Unschooling - they do learn!

[Bjess8411]

 

 

 

To Home Again's great living math list, I would add...

 

Kitchen Table Math

the booklists at livingmath,net

Games for Math by Peggy Kaye

math apps like Dragonbox and math computer games like Timez Attack

logic games like Mastermind, Set, and Rush Hour

games that feature math like Sleeping Queens, Rat a Tat Cat, Muggins, 24, Smath, etc.

 

For lots more ideas, you might enjoy the Relaxed Math thread, which is an infamously good source of ideas for this sort of thing:

http://forums.welltrainedmind.com/topic/499692-looking-to-do-some-relaxed-math-here-want-to-share-ideas/

 

 

 

 

This is a helpful list thanks for sharing it.

[8filltheheart]

Some of you are being very rude. I don't think it is completely natural for all children to learn to count to 100 by kindergarten. You sound like you have a very academically inclined child besides the things you mention are a form of academics. I don't do those things naturally with my child! Most children are not like your child. I had a very hard time learning multiplication in 3rd grade and actually taught it to myself during the summer. Algebra was difficult for me as well, and I was a very good student! However, I was an early reader and writer. I could read well above my age grade by 2nd or 3rd grade. I learned those things before entering school.

I actually have 8 children, some of them more naturally inclined than others. You also misread my post. The point I was making in describing what my ds was capable of achieving was that it Is doubtful he could have done it if he hadn't learned to count by 6. Not teaching him such a basic skill would have inhibited the abilities he did have bc he wouldn't have had a way to quantify what he was seeing.

 

Counting and adding/subtracting/multiplying,etc do not require the same level of ability. Counting is recognizing patterns and sequences. If a child can see a tree, a flower, a bee, a book, a tree, a flower, a bee, and a blank and recognize based on the pattern that a book should go in the blank, they possess the ability to recognize patterns and sequences. That is a very typical young child skill to master.

 

Fwiw, my intention was not to be rude. But, I equally do not believe that celebrating a skill acquired at a late stage bc you didn't teach it is really something to celebrate. If he had disabilities and finally mastered it, that is a completely different scenario. (I have kids with those as well. Even small steps have been major victories.) but if he had disabilities and he was not consistently being exposed to ideas, why is that a good?

 

Fwiw, families who don't naturally incorporate learning lifestyles need to make sure they fully understand why unschooling leads to successful outcomes. If learning basic skills are not naturally incorporated like you say you don't do, intentional planning for outcomes is even more vital. How will a child learn to count or read if no deliberate exposure occurs?

[MomatHWTK]

I checked this week, my child who is learning to multiply and has learned the octet rule (chemistry) was incorrect in naming the digits approximately 10% of the time when I asked him to count to 100, and at 60 decided to switch to counting by 10s.  I haven't tested, but I am pretty sure he could identify each digit by name if it were shown to him, but reciting name of the symbols that correspond to each value with no other reference point or purpose for our family is a rote memorization skills.

[Guest]

Hi 'glitter. I'm another unschooler. One of the few here. I've got older kids now (one decided to go to the local high school, prepared herself for that, is now in college, another in high school). We're "radical" unschoolers, whatever that means. I use that word to refer to the fact that we apply the philosophy of unschooling, the way I understand it, to all areas of life. That is to say, we don't teach non academic skills by lessons (ie, apply rules or social roles) any more than we teach academic skills by lessons. I believe humans learn through play, and unschooling can work for just about any child, given the optimal environment.

 

It's that optimal environment that's the stickler, and that seems to me to be the intent of the comments offered you. I don't see these folks as challenging your reasons or your intentions, but in offering you practical ideas in which you can enrich the environment in your home. I believe they are doing this because they have a genuine interest in helping home educators optimize their children's learning experiences, even if the styles of those experiences aren't similar. I have to admit, counting to 75 at that age as a source of pride and example took me off guard, too. It seems to me that once a child figures out the pattern of counting by ones and memorizing the teens, applying the pattern of tens and ones falls right into place. Establishing this pattern takes practice. When my kids were young, we'd tell each other jokes like, "Wanna see me count to a hundred in three second? 1, 2, skip a few, 99, 100!" Then we'd both count to one hundred just to show the world we could. At first the child would be muttering along, eventually s/he figured it out with few prompts, then they'd show me independent mastery.

