Let me show you an example of how child-led learning happens.
Tuna's favorite section at the library is the weird true stories section. She brings home several different books each week on the topic. Last week, she brought home Spooky Mysteries You Wouldn't Want to Know About (Top Ten Worst), and has kept it in the car to read while we drive around.
Today, she read the section about the Wild Child, and asked me if I'd ever heard about him. I told her that I recall some vague details, so I must have heard about him at some point. She read me the section about the Wild Child of Aveyron, Victor, and we decided we'd google him when we got home.
So, we did.
We found information about Victor on Wikipedia, and more information about a movie about Victor, and that led us to search for the movie. It's from 1970, and it's in French. Tuna is hunting for a version with English subtitles, but here's the one we found:
We found information on another feral child, called Genie, and found a Nova film about her.
Tuna told me she learned that Victor was abandoned by his parents because of mental retardation and that they left him for dead. This opened up a conversation about how parenting has changed over time, and what we thought of that situation. We also talked about how he learned to adapt and survive.
It was a fascinating experience for us both. We both learned a lot and had a great time, together, doing it.
All of this happened naturally, no worksheets, no textbooks, nothing forced. I simply provided her the search engine and we explored the rest ourselves, until we were done. We have not finished. We plan to reconnect later tonight and look at some more footage.
I love learning this way with my girls!
