This is a post of a 4 part post collection of how we unschooled subjects- naturally last year in 2021, check out our other related posts, How we Unschooled 2021 , Unschooling adventures 2021 and learning portfolios 2021
Okay so here it is
I get a lot of messages asking how we turn our unschooling days into subjects for home-school registration records , There's a false lie that just because children are unschooled and free to do whatever they like,all day- that they must not be learning the required subjects (english,maths,creative arts ect ) then their fellow formal schooligans- but it is the complete opposite, unschooling children actually learn more in-depth and above their age on particular subjects and topics because they have been given the freedom to explore things curious to them at their own pace and for however much time they like ,unlike traditional school systems were a child is only allowed to learn what is put in front of them,they do not get a choice to learn and engage in things they find interesting and want to learn about ! they get taught a topic over and over again through planned lessons and textbooks for a short period of time not allowing the child to experience first hand accounts engaging their 5 senses , until the next topic is needed to be learned and then its repeated over again ! Children in mainstream education system usually forget the information they have just learned about, once the test is over or that unit is complete, why ? because it did not interest them, it did not spark their curiosity, and without curiosity learning is not fun and not rememberable.
I'm not a organised person when it comes to trying to document my child's learning every day
As a unschooler and embracing a carefree way to life its annoying when you have to " stop life to take notes" - but the law is law I guess and a requirement for homeschooling no matter what style of home educating you chose to use whether, formal, Reggio Emilia, waldorf stiener,classical, and so on, is you gotta record your childs learning and those subjects!
So when I see a " learning opportunity that is covering subjects happening at home or out and about- I think this is great for my learning records " - I whip out my camera ( or should I say old iPhone ) and take a quick picture or 2 . This way at the end of the week , I can go through the photo library and actually remember what went down for that week. I make photo collages of these using free pic app and write a short sentence of what happened and what subjects it covered .I print these of and add them to a photo album / yearly learning reflection portfolio ( a plastic sleeve folder to be more blunt ) - I usually jolt down in a daily planner book anything "special" that happened, that I can not take a picture of , and save any pictures.artwork,writing work, anything that have done on loose papers in a seperate portfolio.(plastic sleeve folder ).
how to categorise daily life into subjects
For instance , Today my son asked how to spell the word - (month) - for something he was doing on his online gaming, That covers english ! my youngest son cracked salt and pepper on a plate and told me to separate it, -I thought this was a science experiment he watched on YouTube , so here I was blowing the salt from the pepper and trying to lick the salt of - little did I know it was a prank he seen! He cracked up laughing while separating the salt from the pepper shakers ! that covers creative arts, english All my kids played either Roblox or fortnight today , now online gaming covers so many topics you have english,maths,tech,science,creative arts subjects - left right and centre- happening there. My children played a few games of hangman with dad - English, and we all went swimming in the pool, ( our little pool ) where we ran around in a circle and created a whirlpool - we discussed what a whirl pool is as well , we reflected mine and dads childhoods of us in my pool , were we learnt to hold our breaths longer under water from holding a heavy rock and all laughed about the other funny memories me and dad had ! we covered (english,pdhpe,geography ,science,history ) , my daughter is sitting next to me as I write this, creating a Roblox game in Roblox studio - she didn't know how to add a water element to her game so she looked up a how to video on youtube, she watched it and followed instructions - now she has realistic water , that covers english,creative arts,technology,science -a lot more went on today but they were the few that stuck out ! see once you start unschooling or even just categorizing what you done for the day into subjects, you will be surprised how much learning is going on.
Natural learning is a continues thing and it is always happening Everything that your child does can be labelled into a " subject" category even 2,3 or more subject categories !
and here we are , I'm finally posting some of my previous photo learning reflections we had last year 2021 that i used as my homeschool / unschool learning records.
Each of these learning moments were spontaneous , they just happened while out living our life's and exploring. Its easy to turn something that is fun and enjoyable into subjects for your homeschool / unschool learning records. Learning shouldn't be describe from coming from textbooks and lessons, after all how are our children meant to learn about real world experiences, from behind a desk all day ?
