Morning prep

Ethan cleaned his room in anticipation of his friends coming over. Usually, we would invite one friend over but since today was a reading break for public school students, we also invited another boy over to play.

A funny thing about Ethan since starting unschooling is his willingness to happily do things like cleaning his room. It may be because he has greater choice over what he does.

Dong Eun has noticed that Ethan seems more mature after the road trip and happily accepts tasks and chores.

While waiting for his friends to arrive, Ethan made book 19 of Adventures of a Piece of Paper.

He then read a book about the planets that he borrowed from the library yesterday.

Once he was done, he hung the Chinese lanterns he made to start decorating our place for his friends to see.

Excited about friends coming over

Just so show how excited he was that his friends were coming over, he also made signs for his friends to see. I think he was especially excited today because one of his friends is a new who hasn’t been over before.

While waiting for his friends to come over, Ethan watched some Khan Academy math videos. This one was about converting degrees Celsius in degrees Fahrenheit.

He also watched a video about testing solutions to inequalities. We’re not sure how much he completely understood what he was learning, but the fact that he was interested enough in this topic was another reminder that unschooling has been a great way for Ethan to expand his learning and follow his curiosity.

Friends

The first person to arrive is a boy from nature school who isn’t a homeschooler. He goes to public school but takes one day off a week to attend nature school. He’s the same age as Ethan and the two of them get along very well.

After playing chess, they made some more Chinese lanterns.

Then they went out to the beach to enjoy the mild weather.

Ethan found a sort of Fibonacci sequence in some concrete tiles.

At the beach, the kids had a fun time just enjoying the outdoors.

Back at home, Ethan and his friend made a comic book together. Ethan was the writer and Kal was the illustrator.

And after everyone was gone, Ethan printed out a math worksheet to practice solving equations. He likes to try new things and challenge himself.

So, this Friday went quite well. There was, however, a challenge when Ethan didn’t like the way one of his friends was touching things without asking for permission.

This set off a sequence of events where both boys were unhappy and Ethan expressed his feelings about that boy in a not so positive way. We had a talk with Ethan about how his friend is a couple years younger and maybe hasn’t had as much experience playing with other people’s things.

We mentioned that Ethan was just the same a couple years ago and that we have to try to understand and respond in a better way. Hopefully, the message sunk in but only time will tell.

When situations like this arise, it’s nice to be homeschooling because we can easily observe this type of behaviour and help Ethan learn. We liked it when his former teacher in public school would let us know of any situations with other kids, but we really had no idea what was really happening.

Anyway, let’s see how he does when we have playdates like this in the future.

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What’s also been cool is that we, as his parents, also feel far more comfortable with unschooling. There are still moments of not being sure, but overall, we’re getting the hang of it.

We’re still working on ways to introduce new things to Ethan and to encourage him to explore other forms of learning and expression. In particular, we’re wondering when or how Ethan will write more.

It will likely be a situation where he feels that writing is the best way to communicate his thoughts or an idea, rather than if we ask him. For now, Ethan is busy absorbing and immersing himself in science and math.

Morning

This morning, Ethan picked up Maker Lab, and checked out the various experiments he could try. He also read a few other science books.

There was also a very cool rainbow outside and we could see the entire arc of it. Ethan asked what was at the end of the rainbow and we had fun making up different things that could be there.

I also explained what a leprechaun was while we talked about how a rainbow forms. It was also neat to see the rainbow slowly disappear.

Later, Ethan had swimming lessons and we went to the library afterwards. It was nice to see how Ethan behaved when we ran into my aunt’s 93-year-old stepmother. Ethan was polite and patient as I had a quick conversation.

Afternoon

After some lunch, Ethan watched some videos on Khan Academy about the lifecycle of stars. He followed that up by watching Discovery Education’s ‘How the Universe Works.’

Playing with friends

Before heading to taekwondo, Ethan played outside with one of his friends, an old schoolmate who lives nearby.

Ethan also went to the library and borrowed some new science books.

After dinner

We had a nice meal and after dinner, Ethan watched some more shows on Discovery Earth about the solar system.

Ethan and I did some taekwondo practice. We practiced his pattern and kicks, but I wanted to have a taekwondo style kick pad for Ethan to practice with so the practice is similar to the class.

I decided to take one of our cushions and wrap one end with a belt. and made our own kicking pad from a cushion and a belt. This worked surprisingly well and didn’t cost a thing.

When it was time to get ready for bed, Ethan and I read a book about black holes, then the Norse Myths book. Ethan quite likes the Norse Myth book.

When we were done reading, Ethan suddenly wanted to practice algebra so we printed some linear equations for him to work on.

