Welcome to the September Carnival of Natural Parenting: We're all home schoolers
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have shared how their children learn at home as a natural part of their day. Please read to the end to find a list of links to the other carnival participants.
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Theme: "We're all home schoolers: Children, of whatever age, are learning all the time. Describe some of the ways your children learn at home as a natural part of their day. No matter if your children attend (or plan to attend) traditional schools or not, please talk to us about how you incorporate home-schooling or unschooling ideals and practices into your children's education."
Our daughter is 3.5 years old, and it fascinates us how she naturally loves to learn. As she begins to explore her own imagination, we are blown away with her stories. Kids that age take bits and pieces of things learned so far in their life, and they seem to string it all together.... how it seems right to them, to create something sweet and imaginative.Just the other day our daughter told us, "the great clouds knock the stars out of the sky into a bag and then the people take them away... then the rain comes and brings the stars back."
I love that. It's like a poem. It may not be a fact, but that doesn't make it not right. That's the power of imagination.
Our daughter has learned so much from simple observation, from the books we read, from paying attention to all the things that interest her the most. Learning happens every day, even when we don't realize it.
For example, we've talked to her about bees because she eats raw honey. But I did not realize how much she had learned about bees until she told me "bees get pollen from flowers, it sticks to their legs and then they make honey."
True story! It is amazing how much children, even at the young age of 3 years old, can learn just by having someone talk to them like an adult. We always explain things to our daughter and we don't talk to her any different than anyone else. I think that's why she has learned so much and can tell us what she's learned, because she finds it interesting and because we gave her the benefit of the doubt.
For us, learning is intertwined into our everyday life. We draw, we color, we talk about squirrels, spiders, butterflies, gardening and any particular item/subject/colors that my daughter is interested in for that day, week or month.
So, whether it's telling and illustrating stories,
using her imagination to stack thread spools to make a "robot," learning how to depict a rainbow on paper,or learning that we all need to play, laugh and have fun.
We're just happy knowing that our daughter is learning to be herself. She's learning and developing all kind of skills, while being allowed to explore what fascinates her most... all within a home that supports learning, exploration and ingenuity. We've found our way and what works best for us. That's what counts, figuring out which path works best for you and your family.
I really enjoyed writing tihs post and exploring our own parenting choices a bit more. Thanks to Lauren at Hobo Mama and Dionna and Code Name: Mama for hosting!
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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:
(This list will be updated September 14 with all the carnival links.)
- 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)