It Works!

As most of you who read my blog know, we don't "do school" in the Spear household. There is no curriculum, no tests, no quizzes, no sitting at the table and doing worksheets or writing spelling words. There is no assigned reading and no unwanted lectures. But yes, this is still learning happening in our house everyday!

When I first started on this journey of natural, child-led learning I was very nervous and very apprehensive. I worried that she wouldn't learn anything unless I forced her (and THAT surely wasn't working!). I worried that she would be 10 years old and not know what a noun was (not the case because she's 7 and knows what a noun is as well as an adjective and a verb LOL)or know how to write properly and spell or do difficult math. I loved the whole idea of unschooling and it made so much sense. I just poured myself into books about it and read as many on-line articles as I could get my hands on, but I was afraid to put it into action with my own child. I did take baby steps and did find myself doubting things but the more I stepped out of my comfort zone and just let go the easier it became and the more I started realizing, "Hey, this does work!" The brainwashing that I had succumbed to that says children will only learn when made to or that children have to know certain things at a certain age flew out the window and I was finally able to relax and feel at peace with our life. Which brings us to the present time....

Brenna has really been amazing me lately, especially with her spelling capabilities. She learns how to spell a new word just about every day and has been requiring less and less help from us these last few weeks. It's like she's really starting to 'get it' and this thing just clicked in her head. But the thing that I love the most about this is that she's doing it all on her own and learning how to spell not only because she wants to but because it is actually a very useful thing to know! She loves to make books and cards and chat with her friends on Club Penguin. In doing those things she has picked up the art of spelling wonderfully. Brendon and I were gone this past weekend and she stayed at her Grandma's house. When we got home she had home made cards for both of us that she did all by herself. The inside of mine said something like, "I missed you Mom! You are the best Mom in the whole world!".
Yes, she still needs quite a bit of help with bigger words but then again, she's only 7.
And the math that little girl can do in her head is so cool! She has this shirt that says "60% Angel 40% Stubborn (or something like that). Brendon made a comment the other night when she was wearing that shirt and told her that he thought it was the other way around. They both laughed and Brendon kept teasing her with different percentage combinations. It then turned into asking her things like, if she was 80% Angel then what would the other percentage be? She was getting them all right just by doing it in her head. She even figured out 85%/15% in about 5 seconds. We thought that was pretty cool. :)

Every day I become more and more convinced that natural learning really works. How can a child NOT learn?? It's impossible and I've had that proven to me over and over.

(Since you've read this post, you may find this one interesting to read again. I went back to last year and found it. Kinda neat to see how much things have changed and how far I've come......
First post on contemplating to unschool or not)