Some of the problems were confusing, but he finally figured it out and he did surprisingly well.

So that was our unschooling journey for today. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

The post Unschooling Journal February 8, 2018 – Being Creative appeared first on How to Do Stuff With Ethan.

Morning

This morning, he worked on some origami, just doing some free-folding to see what shapes he could come up with. He ended up with a fortune teller type of design.

Next, Ethan pulled out his compass and drew a new design.

Next, he worked on solving a couple his Rubik’s Cubes.

This next one is the Rubik’s Triamid, which he got for Christmas but hasn’t been able to solve. So today he spent some time learning about this cube and eventually solved it. (Yes, it’s supposed to come apart when solving it!)

Chinese Lanterns

We’re going to host a Chinese New Year dinner, so Ethan made some Chinese Lanterns from instructions he found online.

Ethan then wanted to play with one of his 3×3 Rubik’s Cubes and made a cube-in-a-cube pattern with it.

Taekwondo and Mindfulness

Ethan went to his taekwondo and mindfulness classes. At mindfulness class, he made something that helps you check how tense or relaxed you are.

If you’re stressed or out of breath, you’ll be able to see the condition that you are in by how much the ribbons are moving. When you are calm and breathing normally, the ribbons will move less and more evenly.

Ethan then read some science books and wanted to know what causes audio feedback.

So we tried producing feedback by Facetiming each other with my phone held close to his laptop.

And we did some research on how audio feedback is created and how feedback has been used in music. Artists like The Beatles, Lou Reed and Jimi Hendrix have used feedback in their songs.

So we looked up the songs and listened to them to hear how feedback was used.

Ethan added “I Feel Fine” by The Beatles into his Spotify playlist.

Next, he practiced his taekwondo pattern and kicks.

And read the story of the World book before getting ready for bed.

Ethan remembered that he needed to bring in some information about a medicinal plant for nature school, so he did some research on local plants.

Ethan was able to keep himself busy throughout the day. We’re quite happy with how he can find things to do and learn.

We’re still working on setting up our place to be more education so that Ethan can find something of interest everywhere he looks.

The post Unschooling Journal February 6, 2018 – Kind of Geometry Day appeared first on How to Do Stuff With Ethan.

Math randomness

Ethan started out by reading Help Your Kids With Math, just randomly flipping through the book. It seems as though this helps him get an overview of different math concepts and when he encounters a concept, sometimes accidentally, he remembers seeing it in the book. He will usually explore that particular concept further.

Dong Eun’s main concern with this was that he was too all over the place, but this seems to be his way of learning and she now thinks it works for him.

After breakfast, Ethan watched videos about black holes, supermassive black holes, quasars and what is programming on Khan Academy.

He then spent some time reading and read Love Will See You Through about Martin Luther King Jr. and a Magic School Bus book about climate change.

Bike ride

It was a nice day out so Dong Eun took Ethan out for a bike ride along the seawall.

Library

The bike ride took them to the library, where Ethan got in some Garfield and Smurf books before heading home.

More math

Since today was Math Day, Ethan spent some more time reading Help Your Kids With Math and followed that up with some coding.

Playtime

After the school let out for the day, Ethan headed over to play with his old schoolmates at the school playground.

Math Day continues

After playing with his friends, Ethan printed out a worksheet to practice adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators.

He then did a math unit test on Khan Academy for fun.

After the math test, he watched Introduction To Algebra on Khan Academy. When he saw ‘What is a variable?’ he connected this concept with coding that he used to make his game.

The Gear Cube

Ethan loves Rubik’s Cubes and has a Gear Cube in his collection. He hasn’t been able to solve it so he decided to learn how by watching some videos on YouTube.

After a little while, he got it figured out. He understood how the Gear Cube works and was able to understand how solving the Gear Cube is similar to solving the classic 3×3 Rubik’s Cube.

Still Math Day

Ethan practiced some more math using the DreamBox website. We like that DreamBox uses a simple format to teach math, rather than relying on something graphics heavy or a game.

Math Day was winding down and it was time to practice Ethan’s taekwondo pattern.

Math Day nearly done

I read The Story of the World to Ethan and we both enjoyed how they use characters and their experiences to explain history. This makes it much more engaging and fun.

And finally, before going to bed, Ethan used a compass to draw circle patterns like this…

So that was Math Day!

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Morning coding

I got a chance to look at the game Ethan’s been working on and was quite surprised by the level of detail and depth he has added to the game. He continues to add more and tweak the game.

It’s been pretty cool to see how excited he is about it and how much fun it’s been.

The crabs move back and forth. Ethan has been adjusting their movements, testing new ways to make the game more challenging.

