Thursday 27 June 2013

Epithany!

What a ninny!

Weekends!  Yes, weekends.  I have been struggling for months fitting in Rye's learning time with the usual plethora of social meetings, trips, and spontaneous get togethers that a Home Ed child typically has going on each week, along with my own need for some time to do my work, domestic stuff, my own social events etc. It  has been proving very difficult to be consistent.

Difficult, because I've been trying to fit it all in Mon-Fri.  Generally speaking weekends for Home Educators, at least the ones I know, is generally reserved for family time, and family only trips.  Weekends here are a mixture of childminding and pottering/domestic duties/downtime.   The light bulb moment was when it dawned on me that Rye's "learning time", could stretch over the weekend, and a little into Monday and Tuesday, leaving the other days free for other types of learning and play.

That reading time on a Sunday could involve our usual long morning snuggles in my bed, with me reading to him and vice versa - Saturday, easily maths and simply science covered through games - which can easily involve my four year old mindee too!  I do feel a ninny.  Weekends, it's so obvious.

And when one has weeks like last week, usual activities that Rye attends, along with birthday parties, a trip to Manston, me babysitting a friend's 3 children because she was ill, for a couple of days, fitting in the building blocks of academic learning can be difficult.  It is learning that Rye has requested so it is important we fit it in.



To my mind, days/weeks like this are, certainly at this stage, are too important to miss.  It's days out like that, that fires the imagination, sparks new learning opportunities, and practicing social skills.

I suppose, even after all these years, I'm still deschooling, still ridding myself of mainstream educational norms;  of course the more formal stuff isn't restricted to Monday to Friday.

What a ninny!



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