I Ain't Scared of Third Grade!

I have to admit, at first I was a bit apprehensive. We've just gone whole-hog on Unschooling, and here I am whipping out What Your Third Grader Needs to Know, worried beyond reason that there is going to be something life-changing in there, one thing that Tex NEEDS to know and cannot get without me sitting him down and telling him about it, and probably doing worksheets. Frankly, I wouldn't mind a bit, I love doing worksheets and seeing how many answers I can get right, 'cause I'm a smartypants like that. :-) But if there's one thing Tex can't stand it's being led down a path he's not independently interested in traveling, so it was with much trepidation that I opened up this "helpful" book.

Turns out I had nothing to worry about! Without further ado I present to you our third grade goals:

Language Arts
- continued reading of folk/morality tales, mythology, and fantasy (specifically mentioned are Tales of the Arabian Nights and Norse mythology)
- explore other genres of literature, particularly biographies
- grammar focus is on parts of speech, sentence structure, punctuation

History
- World focus is from the Roman Empire through the European exploration of North & South America
- National focus is on the original colonies through the American Revolution

Art & Music
- continued experience with and discussion of art and music, particularly how they can convey emotion, a story, etc. I would also like to tie music and art to any historical periods in which he is interested.

Mathematics
- using correct mathematical notation. Lately I've begun writing down equations as Tex and I have solved real-life "word problems", since it's what I do if I'm solving one on my own, too, and I imagine continuing that will spark him to do the same eventually.
- practice, practice, practice all the math he can, including the maths of time, money, geometry, and graphs

Science
- Life Sciences - keeping ecosystems in balance (may include applied experiments such as a terrarium, or discussions of food chain interruptions, or following of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill); also the nervous system of the human body
- Physical Sciences - beginning to gather an understanding of: electricity, forms of matter and how to measure them, molecular vocabulary, astronomy
- biographies of scientists in any field of interest

So, that's it. Granted, I winnowed it down to the key focuses without worrying too much about the details, because I don't think it matters whether we read Pollyanna or The Tale of Desperaux if either way we get the same message of working hard and sticking to your principles in the face of adversity. But by and large these topics seem to be ones either A) lend themselves to being learned at any point in life, such that we could cover the Renaissance this year if that is where Tex's interests lie, and save the Middle Ages for another year when he is more engaged, or B) are so vital to being a functioning member of society that he can't help but learn them as a part of his daily life, such as grammar and the mathematics of time, area, or money. So I'm not really worried. If Tex wants to delve into WWII this year instead of the Roman Empire, I'm going to be okay with that. If Egyptian mythology catches his fancy instead of Norse, I think that's workable, too. Most of all I have faith that there's nothing Tex can't learn if he is motivated to do so, and that therefor anything he doesn't learn must be something he doesn't need badly enough at this time. That doesn't mean I'm going to take down our poster about punctuation until he asks for it, or that I'm going to avoid putting the electronics kit on the kitchen table too see if it catches his eye, it just means that I'm going to help him explore his interests to whatever depth he chooses without judging their worth according to the needs of my own life.

In other news, we've seen a recent surge in Tex's reading confidence lately. Just a few weeks ago he was still insisting on us reading everything, but lately he's started to take the initiative and read things for himself, only needing to spell out to us the occasional word. It's actually astounded both myself and Daddy-O some of the words he does NOT need help on. Tex would probably still tell anyone who asks how much he dislikes reading, but hopefully those days will be numbered as his confidence continues to grow.

I'll be back soon to post a little about some processes and projects I'm thinking of trying this year, to help make our learning time rich and memorable!

Radical Unschooling

Ha! Scared you, didn't I? I know, I know, Unschooling has gotten quite the poor treatment from the media lately, and any of you who have seen said treatments are probably thinking "Oh Lord, what is Brownie trying to do to those kids NOW?" But I'm convinced, y'all. I'm all in.

First, what IS Radical Unschooling? Well, basically, it's letting my children spend their days however (within the boundaries of safety and reality) they want to, trusting that they will learn what they need to learn in order to get by and even succeed in the world. It's me backing off on controlling the details and instead worrying only about controlling the environment so that it can be safe and stimulating. It's living our home life by the principles we find most important rather than a list of rules that can be challenged and broken by kids as well as adults. Speaking of which, I could use some help on the basic principles. Try as I might, the only one I ever come up with is "Be considerate of others"; it seems to cover a multitude of conflicts we usually have (not cleaning up dishes/wrappers, sibling arguments, yelling at a child to come do it NOW without any regard for the activity in which they were engaged, etc.) without being too wordy or sounding too hard.

Now, I must admit to a little bit of subterfuge. I was reading Sandra Dodd's Big Book of Unschooling right as the last "school year" was ending, so I decided to test the ideas by implementing them as temporary, Summertime rules. We told Tex and Noodle that they no longer had to clean up a room to play videogames, there were no restrictions on their tv time, and over the course of a few weeks we loosened up on meal times and food suggestions. We did all this with the idea that, if it didn't work, we could always go back to living by the rules when the "school year" started up again in August. But I don't think we're going to. The kids have responded so well, and our house is so much happier, I think that, as Alice Cooper said, "School's out forever". :-)

But relax, that doesn't mean we don't have responsibilities. In fact on the parents' part this is going to mean a lot of very conscious choices. If we're not going to dictate our children's food choices then we'd better only have food in the house we're okay with them choosing, possibly over and over again. If we're going to let them make their own learning choices then we can't guilt or shame them for not being interested in reading, writing, or science, any more than we'd do if they weren't interested in art, sports, or musical theory. Basically, if we're going to create an environment where they get to make their own choices, then we need to do what we can to make sure the limited choices they have are safe, largely healthy, and supported. Soon enough they'll be out in The World where there are millions of choices, a great many of them unsafe, unhealthy, and insupportable. I want them to have some practice before they get there.