Something happened today that was a real turning point in our families unschooling adventure.

Today, my 5 year old son drew this.

(a clock tower)

Now, to anybody else this might look like a very very average kids drawing with no discernible qualities, other than a kid drew it.

Whoop-de-doo Ash. Nice one. Whataboutit?

Well the moment he showed this to me was the moment a fire lit inside and I felt a huge sense of pride (and a pinch of relief)

You see, home education (or unschooling as we choose as our particular lifestyle path) is hard to explain to other people.
It doesn’t make sense to them. It can look like chaos and be difficult for most to try and define.

But my 5 year old drew that picture today.

He has never been to school or class - but that doesn’t mean he won’t learn.
The thing is he WANTS to learn. He is so hungry.
And this drawing is the first example to me of some bigger developments to come.

He did that drawing 100% on his own, of his own idea, completely unaided and completely unprompted. He just said “Let’s play a game. I’ll draw something and you guess what it is”.

And so, from memory he drew the tower and the proceeded to spontaneously write the numbers 1 to 12
(well, ‘21’ on this occasion, but you know what he meant, right?)

He said the numbers were a measure of how tall the tower was.

I haven’t seen him write more than two or three numbers on a page before, and I didn’t even know he could remember the shapes. But he did.

You see; my son has been quietly working away, building his understanding of the numbers. Thinking about how they look and what they represent.
All to himself.

No pressure, no fanfare, no gold stars.

Just quietly figuring this crazy world out that exists around him.

And when he was ready he could show us what he could do.
That is very powerful.

Learning is everywhere. I mean everywhere.
We do activities at home, that are all child led, on any subject - sometimes around numbers and letters, but mostly on wildlife and exotic animals.

He wants to learn and he can learn - and he certainly has proved that right now he doesn’t need anyone to tell him HOW to learn. ❤️