Unschooling is all about the child learning through engaging with their surroundings and then pursuing more deeply the concepts that spark curiosity and interest. The environment is key for learning to be a natural and smooth process. The environment should encourage children to explore their interests, learn from experiences, and pursue project based learning. Everything in the learning environment should encourage experimentation, problem-solving, creativity, and open-ended play.
The space should inspire children to direct their own learning. To create an engaging environment there are a few key areas to focus on – aesthetic, loose parts, natural materials, and basic resources.
The space should allow time and space for a child to linger with an idea or project they are interested in.
Whether distance/online schooling, home schooling, or unschooling, a good home library is key to the learning process for any child. Every child can learn on their own with a good book, even if they’re not reading yet!
Findings published in the journal Social Science Research show that raising a child in a home filled with books positively impacts her future academic growth and job attainment.
These books, with beautiful images and lots of easily digestible information, will allow your young learner to grasp the science of nature in a more relatable and meaningful way.
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Whether you’ve always planned to homeschool your child or have newly decided to homeschool due to changes from Corona Virus, homeschooling is a consequential and life-changing endeavor for the parents and child(ren). It’s important to be informed and change your view from mass schooling and typical education to individualized and personal learning.
Public school is intended to easily educate a mass of people, so when you choose to homeschool, it does not make sense to follow the typical teaching and learning methods used in the education system. In order for you, as an educator & guide, and your child to thrive in homeschooling, it is necessary to learn the research behind natural, child-centered learning. This list of books will give you more than enough information to become an expert (and happy) guide in your child’s home learning process.
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If you read just one of these books, make it this one. This is a research and experience filled book that reveals the importance of taking an alternative approach to education that allows children to learn according to their own interests as well as how to support and optimize that learning process.
One of the reviews I read for this book talks about how it broke the mom’s heart that she didn’t read it before homeschooling because she felt she wasted years not igniting her children’s passion for education. A must read before homeschooling in order to change your approach and get your child(ren) engaged and passionate about what they’re learning.
Written by a mother who homeschooled her own children, this book teaches parents how to make homeschooling a part of daily life rather than forced and scheduled curriculum. It invites parents to live curiously and role model for their children how to learn by exploring interests and adventures. It provides practical and applicable ways to make homeschooling easy and effective.
A developmental psychologist discusses the importance of shifting learning away from structured and forced schooling to children pursuing their own interests through play to become passionate and curious learners.
Learn the importance of unrestricted outdoor play on your child’s health and development. The book also provides helpful strategies on helping your child thrive regardless of where you live.
A research filled informative book on why and how to get your child interested and engaged in being in nature and outdoor learning.
“The best education does not happen at a desk, but rather engaged in everyday living – hands on, exploring, in active relationship with life.” ~ Vince Gowman
Quotes are a wonderful and quick way to express a larger idea and get to the center of a thought. As a more natural minded mama, I use quotes all the time to express the importance of child lead learning and natural exploration as well as to motivate me to stick to getting out and letting my little one learn her own way. I’ve collected some of my favorite quotes for world schooling and child lead learning to share with those looking to share these wonderful core ideas and get inspired or inspire others!
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Quotes For Child Lead Natural Learning
“The ultimate gift we can give the world is to grow our tiny humans into adult humans who are independent thinkers, compassionate doers, conscious questioners, radical innovators, and passionate peacemakers. Our world doesn’t need more adults who blindly serve the powerful because they’ve been trained to obey authority without question. Our world needs more adults who question and challenge and hold the powerful accountable.”
~ L.R. Knost
“By the time your school understands the importance of green time, your kids may have children of their own. So, today let the homework lay untouched, in favour of outdoor play and real-world learning.”
~Penny Whitehouse
“Our rapidly moving, information-based society badly needs people who know how to find facts rather than memorize them, and who know how to cope with change in creative ways. You don’t learn those things in school.”
~Wendy Priesnitz
“Without continuous hands-on experience, it is impossible for children to acquire a deep intuitive understanding of the natural world that is the foundation of sustainable development. ….A critical aspect of the present-day crisis in education is that children are becoming separated from daily experience of the natural world, especially in larger cities.”
“They’re not just playing in nature, they are: Learning, creating, sensing, believing, relaxing, exploring, observing, wondering, connecting, discovering, appreciating, understanding, experimenting…”
~Penny Whitehouse
“To develop a complete mind: study the science of art; study the art of science. Learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
~Leonardo da Vinci
“Teaching children about the natural world should be treated as one of the most important events in their lives.”
~Thomas Berry
“Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught. “
~Oscar Wilde
“Better to see something once than to hear about it a thousand times”
~Asian Proverb
“Don’t just tell your children about the world, show them.”
~Penny Whitehouse
“The best education does not happen at a desk, but rather engaged in everyday living – hands on, exploring, in active relationship with life.”
~Vince Gowman
“An environmental-based education movement—at all levels of education—will help students realize that school isn’t supposed to be a polite form of incarceration but a portal to the wider world.”
~Richard Louv
“Teaching is not about answering questions but about raising questions – opening doors for them in places they could not imagine.”
~Yawar Baig
“Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountain and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters, and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books.”
~John Lubbock
“As children observe, reflect, record, and share nature’s patterns and rhythms, they are participating in a process that promotes scientific and ecological awareness, problem solving, and creativity.”
~Deb Matthews Hensley
“If we want our children to move mountains, we first have to let them get out of their chairs.”
~Nicolette Sowder
“Close observation of children at play suggests that they find out about the world in the same way as scientists find out about new phenonoma and test new ideas…during this exploration, all the senses are used to observe and draw conclusions about objects and events through simple, scientific investigations.”
~Judith Rodin
“Children have a natural affinity towards nature. Dirt, water, plants, and small animals attract and hold children’s attention for hours, days, even a lifetime.”
~Robin C. Moore and Herb H Wong
“Children are born naturalists. They explore the world with all of their senses, experiment in the environment, and communicate their discoveries to those around them.”
