For my .02 I would say that you would be an awesome unschooler and Superboy sure fits the bill (as does my Hannah- projects everywhere!!). But ponder and see what fits for your family especially what fits at this time.

Great thoughts about goal setting as well. I want to begin to think about that more with my 13yos who is on the undermotivated side quite frequently!

Kristie

I’ve been following a lot of this wider discussion at Lissa’s and elsewhere. And I think that when we say that unschooling doesn’t work, we are often saying “they are meeting the educational goals I have for them on their own”. But what we need to do is look at their own goals. And then the picture looks a lot different.

Which links a bit to what Angela said above. Her Reagan is older than your Superboy and Angela has helped her learn how to set goals and such, which enables her to have discussions with REagan about goals and then unschool around that. I’ve tried to incorporate into whatever I’m doing some of that teaching Tigger how to set and reach goals. And maybe that is one of the things you need to think about in terms of the direction you give.

But I think it definitely can work and the key is in looking at what is going on in a different frame. Not checking whether they have learned the things you thought they should, but figuring out what they have learned. Does that make sense?

A couple of questions… First, from your posts it really does seem that your way of schooling with Superboy (the project-based, notebooking, etc.) really does work with him. Could you explain the ways it doesn’t and how you know when it’s not working? Do you think that he would still incorporate some of this stuff naturally by choice if you were to unschool?

And, I have a newly one-year old who is quickly becoming a very active toddler. I’ve really enjoyed reading your posts depicting your little guys doing Montessori activities and wonder how young they can start doing some of these and how I would begin learning about some of the activities for the littlest ones (good beginner websites?). Just wanting to start doing some research now for the upcoming couple of years. Thanks!!

I find that what works best for Reagan is to come up with a general educational plan that we start the year with for the first half of the year. We may list a dozen definite learning goals, with any number of ideas branching from them. Along the way, we follow lots of rabbit trails, and take advantage of any number of methods. As long as we hit the definite goals, we go with the flow. We rework things and do the same thing over holiday break.

I can’t wait to see where it all takes you! BTW…Reagan told me to mention both dryer lint and pine cones as firestarter helps to Superboy. The girl has been experimenting with making homemade and earth friendly alternatives to fireplace logs. Can you imagine the bonfire if those two ever met up?LOL!