Children are curious and eager to learn about a topic that interests them. As children explore the area of interest, they dig deeper and learn much more because their interest and curiosity drive them. In the example I am sharing today, I will show you how I unschool multiple subjects within an area of interest. It started with a library book that my children read about penguins. They were curious and had several questions, their interest increased, and they were eager to learn more. Immediately, I started planning and modifying the learning environment to reflect their new interest and support learning. Here is how it turned out!
LIBRARY
Books are always a great place to start! The first thing they did was search for penguin and penguin-related books online at our local library! The library is a great resource for unschooling. Utilizing our local library teaches them important skills, like how a library works, how to look up books, how the books are organized, reading call numbers, and completing the checkout process. My little guy made his way to the children's section and worked on fine motor and building skills. We ended up with 20 fiction and non-fiction books about penguins, migration, Antarctica, and science in varying reading levels! (We don't assign reading levels to allow each child to read at a level they feel comfortable with and move ahead as they can.) I paired them with books we already had and a few I purchased! You can never have too many books!
READING
I put a lot of emphasis on reading by modeling good reading habits and providing a variety of genres and reading levels. Unschooling can be primarily reading. While reading and looking at the pictures, my children were gathering facts and information about penguins. They read about penguin life cycles, family life, body parts, parenting, adaptations, and the climates and geography of where they are found. Here are more interesting books about animal adaptations - Life Science 2nd Grade Book Set. We touched a bit on the history of penguins and people in Antarctica. One of my kids' favorite reads was Amazing Migrations. When new information is introduced, I guide them towards an activity or resource that focuses on that information to further their learning and deepen their understanding.
LANGUAGE ARTS
Reading in itself is a Language Arts enrichment activity! As my children read, I encourage them to write down new words they come across. Some days they only want to read the information. This time they each had quite a few words written down after reading a couple of books. We go through the list of words together and write the definition and part of speech for each word, then they use it in a sentence. They are eager to grow their vocabulary and share silly sentences with their newly acquired words! We talked about how to make an Acrostic Poem about penguins using some of these new words! Even my kindergartner could easily do this! I asked my kids how they would feel if they were a penguin? What would they do? Eat? Where would they live? They had some pretty creative ideas! My daughter wanted to write a story about it. She even used some of her new words and looked at books for reference. I have a stack of Composition Wide Rule Journals just for this purpose! They always come in handy for spontaneous writing!
GEOGRAPHY
They were surprised that penguins do not live everywhere, although they read this information in books. This is partly because penguins are in our local zoo and my children had not thought about where they lived. Almost all penguins live below the equator on Antarctica except for a few island dwellers. I realized my children know very little about Antarctica, so I hung up the Antarctica Continent Posters from the Continents Learning Charts. These are great visuals that increase my children's curiosity and learning with the vivid images of the continent, people, native wildlife, and landmarks. These posters sparked great conversations and learning opportunities. I always have a different continent displayed to match their interest. We also have a World Map for Kids hung up. They see details about Antarctica on the Continents Learning Charts and find the continent on the world map to understand its position on the earth and from the equator. They enjoy the native animals and drawings on each continent.
This was a great opportunity to fill out more of their Color Your Own World Map Posters! As an unschooling family, I have several enrichment activities to support learning! I like being prepared for the change in interests and inquisitive minds. When they learn about a continent, they color it in and label it. We added stickers of native animals to the continents and oceans as well. The Live Photography Sticker Assortment is perfect for that and I like having the variety for any activity that involves animals.
SCIENCE
This list of new words included several species of penguins. We talked about how there are several different species of other animals as well, like cats and dogs, and how Scientists classify them. I love using visuals and brought out the Animal Classifications Sorting Boxes as we discussed classifying. This brought on a great conversation about why penguins are classified as birds, so we did a Venn Diagram of penguins and birds to compare them.
My children were particularly interested in the fact that penguins could live in such cold and harsh conditions and not freeze. To show them how blubber keeps penguins warm, I set up a blubber glove science experiment! My kids hypothesized about what would happen as I prepared the experiment. Each of my kids took turns putting their hand inside the blubber gloved hand and placing it into the ice water. They were shocked that it was not cold! I got out a thermometer for them to check the water temperature.
