{ AN UNSCHOOL UPDATE: THOUGHTS AFTER 3 MONTHS INTO OUR PURPOSE-DRIVEN UNSCHOOL ... }

honestly, these days have been magically purposeful. roughly three/four months into our ‘unschool” journey and I am so glad we’ve chosen to push past all the frustrations and fears. not surprisingly, there have been so many picture books that we have drawn inspiration from that have single handily provided the courage that we’ve needed to keep things as simple as possible and draw on the basic human right to learn. books like malala’s magic pencil, for the right to learn and the oldest student, really sharpen our heart of gratefulness for the freedom and privilege of educating our hearts and minds.

we have a “formula” for selecting out book stacks for the coming weeks. curriculum book stacks is what I think we will call them. books that cover each job that they’ve been given and the story of abraham lincoln fit the bill for his work as a time traveler for the weeks to come. so far, he’s read twice on his own and once again with his brother. each time he is able to recall more and more about “honest” abe and adds a few more line items to his big book of questions.

abraham lincoln, the emancipation proclamation, the westward expansion, atoms and their molecular geometry, oceans, weather and climate change, pegiuns, chickens, pelicans and other birds. our first research projects of the year, starting our newspaper, our cookbook, and designs for a clubhouse build, are well underway. these are just a few of the things that we’ve covered over the last week alone. with no leading or pre-planned/prepped guidance from me.

our homeschool library has been the centerpiece of our days. they choose books and they read them. i am here to ask questions and LISTEN to their answers. i’m here to find resources, to point them in the right direction and document their discoveries… kinda the best part.

we read about dr. wangari maathai in dr. wangari maathai plants a forest. she was a kenyan social, environmental and political activist, the first african woman to win the nobel prize and founder of the green belt movement (an environmental organization that empowers communities, particularly women, to conserve the environment and improve livelihoods).  note to my unschool mama self : while I took hold of her story and her message it hasn’t sparked enough interest for us to move further into just yet. so, ill take note for a later date. adding a few of her books and articles to our “meet science” unit in our evernote portfolio will make for easy reference once we circle back around and our conversations lead us to chat more about conservation and the environment.

have I ever mention us being in the perfect little spot in our neighborhood?!? what once felt like a homeschool mom curse to have an early elementary school and a library in our backyard, now seems to be our biggest blessing.

it makes for the perfect pathway on our morning walks. eight years of walking pass the educational choice that we left behind. somedays wondering if we’ve made the right decision while others being overwhelmingly grateful for the chance to choose a different road ahead.

“back to school” holds a very different meaning for our unschooling family as we’ve never stepped away from the lessons that each day brings. but, we still enjoy the “fun’ of it all… the excitement in the season as we switch things up in our homeschool room/spaces, load new apps on their iPads and stack fresh books on the shelves of our homeschool library.

our first week “back-to-school” and we’ve eased into our days so nicely. working our way through the chronicles of narnia with the magicians nephew. we’ve been giving our british accents our best shot. our days are full of an insane amount of reading. weather it’s story time, quiet reading time, buddy reading our family read-aloud, it’s been such delight to see the life of learning that I envisioned unfold right before my eyes. there is a complete breakdown of how we approach reading time in our family in our BOOK YEAR GUIDE 🎉 available as a free download for signing up for our fallcofamily newsletter if you want to know more about how we’ve built our days around books.

our purpose driven unschool has lead us to dreaming up our live & learn tour which is being taken all the way back to the drawing board after 2020 has taken the turn of a lifetime. we are currently working through our thoughts and ideas of how we can keep the vision alive and make these days just as magical without the plane rides, meet & greets and fallcofamily events we had in the plans. so, brian adjusted a few things in our room to make way for bigger imaginations in the days ahead. we’ll be sure to keep you posted 😉.

vannah girl introduced us to a little robert frost by way of the beautiful picture book the road not taken: two roads diverged in a yellow wood… and for some reason I found myself connecting to the story much more than I thought I would.

two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

and sorry I could not travel both and be one traveler,

long I stood

and looked down one as far as I could

to where it bent in the undergrowth;

then took the other,

as just as fair,

and having perhaps the better claim,

because it was grassy and wanted wear;

thought as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same,

and both that morning equally lay

in leaves no step had trodden black

oh, I kept the first for another day!

yet knowing how way

leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back

I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence:

two roads diverged in a wood, and i

I took the one less traveled by,

and that has made all the difference. ~robert frost

the kids laughed a little and we had a lot of fun highlighting the beauty of the illustrations while I looked up a few articles on the breakdown and interpretations of the lines in between the stanzas. then we transitioned into a few more poems that would make them laugh all the way out loud with “an irritating creature” from the new kid on the block by jack prelutsky.

currently reading : pages & co: the book wanders by anna james, the night diary by veera hiranandani and bob by wendy mass and rebecca stead. i’m thinking about including our curriculum stacks in unschool update post every now and then, mostly on our fallcofamily friends patreon with a monthly or quarterly wrap-up here as well.

last week on the channel, we shared all about screen-time and the kids walked down memory lane with a flashback to one of our favorite apps when they were first learning to read “learn with homer” and they’ve given us an affiliate link to share with our fallcofam in case you wanted to try out their seven day free trial and support us in what and how we share along the way!

i love how much they read. which makes me all the less guilt about how much we love our screen-time too. we’ve been working our way through a list of apps/products/companies that we’ve used and loved over the years in order to build strong authentic partnerships on this journey to build our filmmaking business as a family.

look at this kids face he made when he started to recognize some of the games and songs that they used to play on REPEAT when they were little!!! i promise you we’ve been singing 🎵 Jenny Jenkins 🎵 for the whole of today and yesterday.

and this face, lollllllll…

working our way through our digital curriculum recommendations to share with our fallco family and friiieeennnnddddssss and this is the face he made when I gave him the job of searching through our favorites from the “good ole days” lol.

i’ve been documenting most of our days including the questions they asked, the books they finished, the stories they wrote and beyond. oh, and not to forget the words that my kendall-bear 🐻 has whispered to me EVERY-SINGLE night since, “i can’t wait for what we’ll learn tomorrow”!!! . . it’s him for me!!! it’s them for me!!! our connection will always ring louder than any curriculum that offers a well-rounded/complete education. louder than any societal pressures and standards for what they should learn and how they should grow along w/ the boundaries and limitations that they set. . . remembering why i started and leaving behind constant reminders of why i keep going every day!!!

i took this picture right in the middle of our #unschool day. a day full of laughter, full of questions, lots of hugs, tons of reading & writing, problem solving and memory keeping. this is why i’ll keep going day after day. three months in to our purpose-driven unschool and as it stands today, we are all feeling really good about letting go and letting life lead the way.

with all the love,

syreena