Make your child do or let her be?

The girl who would never allow me to put on a hair clip/tie her hair with a band for almost 4 years is now repeatedly asking me to redo her hair by tying a pony neatly every time she feels movement in some of her hair strands. Now, she puts a hair clip, hair band, two rubber bands to tie a tight pony.

Those years when she let her hair loose, there were people who mocked at her, advised me how to get her to listen to me and many more.

I just let it be.

Never mock or underestimate any person. You never know what the person internally feels and how s/he would transform in a period of time. Love everyone as is, or just move away if you feel that love is not for you.

And, what about those who mocked? They simply find another aspect to mock at 😅

Stay true to your intuition and you know you're right.

#children #parenting #letthembe #letthekidsbe #homeschooling#unschooling #respectthechild

Yet another day

Where there is a mess, there is creation. Where there is creation, there is learning.

Started the day by staring at pigeons and other birds. Screen games. Imagine treasure hunt play. Pole climbing outside(couldn't click pic as I was holding them). Play on the stairs. Picking some fruits, veggies, lemon, tomato, asking to make juice of all of them together, wondering if it really taste good, ok, decided to make just banana + chocolate + nuts milkshake, cut the bananas, put in blender, add milk, just blending mom had to do, found it to be more chocolaty, hence made another batch with more banana and less chocolate, made tomato salad alongside dinner. Such a long day filled with fights, hugs, falls, cries, love, play and most importantly mess!!! (Some undocumented acts too)

And, a neighbour who dropped by was surprised looking at 5yo being involved in the fruit-cutting-juice-making process.

#unschoolingkids #unschoolinglife #unschoolingindia #lifewithoutschool#learningwithoutschool #homeschooling #homeschoolingindia #children#learning #parenting #childrenofhyderabad #childled

How do they Learn?

Scene 1:
Amma, shall we read some words looking at their spellings?
Me: ok
But, you should not read. I will only read. You should tell me only when I ask for help.
Me: ok

Scene 2:
Amma, I'm going to get my clock and set time.
She turns the clock hands and asks me for the time or sets it to what the real wall clock shows as. Or, she asks me for a time and sets the hands of the clock(with my help).

Not once or twice but has been happening regularly.

We may not be able to compare life situations as to how it would have been if unschooling was not the case, but, the fact that she is curious to learn, to accomplish on her own are testaments to how children can lead their learning. I don't really know if or how children would be equally curious if they were "made" to read, "made" to write, "made" to learn on the directs of an external authority?idk

We are just living and living IS learning.

Does this answer the usual questions: but, how do they learn? But, what about her education?

#unschoolingkids #homeschoolingindia #children #learning #parenting#childrenofhyderabad #childled #childrenofhyderabad #hyderabad#unschooling #unschoolinglife #unschoolingindia #homeschooling#learningwithoutschool #noschoollearning

Free Play - Measurements

I remember 4.5 yo DD1 having seen a measuring tape and the way I and her dad had used it, started to measure across the doormat, bed, flooring marble square and some other things that were in her sight. She used to read out the number without the units. Then, when she heard me using units in my conversation, asked me what it was and used them for a while too. Then came in the measuring scale for kitchen purpose. She started weighing small items on it and read out how much it read. Today's free play with vegetables involved her seriously weighing the vegetables and reading out the whole number along with units.

Children hardly need to be taught as a lesson. They craft their own learning from the resources that they have been provided with.

#homeschoolingkids#homeschoolingindia #childrenofhyderabad #children #play #learn #playingislearning #hyderabadparents #unschoolingindia #unschoolingkids #creation #imagination #poweroffreeplay

Free Play

1.5 hours of free play that involves creating stories, dialogues, sounds and a lot more stuff that cannot be graded.

Yes, kids love repetition, kids love having rhythmic versions of the same stuff. But, I guess adults have misinterpreted the kind of repetition that kids create or seek for.

Adults have created repetition in terms of making them write repeatedly or sing phonic songs repeatedly. With my close observance with children, I have understood that the kind of repetition they seek for is on a totally different level than what adults plan for (at home or school).

Kids like a book and ask to read out repeatedly, Kids get fascinated by how we chuckle them and ask for it repeatedly, Kids create games and keep playing them repeatedly, Kids create various versions of their own games/songs/drawings and do them in a rhythmic pattern and many more.

Today's play was filled with imagination and creation. Two poles were each of their's home, a pole was the elevator, another pole was the slide. They created stories and did various versions of their play for straight one and a half hour!! That's the level of involvement they had in their creation.

Counting and Comparing

We learn wherever we are, we write on whatever we find.

Started with question by DD1: how many months old am in addition to 5 years?
And sister?
Why am I only 6 months and younger sister 8 months?
Does that mean she is older than me?

Drew a circle, called it dosa, made parts to represent 12 months, cut the dosa to half, realised one half has 7 months and other half has 5 months.
Oops! We didn't draw properly.

This time, drew a dosa, cut it into half, made 6 parts on either side to represent 6 months each.

Wrote down years and months and counted age in years and months.

#unschoolingkids #homeschoolingindia #children #respectthechild#childchooses #childled #childrenofhyderabad #hyderabadparents#hyderabad #homeschoolingkids

Unschooling and Reverse Counting

Schools might have reverse counting as one of the lessons in KG and 1st grade.

But, how do children who don't go to school learn reverse counting?

5yo: do you know how numbers are counted during rocket launch or the recent video where an astronaut jumped off free fall?
Me: you say
5yo: in a reverse manner. 5 4 3 2 1 and he jumped down

She then takes up the challenge to reverse count numbers starting from 10, 20, 30.

And, we could play more with numbers!!!

Nothing fascinates children more than their own motivation to learn.

#unschoolingkids #homeschoolingindia #childled #childrenofhyderabad#hyderabadparents #hyderabad #homeschooling #learning#learningwithoutschool