Unschooling Preschool, Sunday Evening Edition

Tonight, we had a great 30-minute physics study.

A few months ago, Mal asked me if he could make a turntable. He'd been watching the turntable videos from a Cars 2 video game, where the cars show up on a turntable so you can see them from all angles, hear their catch phrases, see their strengths, and decide which one to race. Since then, we've actually played that game at Chuck E. Cheese, but they don't give you very long select, so you can't really watch the little bits for each car.

I remembered then that D had gotten a cake decorating turntable for me, so we used that. Mal's played with it several times since then.

Tonight, we got it out and he was showing off individual cars. After a while, he'd spin the turntable slowly at first, then gradually speed up until the fact that their weight isn't evenly distributed became apparent and they spun off of the turntable altogether.

He did that with a bunch of cars. Then he noticed a large plastic cup and put it upside down over one of the cars before spinning the turntable quickly. After doing this many times, he put a second car on top of the cup, which was inverted over the first car. And then he put two cars on the turntable at the same time, then three. Then he'd just throw a car on while others were spinning.

It was fun to see what would happen. There is physics (and the associated math) involved, and although we of course didn't dive into the written formulas, the fact is that for half an hour, Mal conducted his own physics experiments.

"But he was just playing!"

EXACTLY. One of the foundational principles of unschooling is that children learn best by playing.

My son is three, and does not have a predictable attention span. If I'd asked him to sit down and do some experiments, no matter how fun they were, it is debatable whether he'd be able to do it. Also, if I put limits on his "screen" exposure, whether time or content, he might never have seen the turntable clips. And if I thought of learning as something that only happens when an expert is pouring information into a neophyte, then I might have missed this very cool interaction.

Have a great week, people!