The Great Unschooling Adventure (Flex w/ Live Option)

Are you an unschooling family looking for ideas or motivation? Maybe you are new to unschooling, or are attempting to "deschool", and would love some guidance to help you on your homeschooling journey. This flex course is designed to help your learner become a self-motivated learner, research independently, and fight those "boredom" days that homeschoolers sometimes find themselves experiencing while at home. In this 6-week course, learners will explore multiple topics using the "strewing" learning method.

Strewing is the process of laying out or scattering interesting items around your home for your kids to discover. These items can be anything that leads to exploration and self-directed learning. As an unschooler myself, I believe that children are naturally curious about the world around them. Let's foster this curiosity and guide them to potential learning opportunities! Strewing can help your learner discover new interests, or dive deeper into topics they already find fascinating. It is not about coercion or control; unschooling is all about self-directed learning and interest-led learning. However, many unschoolers wonder, "how can I give my child the freedom to learn without neglecting some of the subjects or topics that I feel are necessary?" It can often help to have some lenient guidelines and learning prompts to follow until you and your learner feel more comfortable finding your own way to unschool, and this flex course can help you with that process. Even experienced homeschoolers will find this course helpful!

For this course, we will take the idea of strewing and turn it into a fun weekly scavenger hunt activity. Each week, students will be provided with a short video explaining the assignment. Along with the video will be a list of daily activities, challenges and ideas to choose from. Each week's list will include the following activities to choose from (complete one or all of them):

Week 1:
- Writing prompts: questionnaires on your favorite things, and provided word games (scrambles, puzzles, etc). Students will be prompted to design their own fun crossword puzzle for fellow students to complete, using a free website and template (provided)
- Trivia: historical fact checks - Local or Internet? Students will try to find the answers to the trivia questions using only resources within their home (textbooks, magazines, in-person help, etc.), and then compare this information to what they can find online (with supervision).
- Math: Sudoku puzzles, measuring with a tape measure, fractions in the kitchen and time management. Students can practice their skills with fractions by copying a recipe and sharing it with the class. 

Week 2: 
- Journalism: perform an interview and write a newspaper article on your discussion, or perform it via video on the classroom page as a television reporter. 
- Trivia: Current fact check - Local or Internet? (same activity as week 1 but with a focus on current world events and geography)
- Art: Play museum guide! Activity prompt will be to learn about an assigned modern art movement, and then choose their own artist to learn about within that movement. Once they have identified the artist, their assigned art project will focus on their favorite artist's preferred medium and technique (i.e., Cubism, Impressionism, Pop Art, etc.) and share their artwork with the class. Students will build a "gallery" of artwork to admire by uploading it to a custom Padlet board.

Week 3: 
- Science project: learning the scientific method of performing experiments by documenting a simple experiment provided. Students are also asked to put together a presentation of a different science experiment for their classmates to observe.
- Physical Fitness: Learners will watch a provided video clip to learn some easy hip hop dance steps they can practice. Next, they will do a scavenger hunt on YouTube for specific videos using the clues provided. 
- Art: art with nature. Find things in nature to sketch, or use natural items (sticks, leaves, flowers, etc) to create a collage or craft. 

Week 4: 
- Literature: a book lover's trivia game (classic and modern children's books) and a Book Share event, where students will present a book that they would like to recommend to fellow classmates.
- Crafting: DIY bookmark challenge - can you design one that features your favorite animal?
- Biology: trivia questions/clues to discover facts about animals, eco systems, plants, insects and more.

Week 5:
- Music: do you play an instrument? Share with the class! If not, try something new this week! Scavenger hunt will also be provided with clues to discover a classical composer.
- Home Ec Challenge: see if you can learn to hand sew a button! Extra optional project with tutorial: learn to hand sew an easy sock plushie toy.
- Outdoors: identify local wildlife and plants with a list of scavenger hunt items.

Week 6: 
- Role Reversal: Questionnaire to discover what you would like your parents and teacher to try this week! 
- Career: research a career you are interested in pursuing, and answer provided questions about it.
- Travel Guide: complete a presentation on a country you would like to visit and share a complete tour package with the classroom to convince them to go on the trip, too!

All of the activities and prompts are completed on your own time during each week. Materials are posted on Mondays (mornings or afternoons, US time zones). Once the assignments are posted, you have the rest of the week to complete any or all of the activities according to your own schedule, and then post in the classroom before Friday of the same week so that I can provide feedback on your submissions. My family and I are traveling unschoolers, so please note that my business hours may vary depending on what time zone we happen to be in, and I typically do not respond to Saturday or Sunday classroom postings over the weekend. However, students have access to the classroom page at all times and are welcome to post comments, attachments and record videos directly onto the wall throughout the course of the 6 weeks. After the course ends you will continue to have access to all worksheets, videos, links and documents for as long as you need them. 

Since this is a flex class there are no live meetings scheduled, but there will be the opportunity to attend two free, optional live meet & greet sessions via Zoom, using the classroom page! This optional meeting will be scheduled for the first Sunday of the first week of class, and then again on the final Sunday scheduled (exact dates and times will be posted in the classroom). Enrolled learners are welcome to log in and practice some online social skills together. Bring a snack and meet your fellow online unschoolers! 

You are free to complete as many of these activities as you like and interact as much as you are comfortable doing. The course is meant to be full of learning prompts, without the stress of requiring work to be completed on a timeline. Our goal is to have fun and enjoy the journey!