A Little Classical Unschooling

Last week, Sierra decided that she wanted more structured learning. She didn't think unschooling was working out for her. I said okay.

I neglected to mention that taking ownership of her education is one of the reasons I decided to try this method.

We set aside time to sit outside and discuss how she learns best and what she is interested in. I always fall back on the classical trivium since it's a very logical setup. Each year, I throw books and information in her path from where we would be on the trivium if she were classically educated. This year would be the modern age and physics. When I'm working in the children's room at the library, I scan the shelves for interesting books on various physics topics and biographies. We pulled down an old Science-in-a-Nutshell levers kit I had saved from the older two. I'm thinking I'll have her build a bridge at some point. Math will be freestyle. I'm planning on using our bathroom dry erase board for writing problems. She's also expressed interest in learning about different places, so she started the year reading about Australia. London will be next.

At the same time, I've started watching Sailor Moon with her. She watched it a while back with her big sister. The two of them learned that it was much better in the original Japanese with subtitles than in dubbed English, so that is how we are watching it now. My kids enjoy anime, and seeing it this way has given me new respect for the style. Did you know some of the earliest anime movies were inspired by art coming out of the Disney studios? I thought that was interesting.

Right now, Sierra is reading Watership Down and the final Skulduggery Pleasant book by Derek Landy. We still get together with other homeschoolers on Wednesdays and she's still volunteering at the nature center cleaning cages and feeding the resident animals. I hope I'll have the time for some museum trips as well. And because it is harder for me to keep track now, she's started telling me what she's doing so I can keep notes of everything for the quarterlies. 

Life is different, but still very much the same.