Unschooling Moments!

I have stopped writing on blog for more than a year but life and learning was as interesting as usual here. This post is from last summer....no, it's continue till date, just had a break for monsoon days.

Both my children going to river (not regularly but mostly during summer) since their age of 3.  But no hurry to swim independently without any safety equipment...just splashing, puddling and enjoying water. It's just last summer that both get confident enough to swim their own. River is so close to their heart...so much to explore around the river and so much fun to be in water.

I have always been scared of swimming in river. But it was my son's wish that I learn swimming and join them in river adventures. And I learned swimming in river! Liberation from one more fear and great family bonding experience. Swimming brought many changes. It gave children chance to interact with so many people of different age...people living around and coming to swimming regularly, local kids became friends, talks with fishermen about their favorite subject 'fish'  developed interest in fishing!

 

Now, fishing became compulsory after swimming. We are vegetarian people. But they love fishes and like to know more about them. This fishing addiction was something of my dislike just because it was taking too much of my  precious morning time. One side my conditioned mind thinking it's time waste and other side I could see it's reason of great passion, excitement and joy for children. I was introspecting my take on it. I never really understood their passion until I  found an article 'Fishing' in 'Sandarbh' while just looking for something to read. This insightful article cleared my vision.  http://www.eklavya.in/pdfs/Sandarbh_74/01-02_Fishing.pdf

 

 

Then boat added adventure to our river-trips. Thanks to Chachu. Fishing takes good amount of time and during that I try my hands on photography...so many objects around busy people, cheerful children, flora & fauna. Friends too joined us in our swimming, boating & fishing and have wonderful moments together.

When something is so close to heart there is no surprise when it inspires stories or generate questions. When child ask a question 'how can we measure how deep is the river?' and months later when he come to know about echolocation in Bats, he immediately connects both completely different looking things and that's most amazing feeling.

This is how we learn together.

Harry Potter Magic!

Experiencing J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter magic since more than a month. Everybody reading Harry Potter series of books. Ashna a Harry Potter fan has already seen movies many times, first she started reading book then Nikhil  joined her as usual. But when Megh too brought ' हेरी पोटर और पारस पत्थर ' from library....it was surprising for me. Right now he is about to complete ' हेरी पोटर और रहस्यमय तयखाना ' and he is willing to read complete series!

Megh reads whole book loudly,  burst into laughing while reading and thoroughly enjoys book. He loves that I listen him and share those laughing moments with him. If I have missed something then he again read it for me, keep explaining things after I could not answer his questions. His dreams,drawings, talks, making , language everything seems powered by Harry magic! He is not just reading but truly living in the Harry Potter World. I have seen movies long back but don't remember every tiniest details like them so always prove dumb while he ask me Harry Potter questions. I have started reading books just to answer his questions and to know what is the Rowling's magic behind.

My kids are neither reluctant reader nor book worm kind of but it is amazing to see how they enjoys these books. It is different for me that my always on the move and playful kids sit together and talks endlessly about Harry and not just talk but discuss and most of the time Megh asking his complex questions to Ashna and she is explaining everything to him joyfully. They discuss plot of story, characters and their expressions, difference between reading Harry Potter books and watching movies (they both convinced that reading is more fulfilling experience)...and all these makes my eyes wide open that how deep they feel the story and how stronger they are bonding with all the characters no matter how strange they are!

Simply Amazing!

Versatile Rangometry

 
Rangometry is an amazing gift from Navnirmiti. A cheaper but having endless possibilities for a creative child...even I love it as whenever I try my hands I have discovered something new from it. Ashna has used it many different ways and designed thousands of designs upto now. Children coming to our house or whom we have gifted it thoroughly enjoys it....but Megh was not that fond of Rangometry upto now. Recently he became interested in symmetry and  making patterns using Rangometry. Upto now me and Megh played only shopping games with rangometry...hexagon pieces became chocolates and in the role of customer i have to pay two half hexagon pieces, three rhombus pieces or six triangle pieces to buy one hexagon chocolate!

Logo just introduced to Ashna before 3-4 days and we planned making program for Rangometry design. It's interesting activity for her now...making designs and writing logo programs for them.

 While children are busy with rangometry i  try to build towers from rangometry pieces, it's good concentration exercise!

Hmmm...Teddy town is like Su-doku!

Nowadays Megh is finding pattern everywhere and making beautiful patterns using rangometry. So why not make it more interesting with Teddy town from www.nrich.maths.org.

Craft is mostly part of any such activity...making different colored teddy and house.



Making different combination of two colored teddy and house was simple , done and then suddenly remember that he has some work pending in garden.

After return, done three colored teddy + house combinations and then arranged them so no color get repeated in same lane.

"Mummy, this is like Su-doku!"

"Oh! Yes, I have not realized that!"

He never done Su-doku, just have rough idea. For four color, he found it difficult and left it. No problem..... no hurry, time will come when it will also become easy.

Embracing failure.....

"Oh! This is nice picture!"
"But this is not what I wanted to draw"

Disappointment is part of any creative process. She intended to draw the moment she has observed at her kathak class, two of her friends were talking with each other....but it turned up into something else!

So what? That's also part of creativity.

"So,what? it's still unique. Even if it's different, it created from your own independent thinking"
"Yes, and this is exactly Ananya's style of sitting!"

Failure, disappointment, surprises all part of process and I would embrace them all cause they all lead me to discover myself.

"It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all." — J.K. Rowling

Tresure Hunt

'Treasure Hunt !!!'

