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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both jon and i grew up loving pbs, the discovery channel, animals, science, and of course SHARK WEEK! we grew into adults who continue to learn in our everyday lives, everything from documentaries to reading about politics current events and theory. (or the history of russian prison gangs and the history of piracy, the more you knoooow!)
one of my greatest hopes as a parent is to instill a love of learning in the jude, and not just the school type. we share a love of knowing how things work and strive to pass that on. our interest in how things work is both practical, informative, and... cool. it's cool to learn how things work. it's amazing to learn about photosynthesis or light refraction. we want to share with jude that learning goes beyond grades and projects and can just be... for fun.
learning and knowing and growing and exploring are all good things, and even better outside the classroom. learning at home in everyday situations helps out the practical aspects of it– instead of complaining that what you learn in school is useless. (i made that complaint many times, cough cough, physics class, cough cough) if all your learning focus is based on what you do in school what happens when you're out of school and out in the big wide world? learning doesn't have to stop there. you can continue pursue things just because you're interested in them.
for us, a family with two working parents, we won't be homeschooling or "unschooling". but that doesn't mean that we can't make learning a top priority in our home, through reading, trips to the zoo and local museums, but mainly through discussion. through talking and thinking and interacting with each other and being hands on about the jude's education. what it comes down to is that knowledge is a priority in our lives and we hope that it will be in his too. at some point this nerdyness has to rub off on the kid, right?
who am i kidding, really it's just so we can watch planet earth on dvd and talk about nichola tesla. we did read him sherlock holmes in utero, you know.
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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:
- 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)
