Thursday, October 16, 2008

Life Learner Fair

Yesterday our unschooling group participated in a Life Learner Fair. It was awesome. I am always blown away by the creativity and knowledge that children obtain in things that truly interest them. The variety of topics covered by the 20 presenters was great: renewable energy, otters, knitting, sound, movie scene, dinosaurs, etc. It was amazing.

Alexander's table was titled, "How Things Work". This is the kind of thing he lives for. He loves to understand how things work and processes it over and over in his head. For the fair, he focused on planes, guns/bullets, and locks. Unfortunately, we couldn't get an Internet connection and he wasn't able to show the videos he had on the laptop. A couple of moms mentioned to me their surprise in Alexander's gun interest. I didn't really know how to respond to this. Alexander is such a stable, loving and caring person and he is a thinker. He loves to think about how things work, to learn about weapons used in war, he enjoys figuring out strategies used, and he loves to skeet shoot with his dad. However, he is not a violent person by any means. I guess because I know him, I know that an interest in guns does not mean an interest in violence or war. Sometimes it makes me sad that people may think that way.

Sophia had a blast hanging out with her friends before, during and after the fair.
Since Sophia and I have been reading about Kit Kitteridge, an American Girl, she presented on The Great Depression and brought a copy of her newly published book, The Life of Allie Colts. My favorite thing about her display was the letter to Eleanor Roosevelt she wrote explaining how desperate her family was for blankets, clothes, etc. They had lost their home while their father was out of town looking for work and couldn't take much with them. I love the passion she has for writing.
To see more photos of the fair, please visit Wild Indigo Life Learners, a blog I share with other unschooling moms.

2 comments:

  1. Very impressive! The kids look like they were having fun showing off their stuff!

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  2. This is really cool! I'm impressed with your daughters book - I used to write books when I was her age and then figured out how to bind them myself.

    This kind of learning is what I miss most about teaching.

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