I started documenting Umar’s learning after a lot of people asked me questions about how unschooling or unstructured learning looks like for a young kid. I started posting glimpses from his day with the hashtag #unschoolingumar
But I have realised that it is really difficult to document this kind of learning.
For one thing he is not a artsy craftsy kid. So we don’t have beautiful artwork or projects to share. The only art thing he is interested in is pottery. He has been going to his pottery classes for more than two years and never wants to miss a single class.
Secondly, most of the learning in our house happens through discussions, observations, play, working, chores, and so on. Basically through living the daily life.
So he may spend the whole day or even weeks learning about the World Wars and cold wars and geo-political conditions in Europe. But most of this learning happens through picking his older brother’s brains, or watching Brain Pop, or any other such thing, which is kind of difficult to capture in pictures š
He can take you on a journey through constellations in the sky, the stars in each constellation, their names, and the history behind those names. But once again all of this learning happened while gazing at the real stars at night or through his Star Walk app, or through lengthy discussions with his sister. Which is not possible to capture if I am avoiding showing private pictures on a public platform.
He doesn’t like making science projects or crafts to show his understanding. Which I am totally okay with, but which makes it difficult to document his learning.
The images I post are just a fraction of what he does everyday, and people may get the wrong idea that this is the only things he do or this is only how he learns.
So I thought it would be appropriate to write this disclaimer sort of post and clarify that the bulk of his learning is not captured in these pictures.
If I were to define our homeschooling/unschooling/learning methodology in one word, I would define it as time. Time that we spent with our kids. And by we I mean myself and my husband And now the older siblings too in how much time they spent with their younger sibling.
My kids are with us all the time. Whether we are doing chores, or working, or relaxing, or meeting people, they are with us. And they learn through watching us, and talking to us, and working with us.
Which, I am sure you will understand, is not possible to document or share.
So when you look at #unschoolingumar next time, keep in mind that you are only seeing a small part of the real Unschooling Umar.
Happy learning!