Connections – Discussions

Yesterday, in honor of my recent promise to say yes more to GameStop, Iain bought a Harry Potter game that he used to play a couple of years ago. It is a fun game I must admit and Iain and Ryan were both enjoying it.

A good while into the game, Iain was in the “library” searching for some book with spells. Ryan turned to me and said, “Why is it called the li-berry momma?” I didn’t know the answer so I looked it up on Google and told him that, in another language, library means a collection of books. I asked him if he wanted me to go on and he didn’t. I had satisfied his curiosity and that was enough for now.

The same day that we ventured over to GameStop, we hit one of my favorite haunts, Edward McKay Used Book store and picked up a bunch of good books. We got one on Natural Disasters, Mummies, ghost stories, how to build forts, why do we dream, and a nature encyclopedia. Ryan really had a good time looking through the books, especially the ones about natural disasters. See, when we had the tornado warning the other day, Ryan got pretty scared and now he wakes up every day worried that we’re going to have a tornado. I was glad he showed an interest in looking at the tornado in the natural disaster book because at least he’s not too afraid to do that.

It’s just interesting to me how much daily life intersects with learning. How many connections we can make just by going about our daily business. Ryan has been blowing us away with what he can read and takes great pride in pointing words out to us while we’re out and about. He has even helped Iain with a word from time to time and Iain doesn’t think twice about it. Other children might feel threatened by a younger sibling helping them with something but here, in this unschooling environment, there is no pressure, no set standards of who should know what and when. That is when knowledge is absorbed. In the absence of rules and expectations the children are flourishing. It’s such an amazing thing.