Learning: It's All Connected

Yesterday in writing class at the Montessori School, the students were surprised when I pulled out a science kit to do some experiments.  We enjoyed a magic trick, too, and then talked and wrote about them-- changing our words to meet the needs of different age audiences.

Students enjoy creating a commercial for
an imaginary product.  Should it be
categorized as writing, drama,
art, public speaking? 

Math, Architecture, and Cultural Studies?

Like most children, my school students have learned to divide education into subjects: math, history, science, writing, etc.  There are textbooks to separate the categories and dividers in their notebooks. 

I used to have the same problem. It was a great insight for me to see that everything is connected all the time.

When I bake a tasty dessert using a new recipe, it is at least chemistry, physics, math, and reading.  It is history if I care to delve into the origin of the recipe.  It is art when I carefully work to make the icing or crust beautiful.  

I didn't really think about all of this until I began homeschooling and I would try to categorize our learning.  It couldn't be done! What is a hike at Charlie Elliott?  Physical education?  If we talk about the different kinds of rock, is it geology?  If we collect beautiful leaves, is it art or botany?  If we talk about Charlie Elliott himself and all the writing he did, is it history of literature?

Spencer created a new
game on his computer
yesterday: computer science?
art? Just fun?

One of the joys of homeschool is that we need not dissect learning.  Denver can create create a new building with his math manipulatives and talk about how many cubes it took and what kind of person might want to live there and I can simply . . . smile.