I Want to Scream It Works it Really Works

If you have made it this far and are still following my blog you have watched me go from extreme structured homeschooling, With my lessons planned and my school room all decked out like a school room should look to my releasing the fear and my new found openness to unschooling. So many wonderful people have influenced me on this journey. I have read countless books and blogs. I joined numerous facebook groups geared toward unschooling. For three years now I have felt the pull more and more. That feeling that there definitely is something to unschooling that so many are talking about. So here we are and I have decided to make a one year leap. It will either work or we can change it up again until we find that perfect fit but I wanted to see if it would have such a profound effect on our family as I have seen it have on others. I figured the kids are both ahead of where they should be and still young enough that if it didn't work out for us that no major damage would come from us giving this experiment a chance.

This week was our first week unschooling. It has been good we went on a nature hike, came across some interesting videos and watch baby sea turtle hatch. That one was really interesting and the kids got a real kick out of it. Today though today was something extra special. I seen an post on Atlanta events saying The Children's Museum of Atlanta need kids for a news segment this morning. You could come visit the museum for free but were not guaranteed to be on the news. I figured what the hell we have never been and if one of the kids got to be on t.v. it would just be a bonus. I got up at 5a.m. dragged the kids out of bed around 6 and we hit the road at 6:30. Got to Atlanta right in time for morning rush hour traffic yet we didn't let it ruin our adventure. We were at the museum by 8:30 and the news crew was already there setting up. The museum staff said go on back and explore. I didn't really know what to expect but museum is not how I would describe this place. It is really just a huge room broke into different areas to explore different things like the grocery store, or a farm, science machines, acting, building, even a huge lego center. All in all I would say this is a place you would take kids from about ages 7 down. There were only a hand full of kids and most around the age of my 4 yr old son. At 9:00 the museum staff asked us to go back and explore the science of sound area because that is where the news would be taping from. We were to just explore unless they asked us to directly be involved. Well I guess for my ten yr old daughter who is full of questions she just couldn't help but to ask the crew about their equipment and how it works. They were great to explain it to her as they worked. When they started rolling she was asked to get into the sound booth with the news lady and show the t.v. audience how it worked. That meant she had to scream,lol. After they finished the News lady who's name is Rebekka Schram took some time to talk to Alyssa. It was all a really great experience to her. So great that by 2 this afternoon she was asking if it was possible for a ten yr old to have a news channel.

I couldn't believe that this had effected her so much that she was already think WOW how cool would it be to be a news anchor. She was running ideas of what she could talk about and place she could go and record live shows. Maybe even interview some people she meet. I was just floored by this. Up until now my daughter has had three passions in her life. They are animals, My Little Pony, and Minecraft. She had never expressed any interest in t.v. ever. Yet there I was seeing first hand what all these unschool families had been talking about. They didn't push interest on their children but they exposed them to adventures that could blossom into a interest for the child and I was having one of those experiences right now. I didn't think she would run with it like she did. I just thought today would be something different we never done and by next week she wouldn't even talk about it much. I told her she could have a youtube channel and that we would look into getting a video recorder as soon as we had the funds to do so. Secretly in my bed room I was doing the happy dance and I wanted to scream it really works.  I had exposed her to something that as of right now seems to be something she is interested in.  I am sitting here typing this and just tickled over the whole experience. So watch out youtube News by Alyssa is coming to you soon.

Here is Alyssa with Rebekka Schram from CBS46 in Atlanta. If you are interested in seeing the segment here is a link the segment is called Science of Sound  http://www.cbsatlanta.com/category/209315/bettermornings  I look forward to seeing where this interest might lead her and I am proud I stepped out of my comfort zone to allow for this experience to manifest in our lives.