Informal Quizes

Unschooling is interest based learning where children naturally learn from their environment and are trusted to learn what they need to learn to succeed in life.  Parents act as a resource person and role model to help educate their children in a respectful manner.  Unschooling will often look different with each family.  This blog includes my family's approach to the unschooling philosophy.  I will sometimes include ideas and challenges and sometimes I will include a blog of an actual day or event of our unschooling family.  Feel free to follow my blog if you would like to learn more.  Thank you for taking time to read my blog!


I started with a more structured approach with my 7 year old son and I used to have him do simple math problems in workbooks.  He would go through the process and complete his assignments, but did not seem motivated and I do not know if he was really learning much, so I stopped doing this when he was 5 1/2 when I started using more of an unschooling approach.  Since then, we have used a natural math approach where we count money, use a calendar, tell time, measuring with cooking, general measuring, counting and various things like this.  We probably do math daily this way.  I also bought my son a calculator with which he could play.  He likes to figure out answers and then use the calculator to see if he is correct.  However, I figured he was just adding and subtracting and I was not really concerned with much else at this point.  I do want him to stay current with his grade level in case I ever do have to send him to school, but I do not have a lot of concerns about this.


Well, last night, I was curious, so I decided to test him and I asked him what is 9x6?  We had not really covered multiplication yet, but I guess we have explained it to him informally.  I was really surprised when he gave me the correct answer.  Even though I am the main one teaching him along with his dad and a couple extra classes with none of them being math, it seems like he should be learning mainly what I teach him, but he learns so much more from day to day living.  Even though he is only 7 years old and is at a first/second grade level, he is understanding math that I do not remember doing until third or fourth grade.  He was very enthusiastic about doing his math also. 


As I type this, he is in the process of counting to 60 60 times because I told him it would take an hour before the ice cream sandwiches are cold enough to eat.  Math is everywhere.  :)