She did a few pages during the flight, but wasn't too into it. However, today she has spent a good chunk of the day engrossed in all the activities in the book. She whipped through the math section, skipping the pages that seemed boring or pointless. She was even faster through the reading section, reading the little passages, and answering all the questions. (Apparently, although not surprisingly, she is quite adept at reading comprehension.) Then she went to work on the writing section, practicing her upper- and lowercase letters on the dotted lines. Finally she quit the book and went to the playroom with Liam.I've been thinking about this workbook a lot. At first, it made me kind of proud to watch her do it. It proved that Ella is capable of doing all the work required of first grade students. Sweet! I must be doing something right! But the more I thought about it, the more ridiculous this book seemed to me. As she was completing all the activities, I could tell that she wasn't actually learning anything. Literally. She was learning NOTHING.
For example, there were a lot of questions about money. The book showed pictures of all the coins, told what they are all worth, and gave little math problems like, "John has this much money, and spends this much on a gumball, so how much does he have left?" Well, Ella already knows money because she uses money in real life.
In the reading section, it showed examples of things you might come across in real life, such as a birthday invitation and grocery list, and asked several reading comprehension questions about each. That was easy for Ella because she regularly makes and uses grocery lists. She actually does come across these things all the time in real life.
She already understood the fractions because of all the baking we do. She didn't need to learn any of the words on the "sight words" reading list because she already knows all the sight words (and why wouldn't she - if you spend enough time reading, you get to know words like and, the, she and it really well). The reading comprehension was way too easy for her because she already spends most her waking hours reading and comprehending (and without being quizzed on it, too). The writing practice was kind of boring - what's the point in writing the same letter over and over? In fact, the more I thought about the book, the more I realized how pointless the whole thing was.
Why do we need to teach this stuff to kids at school? Every single thing covered in this "comprehensive" workbook is easily learned in real life. EVERY SINGLE THING. (If you don't believe me, I will gladly show you the book.) Ella didn't learn anything from the activities in the book because she had already learned these things just by living her life. I didn't sit down with her for a lesson on "sight words" before I let her read a book. That's absurd! I didn't give her a worksheet on fractions or make her do a bunch of pointless math problems. We baked cupcakes, we counted goldfish crackers, we sorted toys, we found patterns in nature, we counted by 5s and 10s just for fun, we discussed speed and distance while driving, we added up the number of girls and boys in a room, we found the math that's all around us. I didn't make her print letters over and over. She wrote stuff because she had something to say. She wrote real things: cards, grocery lists, her name, books.
However, as pointless as I think this workbook is, I learned something else today. Part of unschooling is allowing your child to learn what and how she wants to. For Ella today, that was doing a schoolish workbook. So even if it's not what I would have chosen for her, I had to respect her choice. And, I must admit, it was cool when I would see her read a page, think for a moment, and then decide that it was a pointless activity. (Kids at school just don't have that option.) And, I must also admit, it gave me a little piece of mind that she is actually learning stuff, even though she's not in a classroom.
