Your Homeschool Stories: Interview with my boys

I read a great blog post from Happiness is Here.  She interviewed her girls and asked all about their unschooling experience.  I decided to interview my boys too as I was curious to hear their answers. I had their permission to share. So here is what my boys ages 5.5 and 7.5 had to say about our homeschool experience...

How do you like to spend your day? What do you do all day?

MJ: I have breakfast... and then I play

TJ: I really like to play.  Some of the things I am interested in right now and playing with is doing tow truck things. I can’t think of other things.  I am playing with MJ a little recently.

Do you know what homeschooling is?

MJ: Homeschooling is when your mom is the teacher, and you um... homeschool.

TJ: It’s like you are at home. It’s not really school because you get to play and stuff.  Mommy is the teacher and she teaches you things.

Do you know what unschooling is?

MJ: I don’t know

TJ: It’s sort of like you are at home and sitting around. You just play and don’t do school stuff and you don’t learn much. (Mommy laughing in the background!)

How do you learn without going to school?

MJ: I learn from my mom.

TJ: What you can do is you can learn on your own.  You can learn and discover stuff your own way.  It is more fun than people telling you that thing.

What do you like about homeschooling?

MJ: I like that we don’t have to go to school and send in papers.

TJ: I like that you can go outside and play with your toys and do projects.  You don’t have to sit at school and learn stuff, you can actually do your own things.

Is there anything you don’t like about unschooling?

MJ was tired of answering questions

TJ: Hmm nothing that I can think of right now.

Some people think that kids need to go to school otherwise they won’t learn everything they need to know.  What do you think about that?

MJ: No (You don’t have to go to school to learn).

TJ: I think that is not really it.  Like I said about unschooling, you can actually learn on your own or you can have your mom tell you and have you learn stuff.

How do you know what you need to learn?

MJ: I can learn with mommy

TJ: You don’t really know what you need to learn, but you can just figure it out. And as you get older you figure out more stuff.  And your parents can help you learn.

Should all kids learn the same things?

MJ: Yea… everyone should be learning about God. (We are a Christian family)

TJ: Not necessarily but they can if they really want.

How can you tell that you’ve learned enough about something?

MJ: I know when I’ve done it already. (Like if you’ve already heard that piece of information before)

TJ: When you think so. When you think you’ve learned for quite awhile about something.  When you think you have learned a lot about this subject and then you can move on to another thing.

What do you want people to know about homeschooling or how kids learn?

MJ: I don’t want to answer this question! I don’t know about it. (I love his independence)

TJ: I don’t really have anything in mind, but I want them to know that kids don’t have to go to school to learn.

Would you like to go to school?

TJ: Not really, but it would be cool to go and see what it is like.

What do you like about being home with mommy?

  

MJ: Because I get to learn new things.

TJ: I like that I can stay home and do our own thing. At school they have the same routine all the time and at home we can sort of switch it up.

Out on a walk with shower caps on in the rain

I just love their honest answers.  TJ's description of unschooling had me laughing.  Clearly they don't know the labels of the different methods of homeschooling.  They just live life.  What I noticed is how important play was to the boys along with doing their own thing.  I feel good knowing that my boys are enjoying childhood (which is all to short by the way). They are confident, curious and independent thinkers.

This is the first in series of blog posts called Your Homeschool Stories.  I'll be having homeschoolers from all over guest post.  They will be writing about their own homeschool experience.  If you would like to write a guest post too just email me.

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This post is linked to 
Mama Moments Monday
Inspire Me Monday