These are ghosts that fall down and need to be avoided.

Cousin time!

Before his cousins arrived, Ethan and Dong Eun cleaned up his room by getting rid of all the scrap paper he’s been collecting. I have to admit that I’m guilty of adding to the scrap paper collection. Anyway, it was good to clear it all out.

I think I mentioned before that the girls enjoy baking and they came with some new treats today. They made brownies and some crunchy breadsticks covered with chocolate, like those Pocky sticks.

Both snacks were great and were enjoyed by all of us.

Ethan showed Cecilia his game.

Then they played some board games. I overheard Ethan trying to convince the girls to play a Korean board game, which they were refusing but they didn’t want to say no directly.

I gently explained to Ethan that the game was too challenging for them because they already have some difficulty with English, so asking them to play a Korean game was too much.

I also explained that because they were our guests, we should do our best to accommodate them and make them feel comfortable. He was ok with that and the three of them had fun afterward.

Cheryl and Ethan played a version of catch with a sticky fidget toy.

Algebra!

Once the girls had left, Ethan wanted to try some math. He wanted to know how to add fractions with different denominators.

He watched a couple videos from Kahn Academy to get his feet wet and also learned some algebra, too.

He then practiced a bit after watching the videos. Kahn Academy has some amazing content and it was great to see Ethan exploring different math topics just because he was curious.

That seemed like a rather easy post to write! Shouldn’t complain, I guess. Ok, until next time!

The post Unschooling Journal February 4, 2018 – Cousins and Math appeared first on How to Do Stuff With Ethan.

A note about today’s post

We’re trying to be more efficient with the posts, so we’re making notes in the post and then writing up everything after we’ve collected all the photos. So that also means Dong Eun is making her notes her, instead of in a notebook. That’s why she’s the author of this post and not me, Carl. I’m just filling in the details today 🙂

Morning

Ethan started his day by reading the coding games book he’s been so into. We’re not sure if being in front of a screen for hours at a time is a good idea, but we’re doing our best to just be supportive and let Ethan explore and learn.

We talked about restricting his screen time, but that didn’t work so well before because he would try to rush through things and not really experiment.

We’ve settled on letting him complete one project a day so that he’s not in a hurry and can focus on learning and problem-solving. We’ll see how it goes.

With the beautiful sunny weather, we were hoping Ethan’s day at Soaring Eagle Nature School would be a little drier, even though he doesn’t seem to mind.

But he did come up with an ingenious way to keep the water from getting inside the plastic bag that holds his stuff by throwing on a bag clip.

With bag packed, we were off to nature school.

Let the coding begin

That afternoon, it rained quite a lot but Ethan still had a great time at nature school. Once he got home, he started working on a couple of coding projects, starting with a ghost game.

Next, he made a game with a car driving around a track. Yes, this was a second project but it was after today that we decided to limit coding to one project a day.

This car driving game was quite fun and Ethan added something different by including scoring for every time you made it around the track. It took him several tries to get the scoring to work properly, but he eventually figured it out.

This kind of validated our thinking that we should let him complete a project because if he had a time limit, he may have given up or not even bothered trying to add new functionality to the game.

New Eggza

Ethan really likes his eggza recipe and wanted to try a new version today. I have to admit I’m still a little nervous watching him cut, but he listens to instructions when I see him doing something that could potentially be dangerous.

Anyway, here’s today’s eggza…

Turkey earthquake

Ethan was reading Timelines of World History and saw a part about the massive earthquake in Turke in 1999. The book said that over 15,000 people were killed, so we looked it up and read a little more about the earthquake.

Taekwondo practice

Ethan’s been back in taekwondo and seems to be getting into it more. He has been practicing his pattern more frequently, so I’m curious what has been motivating him to do so. Either way, it’s great to see him so enthusiastic about practicing.

Ethan needs to practice his kicks so I held out some “targets” for him. This was actually fun to do together.

Learning about civil rights

Ethan has learned about civil rights on other occasions, and we even visited the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in Washington, DC, so he has an understanding of what the struggle is.

Tonight before bed, we read a book about Martin Luther King Jr. called Love Will See You Through, which was written by his niece.

The book outlines the principles of non-violence and love that Martin Luther King Jr. preached and practiced. Reading the book was a good way for Ethan to learn more civil rights, Martin Luther King Jr. and connect the dots a little from our trip to DC.

And that was today, but it took a while for Ethan to get to bed. He said he wasn’t sleepy, so we let him stay up and read.

The unschooling experts have said that saying “Yes” more can help Ethan feel more confident in his choices, while also helping him understand consequences.

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