Our first day of Unschooling High school was more fun than our last day of school, which was yesterday. This was actually our second or third day, but whos counting. We homeschool all year and everyday looks a little different.

What did your first official school day look like?

We started the first day of Unschooling High school by eating breakfast at our favorite restaurant, Sun Rise Cafe, followed by tubing, a boat ride where we saw dolphins, floating crabs, and baby jellyfish, and finished with a little yard work. Believe it or not, we had a lot of great discussions, learned a few things and got our minds thinking. The kids also did some boring stuff like Khan Academy ( math), TTRS ( touch type read spell) and thought about the Unusual Dress Project (more on that later).

The great thing about Unschooling or homeschooling is that it can be done any wear, with or without a book, and all you need is your brain. I always get the ball rolling by asking questions, which leads to many debates and hopefully points us in a completely different direction than I intended.

Today’s debate started with do you want to jump in and swim with the dolphins.

I got a unanimous NO, followed by that thing has teeth. How come this boat is underpowered, what size motor do we need to get this thing to go. How long would it take to sail to Italy? It would be a lot faster to fly. What four items could you not live without? Did Italians invent pasta? How did pasta get from China to Italy?

This went on for hours with a break here and there and started back up at dinner with some google searches between, reading out loud (to prove a point), and a documentary that we found on Netflix really boring. We ended up watching one of my favorite movies, Ratatouille, ate pasta with butter and parmesan cheese and tried speaking in a French and Italian accent (not well).

A school doesn’t have to happen reading a book, taking tests, and worrying about grades.

It can happen anywhere, anytime and anyplace. The best part is we can count this as a school day because we were learning. If you are just starting or have been Unschooling for years, try starting a discussion (or in my house a debate), and help your kids google the answers.

I used to give the kids fun assignments and make a game show out of the answers they found. I would ask them to write a short story about a topic or make Youtube video. We would try to figure out math problems, like how many miles is it to Italy, how fast would you get there by boat, plane, car, which would be more adventurous and why? What would be your route and what would you see when you got there? I would sneak in every subject and make it fun.