 

I agree with you that learning need not be forced, but no one in this thread is talking about forcing. Instead, they're offering ideas to help you enrich the environment in which your child learns. The more opportunity one has to learn, the more learning they will do, and playing games that rely heavily on math skills is no more forcing a child to learn than playing tag is forcing them to balance their bodies at high speeds while turning sharply. There are, I think, great reasons for approaching learning outside the parameters of scheduled lessons, but if one doesn't provide an enriched learning experience, the knowledge the child gains may not be sufficient for achieving the goals they may decide to pursue later. There's also a matter of having general knowledge as opposed to specific skills in one area of interest. The more one knows, the more empowered one is, the less likely they will fall victim to trickery and deceit, and the more autonomy they can embrace.

 

I find your defense rather simple, and not really thought out. Perhaps you have more information than you're sharing, and that's fine, I don't mean to demand a defense from you. It's just that when I hear these reasons in general, a red flag goes up for me and I immediately wonder if the person is familiar with the mechanics of unschooling, or if they're relying on others to be right. As a parent of an unschooled teenager, I will say that this is a very precarious place to be. It's one thing to find the ideals appealing, but quite another to watch a child prepare to launch himself out into the world independently knowing his peers have studied math, science, language arts, history, etc, formally for years. "Play" looks a lot different for a teenage than it does for younger child, but if their environment is stagnant, there's only so much opportunity from which to learn. You may change your mind as your child gets older, too. I think most people do. Anyway, the case for increasing access to knowledge is plentiful, and I think you might find a lot of resources on this forum that you can adapt at home.

Albeto, this post should make it into the Hall of Fame.

[Renai]

Agree with last post, they do learn to count usually much earlier. Our oldest attended an "interest led" based school during K and 1st grade...by the end of 1st she was notoriously behind than other kids her age. Unschooling doesn't work for us.

 

 

These are similar to my thoughts. I am not an unschooler, but I am an intentional minimal educator with my young children. My kids have never done any pre-school academics. K is about 45-60 mins. 1st is 1-1 1/2 hrs, 2nd is 2-2 1/2 hrs. Recognizing their numbers through 100 is a skill mastered within the few weeks of K. I have much different objectives for 7.

 

 

my 4.5 year old is counting to one hundred and understands the concept of repeat that interval to 1000....

 

 

Early childhood abilities vary widely. Very widely. Not all K students should be expected to be able to count to 100 or 1000. The expectation is not developmentally appropriate that all K students should be able to count to 100. Just like we don't expect ALL K students to be able to read at the end of K.

 

I know my oldest daughter could not count to 100 by the end of K. She figured out the pattern of counting (and reading numbers) sometime in the first weeks of 1st grade, so right around 7 years old.  (She's an older student with a birthday in September and age cut off here being September 1, so she turned 7 at the beginning of 1st).  This was not due to not working with her either. I don't remember what she was counting to at the end of 1st, but clearly remember she could add fractions in her head because she played with a fraction puzzle quite a lot. That wasn't something I explicitly taught.

 

I think it would be good not to overly generalize what all k'ers should be doing. (It doesn't mean I don't worry when I don't see certain skills. I teach prek and have students that don't know to start with '1' when counting. I would think by age 4 that kids know to start with '1', but I get kids like this every year. But I still don't think that all k'ers should know to count to 100.)

 

I do agree with the overall sentiment of providing opportunities for learning growth.

[Junie]

Counting to 100 was part of my end-of-year Kindergarten exam.  Iirc, if you couldn't do it, you didn't pass.

[Renai]

I hear you, Junie. Many things are expected of kinder that are not developmentally appropriate. Teachers lament this phenomena all the time. I knew at the time that my oldest would not have been passed to 1st if she had been in school. Thankfully, she wasn't in school, and she caught on. Something clicked in those first few weeks.

