How we do school.

We dried flowers, a few weeks later we turned it into a reading-biology class.

Sophie is very much into dressmaking these days.

Sophie and Doris made this dungaree out of plain white paper. We didn't even suggest it or give them any help.

Learning about the veins in leaves through a fun craft.

In my last blog about why we do school the way we do I promised that I would write another blog about how we do it. And that's where I got stuck because not one day looks the same and writing down what we do in blog-length is seemingly impossible. The one day we sit down on the mat, learn letters and make worksheets while a next day the girls play all day in their own imaginary world where princesses, birthday parties and an owl who bring presents (her name is Ghaniya) are the key players in elaborate adventures. Although these two days look very different, both days are 'school days', packed with learning and valuable for the future. Why? Because kids know (subconsciously) very well what they need to learn and what their brain is 'ripe' for. Kids will not learn anything if you try to feed them information which their brain is not ready to receive. If you ignore this you will end up with endless repetition, wasted time and frustration. But... Believing that is one thing, putting it in action is different and much scarier.

The one thing that I needed to do when I started this unschooling journey was to let go. I had to let go of preconceived ideas about how learning should happen and when it should happen, let go of time tables and work plans and let go of the need to be in charge of the learning. We just came back from a trip with a lot of new experiences and right now the need to play is much bigger than the need for new information. On the trip much was learned that needs to be processed and I notice that the girls slow down their need for new information to make time to process what's learned. And that is good. Kids learn best when they are intrinsically motivated and not pushed.

It is encouraging to see that letting go leads to beautiful, self motivated learning. A few months ago all Sophie and Doris wanted to do was cut. Our house looked as if a paper bomb had exploded and small snippets of paper where everywhere. One evening I was again cleaning snippets and I started wondering if we were really doing the right thing and if we should really leave them in charge of their own learning. Weren't they just making a big mess that would not lead to anything. But then, short after that, Doris had drawn a stick man version of her father and Sophie had made a beautiful fish, and both of them had cut it out, in a neat and skillful way that really impressed me. All those snippets had taught them how to use a pair of scissors the way one should.

Most mornings I ask the girls what they want to learn that day and the answer often surprises me. It leads us into a time of learning that might take anything from 5 minutes to 5 hours. This morning Sophie wanted to learn the word 'tree'. We spelled it out, wrote it in the air and on the sand, thought about words that start with the same letter and words that rhyme and suddenly we landed in a long conversation about trees and global warming. Then Doris pointed out a monkey in the tree. Sophie saw that the monkey was carrying a mango and said that the monkeys should not eat all of them because she wanted one too which lead us into a rather philosophical discussion about our relationship with nature and whether humans or monkeys have more right to eat the mangoes. The girls both contributed to the discussion and we concluded that we need to learn to share the world with the animals. You see? No curriculum but lots of learning, for all of us.

Sometimes they request 'real school'. Real school means that we sit on the mat, start the class in a circle where we sing about the days of the week and the weather, talk about how we feel and what we did and learn to listen when the other speaks and indicate when you want to say something. We make worksheets or play educational games, make a craft and we all feel very productive.

When we started out here I was a bit overwhelmed by the fact that I was all on my own,  without other moms, forums and especially without all the inspiration that you can find on Pinterest. But that has changed. Pinterest is beautiful and can be very helpful but some days (most days) I am really happy that I don't have access to pinterest for inspiration for educational games and crafts as it sets the bar higher. An evening of scrolling through it during our stay in Mzuzu left me feeling discouraged instead of empowered, inadequate instead of capable because there is always a mom who has done it better. (However, I still miss the community of encouraging like minded moms that I had in Cape Town and I am forever grateful for whatsapp and voicenotes.)

If you google for home school tips you don't only find tons of print out curricula and craft ideas but you also come accross the most beautiful toys and supplies and it is easy to lose yourself in all the nice things that you 'absolutely need'.  Minimalism is a trend that is hard to miss and I firmly believe in a minimalist approach to the amount of toys and tools that a child needs.  We don't have many supplies but watching the girls learn and get creative with the few things they have makes me convinced that less truly is more. Less toys is more creativity, more invention and more concentration.

When we moved here we could only take very little and I often get asked what our kids have to learn and play with. So here is a list of the things we use and love for playing and learning.

The world around us: having less means that kids learn to do more with what is available. Sticks become fishing rods, old bottles balloons and stones are tasty cakes. I would go so far to say that if kids have a specific toy for each situation and each kind of play you deprive them of opportunities to become truly creative and inventive. Kids who haven't learned to be creative with what's at hand will be bored a lot and need to be constantly entertained. Fostering resourcefulness in kids doesn't only help them for the rest of their lives, it also makes your job as a parent so much easier.

Crafts: Our craft cupboard is packed with white paper, pencils, crayons, paint, glue and pairs of scissors. At first I felt sad that the girls don't have nicely coloured paper, cardboard or any of the other beautiful things one can get but their creativity blows me away. They make clothes for the doll and each other, books, and 3d constructions and don't even seem to miss other things. When they make crafts I always remind myself that it's all about the process and never about the product. What the girls make may look nothing like that perfectly imperfect folded flower, stamped penguin and cars-from-milk-carton that they would have made in school but it is their own crativity and not the exact same  flowers/penguin/car as that of the 24 other classmates. The identical flowers may teach the children about following instructions and will teach them fine motor skills but hinders the development of creativity and initiative, two skills that we find very important. The crafts the girls make at home are their own initiative because they feel like experimenting with printing, stamping, cutting and glue and they can do so for as long as they want until their need for learning about it is satisfied.

A dress up basket: I firmly believe that dressing up is an essential part of childhood development and we made sure that we brought hats, glasses, dresses and accessories. It helps kids to assume different roles and to see the world through another persons eyes and it is just great fun.

Tiptoi books: We absolutely love books and know that kids learn lots from books but we don't always have time to read them to the girls when they want it (who does?) . With the tiptoi books the girls can take ownership over their learning and they are chockful with age appropriate information. And it is still a book that they are interacting with, not a screen. Sophie's two favourite tiptoi books at the moment are one with maps and one about knights. Doris loves the one that is all about counting, finding patterns and solving riddles. An added benefit for us as a multilingual family is that it helps the girls with their German and Dutch vocabularies and pronounciation which is awesome!

Our (schleich) animal collection: The animals are not only great for playing (the girls have given each animal a name and a character) but also for learning about grouping and size. 'Can you put all the aninals who live in the sea together? Which animals can fly? Can you place them in a line from big to small?' Etc.

To conclude, I don't think that what we do is anything special and any parent can do it. Even when kids are in formal school there are still many moments and daily life activities where you can foster a love for learning and while you do so, spend precious time making memories and creating a bond that will hopefully last a life time.