8 July 2011

Sophie’s Unschooling Holiday

On the official last day of the school term:

Sophie: No more learning for two weeks!
Imogen: No more learning? We learn all the time, not just in term time.
Charlotte: What are you planning to do for the next two weeks? Sit in a box? That’s the only way you’ll avoid leaning anything.
Imogen: And even then you’ll learn something. You’ll learn it’s very boring sitting in a cardboard box!
I’m glad to report Sophie decided not to sit in that box. And so she is learning despite it being the holidays.
So far Sophie has been drawing, trying to make her people look more realistic. She has pages and pages of people in a new folder she’s put together. I searched the bookshelves for a how-to-draw book and Andy has been offering his suggestions. Now Sophie thinks she might write some stories to go with the pictures.
Sophie’s been finishing her confirmation preparation work. Only a page to complete, and a week to go until the ceremony!
Sophie’s been to visit her cousins where she could talk and play and talk. She visited the beach (first time in 4 years), collected shells and built sandcastles, played soccer and catch, and got wet in the sea.
She’s taken a lot of photos and played around with them on the computer.
She’s read a dozen books.
And listened to Andy reading out loud.
Sophie discovered what it is like to live without electricity.
And printed off some knitting patterns from the Internet and started knitting some fingerless gloves.
Now that might not sound like a lot of learning. However…
Sophie has been sick since the second day of the holidays, and there’s not much you feel like doing (or learning) when you have a headache and a cough and feel weak and tired.
She’d had planned to make a clay wind-chime, tie-dye a T-shirt, bake a cake, write blog posts about the wild windy weather and our visit to the cousins, answer a letter, play outside, ride her bike along the tracks with Andy, go to the cinema ….

But, there’s still one more week of holidays to go before we are officially supposed to get back to work. Plenty of time for some more learning!

READ  What's Stopping You From Unschooling?

Sue Elvis

I'm an Australian blogger, podcaster, and Youtuber. I write and speak about unschooling, parenting and family life. I'm also the author of the unschooling books 'Curious Unschoolers', 'Radical Unschool Love' and ‘The Unschool Challenge’. You'll find them on Amazon!

4 Comments

  1. We don't hang out for the holidays, since we started to unschool and we don't get burnout, anymore, either.
    But, we seem to be learning more than ever. It fits into everyday life so well, doesn't it?
    I hope Sophie is better, now:)

  2. Yes Vicky,the official school term just flew by so quickly. I have to admit though, there is not much learning going on here right at the moment: everyone is sick. No one feels like doing anything. Just a bit of reading and a few movies and lots of rest.

  3. Wow, what a holiday…ours is pretty cruisy to. Brid had a week away from her beloved books and has drifted toward them again in the last few days.
    She is reading out paragraphs that she enjoys.
    I had all these crafts to do but…

  4. Leanne, it's always good to have a change of direction during a holiday, isn't it? Then everyone returns to the normal things with new enthusiasm.

    I planned a few crafts too but like you, the girls haven't done them. They have had their own ideas. Maybe we'll still get to the clay wind-chimes. God bless!

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