Household Rules for Our Unschooling Family

Household Rules for Our Unschooling Family

by | Motherhood

Household Rules for Our Unschooling Family - Aimed at the Heart

My interpretation of unschooling is that it is a form of learning from life without imposing a specific curriculum or forcing a specific method of teaching on my children.

A lot of information about unschooling that I have read talks about how it is just letting life teach your children the things they need to know to live and thrive in this world and culture. This method of learning has always made perfect sense to me. If you need a skill to survive in your current role or career, you find a way to aquire it. Sometimes this is done through extensive reading and research, other times through hands-on trial & error, and other times it requires us to take a course specifically set up to give us the proper qualifications and information. At the end of the day, the outcome is the same: the new skill is learned because you chose to learn it. Why should it look any different for our children?

Many radical unschoolers forgo the practice of schedules or parent-imposed learning or even restrictions on anything that many other children have limits on. While I understand how this can work really well for some families, I feel that unschooling gives my family and I the opportunity to set up our household in a way that works for us. My family runs better when we have a regular rhythm to our days. This also means that we require certain things from our children and have certain rules for them.

Here is a bit of a framework for our family:

* We require our children to participate in the family, including the family work (household as well as farm).
* We expect them to show the love of God through their actions and attitudes. We do no allow them to disrespect us or each other.
* We believe that our children must respect us as authority figures (which, in turn, means that we must prove ourselves to be an authority worth respecting).
* We teach and expect them to treat their bodies as temples of God, which includes healthy eating habits, an active lifestyle, and healthy sleep habits.
* The condition of their heart takes precedence over all else.

Those are some of the boundaries and expectations that we have in place for when our children live in our home.

The Alberta School Act even states it’s goal for students become a “self-reliant, responsible, caring and contributing member of society.” It seems that even the Alberta government believes that character is important. Many employers realize that while skills can always be taught, character cannot. In fact, out of the 46% of job failures that happen within the first 18 months, 89% was due to attitude issues, only 11% was due to lack of skill. So, in order to give my kids the best foot forward, our main focus will be to develop their character. We believe that these things are essential to our children becoming capable and well-adjusted adults. And isn’t that what unschooling, or any other educational method, is all about?

Is Homeschooling Right for Your Family?

Is Homeschooling Right for Your Family?

by | Motherhood

Have you been thinking about homeschooling but aren't sure if it's a good fit for your family? Here's a great way to figure out - Aimed at the Heart

 

Have you thought about homeschooling but are still trying to figure out if homeschooling is right for your family? I came across a website that made me think about my reasons for wanting to homeschool and actually put them on paper. This was an awesome exercise for me to go through because not only did it make me evaluate my reasoning (part of it is because I just can’t stand the thought of sending my children away from me for 8-9 hours a day) and expand on that, it was also good for my husband to see what some of the reasons were. He was initially a little more skeptical of homeschool but fast forward a few years and he has turned into a homeschooling advocate. This is a great exercise to go through if you have ever wonder is homeschooling right for your family.

Here are the thoughts that I put on paper as I followed the outline on the aforementioned website:

Our Educational Beliefs

1. We believe children should love learning.
2. We believe a parent’s main goal for a child is to teach him/her to:
a) Love God wholeheartedly
b) Love others as they love themselves
c) Love him/herself (confidence/self-esteem)
3. We believe all children learn by different methods and learning should be tailored to suit the child (not vice versa)
4. We believe children are naturally curious and should not be discouraged from pursing those interests.
5. We believe education should not be restricted to a certain subject or method.
6. We believe a parent/teacher should only ever have enthusiasm about a child learning, not disappointment over what they haven’t learned.
7. We believe that if we work on our weaknesses, we end up with strong weaknesses and weak strengths. Instead we should focus on improving our strengths.


Life Goals for Our Children

1. We hope he learns to listen to his Heavenly Father in all things.
2. We hope he shows commitment to what he starts and is a man of his words.
3. We hope he becomes a wonderful, loving, involved husband and father (if God leads him that way).
4. We hope he does everything to his best ability.
5. A man of impeccable morals and ethics, We hope he always does the right thing, no matter what others do.
6. We hope he takes care of the mind and body God has given him.
7. We hope he is not afraid to be who God made him to be. Not ashamed of who he is.

