Summer Funnin'

(Feel free to hum the title to the tune of Grease's "Summer Lovin'", I did.)

At first, I had plans to make this summer completely school/learning free, but then I thought, 'hey, why not torture them a little longer?' Just kidding.

The idea came to mind as I was pondering unschooling, I have been pretty one sided in my opinion of unschooling, mostly because I believe that kids shouldn't be the ones in control of their learning experience because, well, they are kids. So I decided to do more research, since I am not one to judge without knowing the other side of things. I started by looking up several blogs specifically geared towards unschooling, and although I still stand firm on my previously stated beliefs, I was actually inspired by some of their methods. Hence : THE GREAT SUMMER UNSCHOOLING SPECIAL!!!! AKA lapbooking :)

So, lapbooking. I think that there is something pretty cliche about this in the homeschool world, but then again it seems to be something that makes kids WANT to learn about things, so I decided to give it a try. Fr anyone who doesn't know what lapbooking is, basically it is done by choosing a topic of interest, like baseball, for instance, and the child does research on that subject, formulating new questions as they go,and then seeking to answer them. It is presented in a fold out format, with several little mini-books, drawings, and graphs used to portray the answers to the questions that you researched. It is a colorful, exciting, ADD sort of project that should work well for the kids, since they can use online resources, documentaries, and library books to help them come up with answers, and they aren't tied down to the directional questions that we use to start with, but can learn about new things, and then question them as they go. It's actually pretty fun.

So I took the kiddos to the library the other day, and walked down the ten  so aisles of children nonfiction to give them some ideas of things that they could choose as their topic, Julie chose ballet, Jake chose the human body, and Zander chose snakes. I sat down with each of them, and began helping them come up with research questions, like the stories behind famous ballets, how to identify poisonous and non-poisonous snakes, and what the different systems in the body do. The most exciting thing to me, was before we have even started, Jake had a real-life experience that sparked a new direction! Last night, he bumped his arm on the corner of a cabinet door, which instantly caused a little bruise. He then asked my what causes a bruise, and as I explained it to him, I got excited and realized it could be a new question for him to research! We were both pretty excited about it, actually.

(Zander's is more a read and learn, since he will be with his mother this summer, and more than likely will abandon the idea once he arrives there) So, to help with the projects, I have printed out a few lapbook templates on the human body and ballet, and checked out some documentaries. We will also be looking stuff up, perhaps learning hands-on in some cases, and doing interviews and maybe seeing a ballet, I'm not sure. Either way, it is something fun that the kids can do this summer to keep their brains busy, and still be creative, and hopefully not get bored!