessons, or forced reading assignments and probably never will (unless a child asks for it). My goal is for my kids to grow up thinking reading is a normal part of every day life. We love Leap Frog and also purchased a LeapReader Pen and LeapPad a couple months ago at a garage sale. So far they are well loved and I believe they will both contribute to the boys’ growing love of books and reading.
What are your favorite ways to foster a love of reading in your children? In yourself?
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by Tessa | Motherhood
It’s a question unschoolers are asked regularly: does unschooling actually work? For our family, unschooling has worked in allowing our boys to learn at their own pace, how and when they decided they are ready. Time and time again my husband and I have been reminded how our kids will figure out what they need to know in their lives/interests and then pursue it. I’ve shared how a simple observation leads to questions in the unschooling process.
Top Gear UK. We have watched every episode on Netflix (also available through Amazon Prime’s Amazon Instant Video
) at least once. Most of them multiple times. Especially the episodes with mustangs. If you haven’t watched the show here’s a low down: three men test drive cars and review them and do a bunch of crazy challenges. From an unschooling perspective, it is a mother of boys’ dream come true. The show involves geography and history (the places they visit), science/mechanics (engines, building experiments), language/vocabulary (the hosts are mostly clean and use fun words like “torque,” “centrifugal force,” and “gravity”), art (in the form of beautifully molded metal as well as the scenery and videography), politics (in various countries, not just England), critical thinking (how can they cross a salt land without sinking?) and even mathematical concepts (horsepower, speed, time).
My boys are young so they’re not quite ready to tear apart an engine to rebuild it but C asks a ton of questions and both boys listen and take in the answers. They have a ton of small cars that they act out the races with, including building ramps and jumps and ferrying them across rivers. They hadn’t really gone beyond that whole cars and racing theme until recently though.
A few weeks ago, they made a train with the kitchen chairs. Certainly not an unusual thing for children to do so I didn’t think much of it. I even packed them a little suitcase with their clothes (ulterior motive: they were still in their jammies so I hoped they would get dressed) and planned to pack them a picnic lunch. They had their tickets and even modified the train to fit a seat for Baby Bear and me. C was the engineer and Biscuit was the conductor.
Then it got even better: they planned a trip.
They were going to drive down Chile to the bottom of South America and see if they would be able to beat (imaginary) Daddy, who was driving a Mustang in the race. This gave us the opportunity to examine our wall map to see what kind of obstacles they would come across (bodies of water, mountains, etc.). We talked about how maps work and calculating distances and how many days the race might take them. It was a really great geography lesson (and probably covered a whole host of other schoolish subjects too) and a really great imaginative game as well.
That is unschooling. It requires very little effort on anyone’s part to follow those questions but it requires a lot of trust that our children are designed to learn. And, if granted the freedom to do so, learn they shall. Even if they spend days at a time watching a tv show with three bickering middle aged men with funny accents.
What has caught the interest of your child recently? What are you willing to do to run with their curiosity?
*This post may contain affiliate links. If you follow the link and choose to make a purchase, I may receive a small referral commission, at no extra cost to you.*
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by Tessa | Motherhood
The unschooling process starts whenever there is an observation.
We have a lilac bush right in front of our back deck. I can’t see anything on the other side of it and I plan to chop it down and trim it or move it this spring. But, for now it sits there, as pretty much the only thing we can see out of our deck door.
The sparrows love our bush. And C loves the sparrows. We hung up a simple bird feeder the other day and have been watching the birds extra closely to see if they eat it. I asked him to grab his bird book so he could identify them. He instantly found that they looked like the birds in the sparrow section. It was tough to see the details to be able to identify the type of sparrow more specifically so I grabbed my camera and took a few photos.
We noticed that there are different kind of sparrows in the bush. So we looked through the book and then grabbed a computer and Googled “types of sparrows.” We looked through a ton of photos online and compared with the ones that I had taken. We talked about the beak colors, crown, eyes, chest and tail. It was great to go through the details and show my boys how many different types of sparrows there are and how they are all different.
Then I got the song “His Eye is on the Sparrow” stuck in my head so I sang it to the boys. It gave me the opportunity to talk to them about Matthew 10:29-31 that talks about how God notices a sparrow fall from the tree, how much more does he know and notice you. So many sparrows just in our bush, yet God knows each and every one of them. I played the song through on the piano a couple times, which made C want to play for a bit. I have a couple lessons books that he likes to try, with some assistance. So he played on and practiced the piano for a while before he came back to the sparrows. By that point, I had printed off some coloring pages, a few of which had some key words (such as Nest, Egg, Sparrow, Seed) for C to learn.