Why we are going to home educate our children:

1. No one has a better vested interest in their education than we do.
2. To give us flexibility of time to pursue life instead of grades.
3. To stay close to our children – emotionally, mentally, and physically.
4. To take the money we could spend on school and use it for education instead.
5. To be the favorite and respected teacher that they think about when they grow up.
6. Because we want my kids to learn in a way they enjoy.
7. Because kids learn better/more if they are not restricted by grades/curriculum.
8. Because we will not allow anyone to make my child feel stupid or inferior.
9. So our children will learn with, intereact with, and appreciate children in all age groups.
10. So we can learn right alongside our children.
11. Our school systems do not recognize the uniqueness of our children and their specific needs/interests.
12. To know what our children are learning.

I highly recommend that all parents fill out the first two parts of the activity. Then take a step back and figure out if the conventional school system will be able to meet those goals. If so, then you know what to do. If not, perhaps it is time to look at an alternative for your child’s future.

So how did you answer the question of is homeschooling right for your family?

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Baking from the Garden

by | Homemaking

fresh Mint in cookies

My mint plant started to look like it was feeling a bit crowded so I trimmed a few sprigs off the top with a plan to dry it and put it into one of my new (to me) glass canning jars. I was already picturing it in my pantry as I gently washed and dried my mint. Caleb had different ideas.

“Mom, we need to bake something with these.”
“Like what? I don’t think that the chicken thawing for supper will taste good with mint.”
“No, we should bake cookies. It has been a while since we baked cookies and mint cookies would be so yummy.”

So I went off to my trusty laptop to find a recipe for mint cookies. Chocolate and mint just go hand in hand so we found a great recipe for mint chocolate chip cookies. There were a ton for mint extract but that was the only one I found to use with fresh mint.

We started mixing the ingredients and I soon realized that I didn’t have an egg. So I called the neighbour (aka my mom) to ask if she had one (she pretty much always does!). I sent Caleb over and he walked back very carefully cradling our missing ingredient.

Mint chopped, dough mixed, beater licked and we waited. My kitchen started to smell better and better!

Mint chocolate chip cookies

Mint Chocolate Chip Cookies
Fresh out of the oven and garden!

The cookies have now passed the official taste test and it’s all I can do not to eat them all right now. I’ve already had two of them. Or maybe it was three?

I made a few subsititions to the recipe because I try to make cookies a little more healthy for my family: I used about 2/3 of the sugar (looking back I should have also substituted the my organic raw sugar for the white refined stuff); I used organic whole wheat pastry flour; I only put in half the chocolate and part of that was raw cacao nibs. So now I feel a little bit better about the fact that I’ve eaten a few extra cookies.

Things Caleb learned: measuring/counting ingredients, we talked about why we chop the mint (more surface area to infuse the mint flavour), and we counted the total number of cookies made (2 dozen, though it would have been one more except I ate the extra dough!). He also learned about how to harvest mint and the purpose of pruning. We talked about how we are going to dry it to save it for another day. Lastly, we ate some of the fruits of our labour.

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Amatuer Bird Watcher

Amatuer Bird Watcher

by | Motherhood

C has, since he was quite young, had a special place in his heart for birds. I remember when he first learned to sign it: We would be sitting at the table and he would point out the window and sign “bird.” Adam and I couldn’t see any so we just said, “yes, birds live outside.” After a couple of weeks of him regularly insisting that there were birds out that window I finally decided to take him to that side of the house to see his reaction. It turns out there was a bird nest right above our window. You couldn’t see the nest from inside but C must have seen the birds flying in and out of it when Adam and I weren’t looking.

He was about two when we splurged and bought him a “Birds of Alberta” book. He flipped through it pretty regularly for a while but then it got put in the jumble of books on the shelf.

The birds have recently returned from their soiree in the south. And the bird book has reappeared. My father purchased a set of small binoculars so C can now officially go birdwatching. It is incredible how much he know about specific species and how many he can identify! For a while we would read about a bird (or two, or six) every day. Now he brings the book a couple times a week to learn (or relearn) about one bird at a time.

I believe that this is unschooling at it’s finest. Provide the opportunity, and children will get curious. Learning without pressure or prejudice.  All I need to do is encourage him. And learn about birds alongside my son.

Random bird fact: Did you know that a house swallow waits until other birds build a next and then swoops in a takes it from them? (C doesn’t think that is very nice.)

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