We recently had a lovely day at home. The morning started with blowing up 30 balloons and playing with them. Daniel enjoys this especially and was handing me more and more balloons to blow
up. I eventually noticed that he had grouped them by colour and was giving them to me in a preferred order! The sun was shining and it was pleasant. The kids played in the sandpit and on the trampoline whilst I vacuumed the car which was long overdue! The kids helped me wash the outside of the car. We had a nice morning. One of our neighbours spotted us and came over with an invisible ink colouring book for ALex as her nephew had not wanted it. Alex has not shown much interested in colouring but he had a look at the book and was intrigued by the dots in the pictures. He soon worked out that the colours were determined by the little patterns in the picture and not by the pen’s magic. I should leave him alone more often!
I got some new apps for Alex’s iPad. One was Wild Kratts. He enjoyed it for a while but hasn’t gone back to it much. I didn’t push it or comment – I’m learning to strew without expectation! I also bought Junior Monopoly as Alex often asks to play with me after everyone else has gone to bed and he has not wanted to play any of our other games (he calls all of our alone time ‘special time’). We have played it often since, though not when Daniel is around. There was a point in the game where i had $8 and Alex $12. He landed on one of my properties and had to pay me $2 rent. He commented immediately “now we’ll both have 10”. Meaningful maths!
I had a nice morning with Daniel – we played music, built Mr potato head and did some puzzles. I think Alex was sleeping or on iPad. After gym, I took the kids to the shopping centre as it’s a pain to drive home before karate and anyway there was a toy sale. We looked for the ‘transformers combine’ toys that Alex had seen on TV. They were $50 and you needed 5 of them! Alex worked out that it would be $250 altogether and agreed with me that it was rather expensive.
I’ve been reading more and having some thoughts of my own. I keep looking to find blogs from other unschoolers. I’m not sure if it’s because I need inspiration or have a desire to join some club to fit in. However, I rarely look at them once found so I can hardly say I follow any particular blogs. My time is too precious, and I think it is doubt that takes me there. I need to remember that my kids are not poster children. Their achievements are special only because they belong to them. They are not to be bragged about or used as an example of how great homeschooling or unschooling is. What is important is their happiness and growth. I’m wanting to find ways to help my children do what they love and want. I’ve been more successful lately at not ‘teaching’ Alex. His questions will let me know what he’s needing. One thing, however, (aside from managing my shortness and improving my patience) is the word ‘okay’ tacked on the end of every sentence. I use it to avoid what I’m saying sounding like an order, however since I’m not actually wanting a response to the statement, it just causes problems to include it. For example “We need to get read for karate Alex, okay?” By adding the ‘okay’ I’m seeking his approval, and he’s perfectly entitled to respond with a ‘no’. Dropping the ‘okay’ does not make it bossy, just informative. I have improved since I had these thoughts (it’s been 2 weeks) but there’s always room for improvement!