Unschooling Monday: Music Day

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!


Unschooling is not necessarily a life without routine.  Often outside activities we have throughout the week define our routine and today is music day in the afternoon where my son attends his weekly recorder class.


Our day began with my 7 year old son playing around with some free on-line educational game sites.  Today he played around with Teach Your Monster To Read and Switcheroo Zoo.  He enjoys playing with both of these sites, but did say that he is ready for something more challenging, so I'll have to get my research goggles out and find some sites geared more towards 2nd or maybe 3rd grade to give him more of a challenge. 


While he did this, my 5 year old daughter said that she wanted to have drawing time, so I just gave her a pad of paper and a big box of crayons.  She then created several pictures of ice skaters and My Little Ponies.  We went to Disney on Ice over the weekend and apparently this left an impression on her.  She also went sliding across the foyer in between drawings in her socks and a pretty little skirt and tank top so that she could pretend she was ice skating.  She was oh so lovely.  I am thinking ice skating may be in our near future.  My daughter loves figure skating and my son loves hockey, so I could probably persuade both of them to give it a try so I can get some good exercise too.


While they were busy, baby boy was playing with his cars and watching Sponge Bob, so I was able to have some self-care time.  I try to do yoga five days a week with 20 min. to 30 min. routines, so I did my yoga while the others were busy with their activities and had a hot shower without too many interruptions.  Self-care is essential for a homeschooling mom.  Without mom time, I do not think I could survive this lifestyle.


This was followed by lunch and then we took off to take my son to his recorder class.  My son has been playing recorder since October and actually got to participate in a concert at Christmas time with the older kids.  My son did say that he was ready to be finished with the recorder, but if they start an activity, I like for them to at least finish the semester or year before moving onto something else.  He has the desire to someday play the Tuba, but needs to master the recorder initially.  We all have our dreams. 


A couple weeks ago, we were planning on taking the kids to the roller dome on my husband's birthday, but we are not the most organized family and the roller dome was closed, surprise, surprise.  So instead, we drove around and went to different music stores.  My husband is a musician and this is what he wanted to do when his first dream was  shattered  by a closed, locked door at the roller dome. Well, we came across a music store that had orchestra type instruments and my son was able to see a real live tuba, his dream instrument.  I guess they set up free classes where kids can come and try out different instruments and the nice lady at the store said that because of my son's size, she would start him on a baritone since the giant tuba, sousaphone,  weighs 30 pounds and my son is only around 50 pounds.  So this is something we plan to set up this summer with a group of other families. 


From this day, I learned that there is an interest in ice skating and my son is working hard on his recorder so that he can prepare for his baritone or tuba lessons maybe next fall.  These are new interests that have appeared in our lives within the last few months.  It is important to expose the children to a diverse amount of activities so that they have the opportunity to be well rounded, pay close attention to what brings a sparkle to their eye and motivates them to love life and then just go with it.  I keep our options open and I do not force my children to commit to anything if they do not want to do it.  I just figure if they are finished with one activity, they are ready for something better.  Life is all about experiences and feeling inspired, so I figure it is best to start this from the beginning rather than to wait until it is too late and the motivation and spark for living has declined during the teen years.  Life should always be inspiring and uplifting.  If this is how it begins, chances are, this will continue and boredom will not be part of our language in our home.  Their entire life will simply be a big learning experience filled with dreams and new talents and experiences throughout.  


Perhaps I'll have a professional ice skater and a professional musician with his giant tuba. Or perhaps these are just short lived interests that will lead to something even better.  It is impossible to know.  That is why all interests should be respected no matter how silly they may seem or how amazing they could be.  This is a beginning of a life of hope.  Unschooling is a great start to a positive and interesting life.