Puzzles

 A few months ago, Seneca was given a puzzle to work on. Much to my surprise, she sat and concentrated on it for over an hour.  She has been given more puzzles since then and she loves them.  She is now getting to where she can figure them out much faster, even brand new ones.  Once she has finished a puzzle, she breaks it apart and does it again.  I don't require her to sit until the puzzle is done. She does this on her own. If a puzzle is frustrating her, she is encouraged to take a break from it.  Sometimes I offer to help her with one or two pieces. She also enjoys doing floor puzzles with her 8 year old cousin.

  Here are some pictures of her with the most recent puzzle that I bought for her. It is a 24 piece puzzle. She figured it out in about ten minutes. Now, she loves to put together again and again.  In a world of hand held video games, I'm so glad that she loves this.  Funny thing is, I was never good at puzzles myself.

Seneca and I with the scarf I made

Emergent Curriculum

This is perhaps the best way to sum up our educational philosophy. We are more emergent learners than unschoolers.  Thanks to Rachael at http://gotkiddos.blogspot.com/ for sending the link below to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_curriculum

Seneca lost her tooth.

Seneca lost her second tooth last night.

Homemade Paint Day

Thanks to my friend Rachael at Gotkiddos.blogspot.com for showing me this link on how to make paint from condensed milk.  http://ecemadeeasy.com/posts/painting-with-condensed-milk/

We've been using an old egg carton to separate the colors. Tonight, we only painted in one color, green. It was Seneca's choice.  Waldorf education often has children at this age painting in only one color at a time.  However, it is usually one of the primary colors.  I did think it great that Seneca would choose green just over a week away from St. Patrick's Day.

Thoughts on Curriculum As An Unschooling Resource

 I'm not really hard core anything when it comes to education.  I recognize that what's good for one child isn't necessarily what's right for another one. Add to that, I believe in mixing it up a bit for the same kid sometimes.
   I understand that the ideal of unschooling is to let a child follow his or her own natural curiosity to the result of learning.  I do believe that this does allow a child - and an adult - to not only surface learn, to really inhale and take a topic to heart.
   Last year, my then seventh grade daughter unschooled herself in all things Tudor Era England.  And I do mean all things, not just Henry plus six.  She went into details on the extended Tudor family.  Another great example, I believe, of unschooling success.
  However,  my daughter's unschooled time was also supplemented by resources from a Waldorf publisher's site. http://www.steinerbooks.org/ Some of her Tudor Era interests were even covered in the history book The Age of Discovery by Charles Kovacs.
   This brings me to the title of this post.  I see that for many alternative homeschoolers the word curriculum has a bad rap.  Curriculum is often seen as "school in a can," to use Gregory and Martine Millman's expression.  A curriculum can also be a wonderful resource to a child pursuing his or her own interests.  Many curricula offer excellent project ideas. Perhaps while following a curriculum, a child may develop a real love for the topic being presented and then step outside of the curriculum to further explore the topic - unschooling at its best!  Maybe while learning about one topic, the child may become interested in a "brother-topic" that is introduced during the course of the study.  Many curricula also offer suggestions for further reading which an unschooled child may greatly appreciate.

At GWIZ Science Museum