MATH
Since we had the thermometers out, I showed my younger children how to read one. Then, I took them to our house thermostat and asked them to read it, noting the similarities and differences. We discussed the different ways to use a thermometer and what kinds we have. They wanted a thermometer in their rooms to read daily! Luckily, I had this adorable Penguin Thermometer Magnetic Craft, so they can have their own! My kids enjoy worksheets and math books sometimes, so I utilize them as an option to continue covering a skill. This week, I set out a math book with some thermometer reading in it, and my daughter completed it on her own. We also talked about the penguin population and how it has changed over the years, which led to math word problems covering addition, subtraction, and multiplication with variables. There are several ways to incorporate math into a lesson.
REAL-LIFE EXPERIENCE AND APPLICATION
For some real-life experience, we took a trip to the local zoo! Before we left, they looked up the zoo times and cost. They figured out how much money we would need including taxes and counted it out. They also calculated how many miles we would travel and how much gas we would use. At the zoo, they each grabbed a map, read the key, and navigated us to the penguins. Once we arrived at the penguin encounter, they read the plaque about the penguins and compared what they read to what they had already learned and what they were seeing. A zookeeper came out and my children asked him why the penguins were there because they should be in Antarctica. He explained that zoos help educate people about animals, their habitats, and people's impact on them. Great learning experience.
PROBLEM-SOLVING & LOGIC
Problem-solving is an important life skill that I include daily. Puzzles are an easy way to do this. Not only are they learning problem-solving and logic skills, but my little guy is also working on important fine motor muscles, finger strength, and hand-eye coordination. Gibby & Libby World Map Floor Puzzle is one of our favorite puzzles. While putting together the puzzle, my kids identify the oceans and continents plus a few native animals and landmarks represented.
My kids also grabbed these Animal Tracks Self-Checking puzzle pieces that I leave on the shelf with the puzzles. These puzzle pieces match the animal tracks to the animal and are a little tough for my youngest. My older children all worked together with my youngest, teaching him the differences in tracks and animals, to put them all together. They were reinforcing previous knowledge and learning new information while cooperating and teaching each other. This puzzle is a part of the Kindergarten Science At-home Learning Kit.
Another great way to add problem-solving and logic to our day is through games. Games can provide a variety of skills and learning opportunities. The Penguins on Ice game has puzzle pieces that shift to fit into place. It takes problem-solving and logic to get the pieces to fit just right. It also comes with a booklet of challenges that increase in difficulty, which is perfect for my multi-age group. My kids choose this logic game daily to try out new challenge puzzles.
FINE MOTOR SKILLS
Building fine motor skills is important for writing. I incorporate fine motor activities into play throughout the day. For this penguin-themed fine motor activity, I used a blue Neon Tall Storage Basket with Handles. I love all of the colors and use them frequently! I filled it with Snow Ball Pom-poms and added a handful of Bulk Mini Penguin Eraser Assortment erasers and handed him Learning Advantage Jumbo Tweezers. He was focused and worked hard to retrieve the penguins from the depths of the pom-pom snow! As he pulled out the penguins, he sorted them by color. Then, he counted each color group and added groups together. These penguin erasers are also fun to use on the Ten-Frame Dough Counting Mats as penguins on icebergs!
SENSORY
I use sensory bins regularly to improve fine motor skills through scooping, grasping, stirring, and pouring with a variety of tools and objects. I have also found that the sensory bin plays a big role in the emotional health of my children. When they are feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, or just need to calm themselves they end up at the sensory bins. Even my older children utilize the Mini Narwhal Water Bead Squeeze Toys.
This sensory bin was not just for sensory, it was for imaginative play, a little bit of science, reinforcing language, and reviewing information learned. I picked up these Magic Snow mini buckets, I could have grabbed the Large Insta-Snow® to save time, but these worked great and my kids enjoyed opening and making all of the mini buckets. They were in awe as they transformed the powder into the snow with a bit of water! They talked about how this snow is different from real snow and listed the properties of both. Once the snow was made, they went through Bulk Manipulative Character Assortment we have and pulled out all of the Antarctic animals to play with. This sensory bin was the highlight of their week! They spent hours, I mean hours, playing with the animals while using the new words and language they learned. Next time, I will use our regular Large Confetti Storage Bin that is a little deeper to minimize the mess.
This is just one example of ways we unschool multiple subjects through an area of interest. There is no one right way to unschool and this is a way that works for us. Keeping a large variety of activities on hand to encourage learning is one of the best ways to keep your unschooler curious and engaged! I hope you found this interesting and gained some insight and ideas for your unschooling journey! Unschooling is a fun adventure, learning about the world around us. Enjoy your unschooling journey with your adventurous children.