 

I like working with children where they are (homeschool, prek, tutoring) while keeping an eye for red flags. Not counting to 100 in K is not a red flag.

[Jean in Newcastle]

I hear you, Junie. Many things are expected of kinder that are not developmentally appropriate. Teachers lament this phenomena all the time. I knew at the time that my oldest would not have been passed to 1st if she had been in school. Thankfully, she wasn't in school, and she caught on. Something clicked in those first few weeks.

 

I like working with children where they are (homeschool, prek, tutoring) while keeping an eye for red flags. Not counting to 100 in K is not a red flag.

I agree that there is a developmental range for stuff like counting to 100.  And being on the ends of that range is neither a sign of genius or a sign of learning disabilities.  But using an example of a child on the slower end of that range is not usually an advertisement for a particular learning method.  My dd esp. is a late bloomer in many many things but I do acknowledge that she is late even while celebrating when she blooms.  I hesitated posting this not because I'm rebutting some of what you said, Renai, but because the OP has been so gracious about this thread and I didn't want her to feel like I was hammering away on her in any way for posting this to begin with.  

[Renai]

I agree that there is a developmental range for stuff like counting to 100.  And being on the ends of that range is neither a sign of genius or a sign of learning disabilities.  But using an example of a child on the slower end of that range is not usually an advertisement for a particular learning method.  My dd esp. is a late bloomer in many many things but I do acknowledge that she is late even while celebrating when she blooms.  I hesitated posting this not because I'm rebutting some of what you said, Renai, but because the OP has been so gracious about this thread and I didn't want her to feel like I was hammering away on her in any way for posting this to begin with.  

 

I understand. I was responding more to the sentiment that all kindergarten students are expected to count to 100. 

 

I also like how this thread is encouraging with the many resources listed for living math. I've found something on that pinterest link that I'll be making for my prek class next week, in fact...

[vonfirmath]

Actually counting is very pattern based. With the exception of eleven, twelve, and thir/fif all of the names are very regular. If a child understands the sequencing of 0-9 and the relationship of increasing the 9 by one more means grouping into a 10, there isn't even any memorizing required other than the corresponding -ty name.

 

This is what I have found with both my kids. Once they "catch" the pattern, counting to 100 comes fairly quickly thereafter. Then its a matter of realizing the same pattern goes beyond 100 and seeing how high they can learn their numbers (thousands, ten thousands, etc)

[Slojo]

I hear you, Junie. Many things are expected of kinder that are not developmentally appropriate. Teachers lament this phenomena all the time. I knew at the time that my oldest would not have been passed to 1st if she had been in school. Thankfully, she wasn't in school, and she caught on. Something clicked in those first few weeks.

 

I like working with children where they are (homeschool, prek, tutoring) while keeping an eye for red flags. Not counting to 100 in K is not a red flag.

 

Admittedly, haven't read all of this thread, but I'm pretty sure my DS1 didn't start counting to 100 until 6 or so (or he did, was "hiding" it from me, and I didn't know it). I also don't think it's a red flag and felt that the OP might have "gotten jumped on" a bit (or gotten a bit of dipping in her Koolaid without knowing the favor, as folks in my neighborhood used to say). Flash forward on my DS1 -- starting APOS Pre-Algebra in 4th grade (and so far so good). Anecdotal sample of one? Yes. Mathy kid? Looks like it - though wouldn't have figured it if you were looking for counting to 100 as the metric at 6.  Different factors at play? Probably. But not counting to 100 by K - I'm a little "meh" about it.  Keep the environment rich -- and I have no reason based on a short post to assume you don't -- and math (especially at the counting to 100 level) is all around. It's writing that's the struggle for us -- working on it...  As people said, delayed or not, often once counting to 100 is in place, lots of other things can open up quickly. 

 

So if you haven't gotten just some folks in your amen corner then  :hurray: - here you go!  What's next on the horizon? What else are you excited about in your DC learning? Has the new skill inspired you or your DC to explore something else/more?