Since Alex was moving up to the next level at swimming, the timing meant he would go almost 2 weeks without a lesson. So I took him to the local pool along with Daniel. We bought Daniel a floaty jacket as this pool is much deeper than our usual swimming destination. At first, this bothered Alex. Even though huge knew the pool well, he hadn’t swam underwater here before and I guess it seemed like a lot more water! Anyway, he quickly got over it and ended up swimming from one end to the other without stopping – a whole 25m! He was pretty proud of himself. We played with the large floats a bit and put daniel on one. Alex and I were on opposite sides and opposite ends. Alex said “if we both kick, Daniel will go around in circles.” So we did just that 🙂 Alex’s first lesson in level 1 went well, although he was the only one in the lesson that day and was tired from having to work so hard! Plus we’d been playing for an hour and he’d had football that day.
He’s actually been tired the last few days, going to bed earlier than usual (and requesting it). In bed last night he mentioned that sometimes he does a lot and he has to stop watching his iPad which makes him sad. We talked about how we could make this easier for him. He doesn’t like early morning activities except football, so everything else is late afternoon. So he’s generally home from being out all day or busy from being home all day! So inevitably he has to stop doing something. He’s decided he likes the sand timer that I set (15 minutes) as it gives him warning time and a visual idea without me nagging him! I also made up some photo cards last year when Alex was at kinder to help him get ready in the mornings. I am finding a renewed use for them now as Alex takes charge of his getting ready, and I feel like I’m not the ‘bad guy’.
My comfort levels with screens, specifically the iPad are increasing. Alex may get up in the morning and go straight to it, but he is seemingly quite satisfied by this freedom for the most part and has been opting for other activities more frequently. We had a great time in the garden the other day. I am still making efforts to check in with him or sit with him frequently when he is using screens. I want to make sure I do that will all independent play. It so happens that this is only an issue with screens because this is his only independent time.
As I’ve mentioned before, one of Alex’s favourite cartoons is ‘Oggy and the Cockroaches’. He was trying to work out which cockroach was which after asking me their names. So I printed off little pictures and stuck them to the whiteboard and write next to each. Alex decided that he would like to write them and did so after asking me to spell them. There were only a few letters he had to ask me about (g), but otherwise made a huge effort to do his first real writing! He also copied the word ‘daddy’ when making a birthday card for Vio.
Alex has been really wanting to try bubble gum and so I got him some – I have chewing gum in the car for myself and he’s had a stick a few times and tried blowing bubbles so we talked about bubble gum. When i got it for him he asked me to teach him how. I tried explaining to him how I do it and realised how hard it was to ‘teach’. The difference between learning and teaching really struck me here, even though I was not trying to teach a lesson. It’s just something that he’ll have to figure out. There have been other questions too, and I’m trying to write them down. We looked up a video of making fire from rubbing sticks. Daniel has been asking lots of questions too. He can sit for quite some time asking ‘what’s that?’ and is satisfied when you name it. He’s using lots of commands and nouns now. His latest enjoyment is kicking a ball – so Vio took him to the shops and got him a small football of his very own.
I fulfilled a long overdue promise this week and took Alex on a ‘country train’ ride. We went with a friend, who also plans to unschool and whose son loves trains too. It was quite chaotic, and the kids were fascinated by the toilets on the train and suburban trains don’t have them. We went on a 20 minute trip to Woodend where we grabbed some lunch and had a play at the large park there. When Alex saw Vio, sure enough the highlight was the toilets!
You know, I think my favourite part of this journey is that the kids get to learn about themselves and how to manage their needs. It’s about more than academics.