Subjects covered: Science (animal anatomy, diet, and habitat), research skills, music, Bible, reading, coloring and photography. (Did I miss any?)
The unschooling process doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, it’s a lot simpler than people think. Even families who don’t unschool follow the unschooling process in their day-to-day lives. It starts with an observation, which leads to a question, which opens the door to exploring for answers.
What questions have you answered lately for your child that led you down a wonderful path of exploration?
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by Tessa | Faith
When I tell people I’m homeschooling my kids (I often don’t bother telling them we’re unschooling because that requires even more explanation!) they often ask, “So have you started teaching him yet?” or “What are you supposed to be teaching him this year?”
I’m going to start responding with telling them that the primary responsibility of myself as their educator is to teach them about the Lord and His word and will for our lives. Is there anything else more important? Sure, we could send them to school and still teach them that but wouldn’t they catch on much better by seeing it witnessed in our day-to-day life and business proceedings? Scripture doesn’t tell us to teach our kids their multiplication tables. It demands us to teach our children all about Him.
So step 1 for any parent, homeschooler or not, is to fill your children’s hearts with God.
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by Tessa | Homeschooling
How do you establish a common baseline as what skills are necessary to survive and contribute to society? Also, how do you determine how a person meets those criteria in a timely fashion so the system is efficient? I agree that the system does a disservice to some individuals but for the majority it works.
These questions were posed to me by a friend after I shared a photo on my personal Facebook timeline stating that a fish should not be judged by it’s ability to climb a tree.
Here’s the response I gave this friend:
Wouldn’t living/participating in society be the best way to establish the skills needed to live in society? Also, do we need to establish a common baseline? Or perhaps instead of teaching everyone specific facts, we could teach them how to acquire the required knowledge for themselves? For example, the baseline I have for my children includes seeking/trusting the Lord and making Him the center of their lives, learning how to manage finances, taking care of their family, and having integrity in all they do. Those are skills that they learn through participating in society, and church, and getting involved in business and family affairs. I could care less if they ever learn how to solve a quadratic equation, or memorize who the 6th prime minister of Canada was, or know exactly how photosynthesis works.
And what is the definition of “timely fashion?” People used to be married with careers before age 20 and nowadays we still have 30-40 year olds living with their parents who, according to “the system” have been told they are adults but, according to society, do not have the skills necessary to venture out on their own. There are also many individuals who are still pursuing conventional education at those ages who don’t actually begin contributing to society until 10 years later than those who chose to learn career skills within their career instead of in a classroom.
As for efficiency and the system working for the majority of individuals, my personal experience has been very different. Most people I know hated school and learned more about how to live in society after their conventional schooling was finished. They don’t remember and/or use most of the information they were taught in school and, instead, acquired the skills necessary for their vocation through actually participating in that field. I also know way to many people who were made to feel stupid (and some were actually directly told they were stupid) and therefore they still believe that, because they were a fish who was asked to climb a tree, they must be stupid. It is heartbreaking that those “fish,” so to speak, are now too afraid to swim. It may be “efficient” for us to put everyone through the same system, but has not proven effective.
Here is an article where the author states that “The truth is: the sooner you start learning from the real world, the sooner you will find success. School is great as far as it can teach you basic knowledge and allow you to network. However, going to college is not the end — it’s only the beginning.” (Note: Some of the pictures are offensive and I do not necessarily agree with every opinion of the writer, but he does make some good points that are worth considering.)
Another great article on this subjects reminds us that “wisdom, insight and intelligence aren’t a function of how many years you spent in school.”
Please don’t misunderstand me; I’m not saying that college & university are worthless. There are certain instances when it can be very beneficial to attend conventional schooling. What I am saying, however, is that conventional schooling does not help us establish a baseline of skills necessary to live in and contribute to society. Many people thrive in their careers, not only in spite of not completing college or high school, but because of it. It gave them those extra years of experience that they would not have otherwise gotten. In fact, some of the greatest business minds that I know never completed high school. Many of the other great business minds I know are not even working in the field of their degree.
The common baseline of skills is established, and learned, by getting involved in society and applying. Skills are learned in a timely fashion (when a person needs them) and effectively applied. My opinion is that the “real world” is nothing like the “classroom world.” We even tell kids, when they graduate from high school or university and start working full time, “welcome to the real world.”
Where do you stand: should we have a checklist of skills or facts that children need to learn before they become contributing members of society? Is there a specific timeline that we should expect our children to learn them? Is there a particular way that these skills should be taught?
