As an avid Unschooler, I constantly struggle with keeping myself from foisting structured curriculum on my son.  This is especially hard for me, since I loved school and filled out all my workbooks and papers happily and cheerfully.  However, I recognize that a structured school curriculum is so stifling, and does not really meet the needs of the individual child.  Now that I am out of school myself and can pursue learning in any way I choose, I am aware that doing interesting, creative activities is also a perfectly valid way to learn.  So I am constantly looking for things we can do which are interesting, creative, and do not force us into traditional academic models.

One thing we use is the newspaper.  Each morning my son goes out to get the paper, unrolls it, and looks through it.  He usually finds a story, reads it to me, and we talk about it.  If there are words he can't pronounce, he asks me, and we talk about the words spelling, pronunciation, and meaning.  The first benefit of using the paper this way is, at least he's reading!  This also counts as spelling and vocabulary.

One good things is for the kids to collect clippings about subjects they are interested in.  They can cut out the clippings, paste them into a scrapbook, and decorate the pages.  This can count as both art and current events.  If they collect enough, they could actually do a research report on the subject with note cards and everything (only if they want to, of course).  Why would a kid want to do all that work?  Well, I was one of those strange kids that loved to do research reports, so maybe my son will too.

One thing I loved to do as a child was color the newspaper with crayons.  If your child doesn't want to read, you can color with them and read a story out loud from the paper while you color.  The pictures make excellent coloring sheets.

Reading the paper can also be the beginning of some interesting activities for you child.  For instance, they might hear about things other kids have done, and get interested in doing them too.  Articles about sports, dog shows, showing your animals at the county fair, local musical and dance programs, and writing contests could get your child interested in those areas if they read about other kids who were involved.

Also, if you are a praying family, reading the list of who's sick and in the hospital and praying for those people brings a little spirituality into your child's life.  Then, if you feel so inclined, visit the hospital and tell that person you were praying for them.  See if there's anything you can do for them.  It's a nice way to reach out to others.

Encourage your child to write letters to the editor if there is a subject that interests them.  I personally think more children should participate in our local affairs, and this is a good way to get started.

If your child likes to write, perhaps let them choose a headline from the paper and make up a story that fits the headline, without drawing information from the actual article, of course.

For little kids, if they are walking around the house and singing the alphabet song or something, you might give them scissors and ask them to cut out as many of their favorite letter as they can find.  Oh....I guess asking them to do it doesn't fall into the category of unschooling.  Well, if YOU sit down and start cutting out all the W's that you can find in the newspaper headlines, and they ask you what you are doing, and you say "I'm cutting out the W's because they are my favorite letter" then that's often all it takes for them to become interested too.  If they choose to do it on their own without you asking them, it's ok.  So they are learning the alphabet and getting practice cutting with scissors.

For those who don't want to do anything academic, the paper can be folded to make some wonderful hats, rolled up and made into swords for fighting with, can be torn into pieces and made into lots of balls for throwing into baskets, and can be cut into paper dolls.  Good for paper mache also.

For other good activities for unschoolers, see  Homemade Games for Kids .

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Copyright 2001-8  Judie C. Rall and The Center for Unhindered Living Knowledge Collection