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Urban Farming. Healthy Living.

Unschooling Update #1: That time we learned about birds, bees, disease, life, & death…

Published: November 14, 2013 | Last Updated: October 7, 2019 7 Comments

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links from which I will earn a commission.

unschool-update-1

This is the first installment of a series of updates about our new adventure called ‘unschooling’. That’s right folks. We are officially homeschooling! We’re taking it a step further and actually practicing a method of homeschooling called “unschooling”. It’s basically where you don’t teach your kids anything and they turn out to be geniuses. Or something like that.

But seriously, here’s a great definition of unschooling:

When people ask, “What is unschooling?” My answer is that we follow our interests – and our interests inevitably lead to science, literature, history, mathematics, music – all the things that have interested people before anybody thought of them as “subjects”. A large component of unschooling is grounded in doing real things, not because we hope they will be good for us, but because they are intrinsically fascinating. (source)

You can read more about why we chose to homeschool/unschool here.

Unschooling Update #1: That time we learned about birds, bees, disease, death, & life. (all before breakfast)

The day started out just like any other – me sleeping in while my kids fight/play/argue/laugh as loud as they possibly can. When I say “sleeping in”, I really mean, “sleeping in ’till 8am”. Is that late? I don’t even know what times other moms wake up these days. I have come to the conclusion that after years of having to wake up early with babies, I deserve the luxury of sleeping in. Perks of having an 8 & 10 year old.

I awoke to sounds of screams (the happy kind, not the sad or hurt kind) and as my eyes were adjusting to the new day, a little hand thrust something furry in my face.

“A baby bird!”, my daughter exclaimed.

(yay)

Now, let me just say that my daughter has “rescued” many a baby bird in her life. And all of them have died. All of them. We’ve tried everything. We’ve fed them, rocked them, put them back in their nest, dressed them in doll clothes, but they all still die. And my daughter had just found another one.

(yay)

After the last baby bird had died, Kevin and I instituted the, “NO MORE SAVING BABY BIRDS EVER” rule. No sympathy over here. It’s all ‘survival of the fittest’ in our backyard.

“But this one’s different”, my daughter begged. “It’s so pretty and it has green feathers!”

Pretty? Green Feathers? What was I thinking! Bring that baby bird right in bed with me. Yep, right on my pillow. It does have green feathers after all. Let me smother my face in it’s prettiness.

Um, no.

My son, always cautious, stated, “Wait. We MUST find out which species this is. We don’t know everything about it. It could be mean. Let’s look online”

This led to a great UNSCHOOLING MOMENT, where they researched different species of birds online and in our encyclopedias. I showed my kids how to search online and directed them to a couple sites, then I went out to milk the goats and take care of our farm duties. (I do the morning farm chores, and the kids do the evening ones).

About 30 minutes later, Ethan came to tell me the bad news.

“Well, we found out what species of bird it is. And it’s the most diseased bird in all of Arizona!”

This led to a great UNSCHOOLING MOMENT of how diseases can transfer from one species to another. We had this moment over a vigorous hand washing session, of course.

Unfortunately, when we headed out to the backyard to check on the bird, yep, you guessed it.

It wasn’t quite dead, but it was close. It was twitching, couldn’t stand and had that “close to death” look. We decided to do some more research to diagnose the bird and after we narrowed it down to 2-3 different diseases it could possible have, we decided as a family we should probably put the bird down.

This led to a great UNSCHOOLING MOMENT where we talked about life & death, how we should be humane when killing animals, and how we should never hurt an animal for fun. We also talked about gun safety (BB gun).

While walking to the back of our property to dispose of the bird, we came across a row of bushes in bloom with hundreds of bees all over them snatching up that bright yellow pollen.

This led to a great UNSCHOOLING MOMENT where we talked about bees and their role in our ecosystem. This also let to another discussion about the mystery of why bees are dying off around the world. The kids were fascinated by this fact, and after disposing of the bird and saying their goodbyes to its pretty green feathers, ran off to research all about bees.

This all happened in about 2 hours, but sparked their interest for the entire day. In the evening, my son was in the corner with a big thick encyclopedia, reading about bees. My daughter also performed a rendition of The Circle of Life to end the day.

What I learned:

I learned that learning is easy and fun and doesn’t take all day. I learned that life is fascinating and there is so much to learn if we let nature take it’s course. I also learned that I shouldn’t let my kids rescue any more baby birds. Our “NO MORE SAVING BABY BIRDS EVER” rule is back in effect.
Unschooling Update #1: That time we learned about birds, bees, disease, life, & death...

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ABOUT DANELLE

DaNelle started to take an interest in a healthier lifestyle after suffering from two debilitating chronic diseases. On a mission to create a farm of her own, DaNelle forced, or rather 'lovingly persuaded' her husband to purchase a ranch home on an acre of land and transform it into their very own urban farm. DaNelle blogs at Weed 'em & Reap where she writes about the sustainable backyard farming, traditional food, & natural remedies.

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Comments

  1. Lori says

    May 23, 2016 at 5:55 pm

    The more and more I read your blog the MORE I realize you not only have been living my dream but you help me realize I can do this!! I have been unschooling this entire year my oldest and my youngest and feeling QUILTY…but it works! I believe in it!!! But one thing I worry about is how do we test for COLLEGE {if they choose college}.

    I am a week away from building our first BARN and I thank you for ALL your wonderful advise on the blog. I refer to it ALWAYS!!! I am in the middle of purchasing goats and WOULD LOVE to get 4 chickens!!!!!

    Reply
    • DaNelle Wolford says

      June 3, 2016 at 2:49 pm

      SO awesome! Of course you can do this! And 4 chickens is totally doable, you’ll find you love this lifestyle!

      Reply
  2. Christy Hoffman says

    January 15, 2014 at 3:48 pm

    I was reading your lovely article on unschooling your children and then I saw all these boobies up in my face!! Gross! Cyber boobies! Your site is wonderful, but whoa! the scantily clad women on this ad right smack in the middle of the article was a little much. Just sayin.
    Anyway, my twins are only 17 mos. old, but I look forward to unschooling them just as we are doing now. Will be interested to read more about this! 😉

    Reply
    • DaNelle Wolford says

      January 15, 2014 at 8:07 pm

      Thanks for telling me about this Christy! I’m still trying to refine my ads so they don’t show stuff like that. It helps when readers give me a heads up:)

      Reply
  3. Amy says

    November 15, 2013 at 12:55 pm

    We follow a “few hours of structure followed by the rest of the day of Active Unschooling” much as you have described so well. It works very well! All my children (I have six, and the oldest is working on his PhD) are bright and happy and smart and they know how to teach themselves anything. If that isn’t success, I don’t know what is!

    Reply
  4. Shae says

    November 15, 2013 at 5:56 am

    Love it!

    We have always followed an unschooling approach and I have had many moments like this.
    The other morning we had the atlas and globe in bed discussing continents, countries and cities before 8am!

    Reply
  5. Jodie says

    November 14, 2013 at 11:26 pm

    Wonderful! Thank you for sharing. I home schooled my daughter for 8 years loosely incorporating Oak Meadow curriculum. Because we didn’t have a rigid schedule, many days were spent like this, and I am so thankful! Have fun on your journey!

    Reply

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HEY THERE!

I'm DaNelle. I'm a city girl who convinced her husband to buy goats. Because, goats. Growing my own food has been an amazing experience, and this is the place I share it all with you! READ MORE…

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