Everybody busy with their own stuff and I have designed treasure hunt yesterday afternoon.

It was combination of some imagination plus measuring with tape and direction finding with compass this time. Where blue Aparajita flower (Clitoria ternatea) became 'Blue bird', Golden Bamboo became 'Golden ghosts', pink flower bed became jungle of pink fairies, yellow desk became yellow mountain! Clues were hidden into bushes, hanging on the tree, hidden under soil or just stuck somewhere. It took around two hours to find the treasure...treasure was Megh's favorite chocopie biscuits and a glass for painting Ashna wants. They found measuring distance in the given direction and decoding imaginative name of clues challenging.....bit difficult sometimes , took help from grandma for meaning of some words..

Some days back designed English treasure hunt as Megh was having confusion with words like before, after, above, below, behind ....hidden clues around things at home so he has to know meaning to find next clue...like under the pillow, behind the map, inside microwave.

Treasure Hunt is fun...children always looking for it. Treasure might be just a chocolate but finding 'Treasure' is thrilling and good patience building exercise. It can be designed for any age and on different difficulty levels. Just know the child, add some imagination, create & hide clues and go!

It all started from Pirates of caribbean series of movies two year back. Ashna was Jack Sparrow fan those days... bedsheets, drawing everywhere you can find him. And then making pirates stuff in our craft projects...different hats, map, binocular, gold coins, flags, pirate ornaments, ship etc. Then finding this amazing game has opened door of learning with fun-thrill-adventure.


Started with Pirates craft but hunt is evolving with time and we do not need Pirate make-up or other stuff anymore. Clues are designed so they have to use their knowledge, language & maths skill, climbing-digging and use of different tools. I have many rough ideas to make it more interesting, knitting story around hunt, making it a kind of puzzle or adding more adventure into it... i'm learning.

Good Morning!

As usual Megh called me “Mummy……” This is first call of the day. I wake up around 5 and children around 7, so I have good ‘my time’ in the morning. And some hugging, kissing & masti as usual he opened side table drawer and handed me a book – it’s Narsinh Maheta’s poems. (Narsinh Maheta – who is the creator of Gandhiji’s favorite Vaishnavajan to tene re kahiye…). I love his prabhatiya (devotional bhajans of Krishna-bhakti) since childhood and so my kids but since long we have forgotten to sing them. But today morning he just handed the book and demanded me to sing. I sung ‘Mari hundi …’ & ‘Gir taleti ne kund damodar….’ Ah….those were wonderful moments!

So, this is our homeschooling morning. Sometimes song, sometimes story but most of the time narration of dream Megh has seen….sometimes remember fully or sometimes just forget….or sometimes just a story! Ashna is a slow raiser and as Chinese astrology she is snake and I literally feel her like snake lazily rolling into bed!

What was our morning as school-goer? Oh! that was terrible time. Ashna had morning school and making her ready - waking her from bed, brushing teeth or bath everything was an individual battle. And most of the time she has no time for breakfast-just a glass of milk even th school time was 8am. Everyday I was planning making her mornings 'Good' in real sense but at last we all were having stressful mornings… then I was asking myself ‘Why I’m sending my kid to school?'

No point remembering our hard time but when people thinks it's tough and I answer them 'No, it's easy on the contrary'. And it's not just learning it's completely different life-style...living & learning without any boundary.

Homeschooling father

When someone ask what's father playing part in our homeschooling?

Me and children are onscreen player but he is hardly visible as he is playing important roll being off screen!

We are never worried because of 'father figure' that what if we haven't cooked dinner as we are busy in our work - work might be making some toy, doing some craft or just watching some interesting video...'Khichadi' will be fine...no complain.

Being right brained person he enjoys board games more than me and that's mostly our evening schedule. Playing carom, chess, chopat, mancala etc. is more interesting with him for children.

He is not good at storytelling - that's always my interest....but as far as reading and watching movie is concerns he enjoys reading children books and watching children movie just like a child! that's what i'm not good at. He has read many children book series along with Ashna and nowadays everybody reading & watching Harry Potter! That's really a kind of motivation.

Whenever he has to go out of city work-trip... we are mostly with him. Megh likes to observe factories and understand how machine works. Generally people avoid to take family at work but he don't and at the time he is busy with his work we explore places around, play games or just talk with people. And after work it's our family field trip.

Every morning we all work in the garden...he never ever feel shame to do our own work himself, cleaning car-garden, doing gardening etc. That's odd or say difficult when you are living in posh area. But who cares...for us it's dignity of labour.

He is our swimming coach or say coach for any sports........I'm zero in sports and he played almost every game. Being a scout and sports lover he has developed sporty characteristics. When we have planned our first Himachal trip- i was worried as he don't have any experience of driving on mountains. But he alone drove 5,200km along with Rohtang. So, love for sports/ adventure is also his department.

One more thing I have learn from him that might be the base of our homeschooling. We never join package tour as we are not interested in counting destinations but journey itself. Our journey starts from deciding in which direction we will go (reaching decision might take months or just a second! we never know) gathering information and just exploring new places & people.

Recently I have read a nice article by Dr. Hansal Bhachech that mother can be a best teacher but child follows father. And that's true. He is not with us whole day but children follows him. When I see keen observation, sensitivity & love towards nature/animals and eye to appreciate natural beauty I know that's not from me. But that's advantage for kids when both parents are differently wired!

Too long ! but can't take all credits always for myself , so have to write :)