Turning Our Unschool Weeks into Homeschool Records
Sometimes life is quiet. We can stay at home and relax. There’s plenty of time to say such things as “Would you like to watch a Shakespeare play with me?” We read books and drink hot chocolate. We write and chat and work on our individual projects. And as we do all this, I add links and notes to our homeschool records book.
But sometimes life races along at an incredible pace. We take trips away from home. I drive a daughter to work. The girls attend music lessons. We shop. We take recycling to the resource centre. We choose paint for the interior of our house. We’re invited to music recitals. We take a new puppy to the vet. We go on outings to scout for new music video locations and then film a video. One thing after another.
Then at the end of the day, we flop onto the sofa to watch a movie or a TV show together (nothing ‘educational’). And I look at my homeschool records book and I wonder how I’m going to turn all these events into notes. How do I turn life into homeschool records?
Our kids learn so much from life. When lots of things are happening around them, there isn’t any need to strew. There’s no need to go looking for learning experiences. But, if we are required to keep homeschool records, we do have to know how to translate everything into the right educational language.
What is the education department looking for? In our state, we have to provide evidence that our kids are covering the Key Learning Areas: maths, English, science, history and geography, creative arts, and personal development, health and physical education (PDHPE).
So I title each of my homeschool notes with one or more key learning areas. Then when our notes are examined by our Authorised Person, she can see at a glance that my kids are covering the required subjects of the school syllabus.
Life and school are very different. It might not be immediately obvious that what our kids are doing can be labelled as science or maths or English or whatever. We need not even see the learning that our kids are experiencing. They’re just living life. Yes, we know that life teaches our kids all kinds of things. We normally don’t think about it. We don’t have to. Unless we are required to keep homeschooling records.
So we have to look at life very carefully. We need to make as many notes as we can. And we need to label them correctly.
So perhaps I can tell you how I recorded (in our Evernote notebooks) a few of things that happened during a busy week or two of our unschool life.
Music recital
The Learning
One Sunday afternoon, my daughter Imogen gave a classical music recital in preparation for a singing performance exam. Her younger sisters wanted to support her by going along and hearing her sing. Imogen sang the Benjamin Britten song For I Will Consider My Cat Jeffry.
On the way home from the concert, we talked about Benjamin Britten and Imogen told us the song’s lyrics were written by the poet Christopher Smart.
The Homeschool Records
I scanned the recital program and described the recital. I made some notes about the conversation we’d had on our way home. (Creative Arts – music)
I clipped a copy of the poem For I Will Consider My Cat Jeffry into our notebook. (English)
I clipped some biographical info about Britten and Smart. (Creative Arts – Music / English – biography)
Sometimes we film Imogen when she’s performing in concerts and then add the video link to our notes. This time, no one made a recording of Imogen singing the Britten song. Instead, we clipped a version from Youtube. (Creative Arts – Music)
We could have added some photos of everyone at the recital, but we forgot to take some! ( Creative Arts)
Road trip to collect our puppy
The Learning
We took a trip north to see our son Callum and pick up a puppy he’d found for us. On the way, we saw some open cut coal mines. We talked about renewable and non-renewable energy sources, land uses, how a mining company has to clean up the environment once a mine closes.
Callum gave us a tour of his hometown. We noted all the main attractions and sites of historical significance.
We also took a trip to a nearby manmade dam and had a walk.
The Homeschool Records
I clipped some Google maps of the area we travelled to. (Geography)
I recorded some info about our journey: How far we travelled, how long the journey took, what route we took. (Maths)
I noted down our conversations about the mines and the dam. (Science / Geography)
I found articles online about open cut mines, renewable energy sources, manmade dams and other things we’d seen and discussed, and clipped them into our notebook. (Geography / Science)
I mentioned we’d taken a walk around the dam. (PDHPE)
Gemma-Rose took lots of photos and I uploaded some of them. (Creative Arts)
I uploaded lots of my photos of everything we’d seen.
Our Puppy
The Learning
We brought Quinn, our Great Dane / Shar Pei puppy, home and then a wonderful learning adventure began. We wanted to know more about our dog so we researched Great Danes and Shar Peis.
We took Quinn to the vet for a health check. She was vaccinated and wormed and we talked about fleas.
Gemma-Rose watched lots of dog training videos on Youtube. We talked about the alpha dog method and the rewarding-positive-behaviour method and then tried out the various techniques.
We watched documentaries about dogs. We found out about the history of the dog and dog breeding.
The Homeschool Records
I clipped all the dog breed articles we read. (Science)
We did some reading about genetics. (Science)
We did more research about vaccinations and worms and clipped lots of info. (Science)
I clipped the links to the documentaries we watched. (Science / History)
I clipped the links to Youtube videos. (Science / History / Geography)
I uploaded some photos of our dog.
Watching Grand Designs
The Learning
As a family, we watched an episode or two of the lifestyle program Grand Designs. As we watched the different families build their dream homes in their dream locations, we talked about such things as eco-friendly homes, sustainability, and heritage listed homes.
And we pondered such questions as these: Do we need a perfect house in order to have a perfect life? What’s important in life? What makes us happy? Do we need a big house? We also discussed issues such as listening to each other, working together, compromising.
We talked about budgets and money management.
The Homeschool Records
I made notes of the conversations we had. (Science / Geography / History / Maths)
I found info online on the topics we talked about and clipped them. (Science / Geography / History / Maths)
I clipped the video trailers for each episode.
I copied and pasted an image for this series and added the episode descriptions.
A Walk Through a National Park
The Learning
One morning, I suggested to Gemma-Rose that we go exploring after we’d dropped big sister Sophie off at work: “We could pack a morning tea picnic and keep driving until we find somewhere interesting to visit.”
