Crazy Mom Homeschools Kids: Fun Friday

Bicycle Safety Town on a BEAUTIFUL late summer day!

A fun Friday over here in the midwest! The weather broke and the temperatures are in the low 80s. A gorgeous cloud-filled sky is bringing cooling winds and I can hardly stand how wonderful it feels.

Today the kids and I went to Bicycle Safety Town, a really neat park. There are paved roads with all the accoutrements of automobile traffic: One way streets, highway ramps, bridges and viaducts, traffic signs, a stop light, boulevards, and more!

On the drive over, we stopped for a while to watch a 100 foot crane place a roof on a business building. Little Brother pointed out the different pulley systems on the crane. I thought to myself, in a classroom setting, the teacher would have led a 20 minute session of reading about pulleys in a text book. And then, if lucky, the kids might have been able to pass around an actual pulley. Some kids would have been interested, some not, and the learning would have been pretty conditional to the child's ability at that precise moment. But when one unschools, the moments are available over and over again, so that when the child is ready and open, he can make the most of a real experience.

Last week at a children's museum, Little Brother worked with some pulley systems. Also at the Wheels O' Time Museum some months ago, he had a similar experience. He has purchased a small brass pulley two different times when we were at the hardware store picking up things, and he has seen a crane and pulley set up many times in real life. THIS is learning. Not the textbook. He will put things together for himself, asking for help or information as needed. He will OWN his learning, rather than be handed it with conditions of passing a test. Learning this way is so different and so valuable.