We found ourselves in a national park. As we walked, we took short video clips of ourselves and what we could see: the waterfalls, the birds, the bush, the flora… We talked about everything, swapping info and pondering questions such as “I wonder what that bird is called. And what species of wattle do you think that is?”
As well as the video, we took lots of photos of everything including some information boards that told us about the indigenous owners of the land and their cultural associations with it.
The Homeschool Records
I made notes of our conversations about the waterfalls, birds and flora. (Geography / Science)
We googled the questions we’d been pondering and clipped information. (Geography / Science)
We edited our video clips and uploaded the completed video. (Geography / Science / Creative Arts / English)
I added a few Google maps of the national park and surrounding area. (Geography)
I visited the national park website where I found a lot of interesting information which we read. I clipped some of it. (Science / Geography)
We found out more about the indigenous owners of the park and their cultural associations with the land (Geography / HIstory)
The Batman Lego Movie
The Learning
We enjoyed this movie together as a family. Later, Gemma-Rose and I watched some behind-the-scenes videos of the making of the movie.
The Homeschool Records
I clipped links to the Youtube videos we’d watched about the making of the movie. We talked about the animation techniques and the voice actors. (Creative Arts)
We also critiqued the movie: What did we like or dislike? What worked and what didn’t? (Creative Arts / English)
We intended to look at the Rotten Tomato rating and find out more about the profits of the movie. (Maths)
I copied and pasted a DVD cover image and added the movie description
Scouting for a new music video location
The Learning
Imogen wanted to look for a new music video location, so one morning, she and Gemma-Rose and I went exploring. In a local village, we found a path that led through the bush to the river. The path was called Stone Quarry Walk which made us wonder: Did the area used to be a quarry? We noticed the beautiful sandstone and how it had been cut.
We took lots of photos and some sample video.
The Homeschool Records
I uploaded our photos.
We googled the area and found out that it had indeed been a sandstone quarry. Now it is a recreational area and nature reserve. We discussed how the uses of land can change. (Geography / History)
We discussed the nature of sandstone and how stones from the quarry had been used to construct local buildings. (Science / History / Creative Arts – architecture)
I clipped some Google maps of the area. (Geography)
I make notes of our conversations. (Science / Geography / History / Creative Arts)
Filming a Music Video
The Learning
A couple of days after we’d discovered our music video shoot location, we got up early to film Imogen singing the song Something Just Like This. Gemma-Rose was in charge of Imogen’s music track. She also was involved with the behind-the-scenes video shoot. Imogen also made a vlog while we were at the river and all the girls contributed to it. As well as filming the video, we all took lots of photos.
The Homeschool Records
I described what we did at the video shoot: helping with the music, taking photos, filming the music video, the behind-the-scenes video, the vlog (Creative Arts, English – interviewing and being interviewed)
Once the music video was edited and uploaded to Youtube, I clipped the link. (Creative Arts)
I also clipped the links to the behind-the-scenes video and vlog (Creative Arts / English)
I could have clipped a copy of the sheet music as we discussed it and everyone sang along. (Creative Arts)
I uploaded lots of photos. (Creative Arts)
Decluttering Our House
The Learning
We sorted out a lot of recycling and took it to our local recycling and resource centre. And afterwards, we talked about recycling, did some googling and discovered a TV show about reducing waste which we watched together: War on Waste.
The Homeschool Records
I made notes of our conversations about recycling and environmental issues. (Science / Geography)
I clipped the links to the War on Waste series. I added descriptions of each episode. I made a few notes about the things we talked about as we watched. (Geography / Science)
Redecorating Our House
The Learning
Once we’d done some decluttering, we decided to redecorate the interior of our home. We visited the hardware store to get some colour charts. We talked about light, colours, palettes and colour codes.
The Homeschool Records
I made notes of our conversations. (Creative Arts / Science)
I clipped some information corresponding to the things we talked about. (Creative Arts / Science)
I could tell you about the other things that happened, but maybe I have shared enough examples so that you can see how I turn our unschooling life into homeschool records notes.
Summing up
For each learning experience, I might…
make notes of conversations we have about the things we’re doing, things we have seen, questions we are pondering
clip online info corresponding to our conversations
research the places we visit
google and then clip info from websites associated with the places we visit
add google maps
add links to videos, websites, books etc
add images of DVD and book covers
scan any paperwork such as music recital programs
upload lots of photos and links to any videos we make
title the notes with the appropriate key learning area
add the key learning areas as tags as well
add other tags such as ‘genetics’, ‘photography’
Of course, all the events that happen in our lives can be used as starting points for further learning. We could find additional resources to extend the learning adventure: “I’ve put some extra info in the unplanning strewing notebook if you’d like to find out more.”
But what if our kids aren’t interested in the things we strew? That’s quite okay. We can always use the resources ourselves!
This is a blog post version of episode 104 of my podcast: How Do I Turn Life into Homeschooling Records Notes. You might notice that both posts have the same opening paragraphs!
You might also like
Podcast episode 58: Responding to Unschooling and Other Critics
Podcast episode 96: Turning Unschool Learning into Homeschool Records Notes
Podcast 79: Learning from Life, Record Keeping and Strewing
Blog post: How to Turn Movies into Homeschool Records Notes
Blog post: Are You a Curious Unschooler?
Blog post: Turning Outings into Homeschool Records Notes
Blog post: Turning My Teenager’s Unschool Learning into Homeschool Records
Images
I took these photos after the girls had filmed the music video, Something Just Like This.
Gemma-Rose was 13 when I recorded these notes of her unschool life. That was just over a year ago.
I still plan to write a homeschooling record posts for a younger unschooler. Please watch out for it!