What DID we do all day?!

Seems like a question that needs to be answered at the end of our homeschool day in order to justify the decision.

So I have a theory. I don't have the confidence and trust in myself and my children to unschool or natural learn, But I do respect that they need time to explore their own interests and by time I mean weeks. I think also that a lot can be gained from planned lessons with specific goals. I believe it's hard to reach a destination without some thought to the steps we should take to arrive there. So my theory is that there can be a balance struck between these two opposite ideas of home education.

So here we are arriving at the end of nearly six weeks holidays and what am I noticing? I took a photo log today and some notes to find out. Just for interest, we did read today (as we do most days). Poetry, Little House on the Prairie, The Children's Book of Virtues and Ramona and Kookaburra also read poetry and his read aloud books consisted of The Lion and the Witch and the Wardrobe, The Magic Treehouse Series and the Children's Bible.

Brace yourself, this is a mammoth post and purely for reflection and a way to quantify our day.

Above is a pic of Kangaroo's chalk writing for fun from last night. I only began to include lessons for Kangaroo on letters and numbers during the second semester of 2010 and then it was a by feel thing. I didn't push hard but I was firm about becoming familiar with his alphabet and numbers. He hasn't had a lesson since November but the learning has gone on any way and as we're seeing above, he's copy writing and whilst there is some reversal, most importantly I can see Kangaroo deriving pleasure from the new skill. Did you notice the V6 and Mitsubishi symbol he drew, replicating what he sees on our car?

A Picnic and blanket with a beautiful rainbow and clouds and some rain. Sweet little kiddo's drawings.

NASA and space obsessed Kookaburra drew a space shuttle and was nattering about how the hydraulics need to work.

When Kangaroo woke this morning he was straight back into copy writing and this time he's list making projects from a library crafting book. He asked for a little help from me when he was too tired but other than that he happily asked what the writing said, made plans for the craft and then continued on with the task he'd set himself. Obviously this is all great stuff but what concerns me is the technical language used when submitting information to the home education department to explain what and how he is learning. I'm looking for a free website to edify this worrier so that I can quantify our homeschool quality to the powers that be. I figure that I'm seeing a purpose for writing, letter formation and reading relevance. But whatever they may call it, Kangaroo is happy learning unawares and importantly he's developing a positive internal motivation.

So what has Kookaburra been up to?

Drawing house and business plans. Making plans for his future. Dreaming of inventions and customer orders.

I've been encouraging him to write a key to his plans above but this suggestion was greeted with a lukewarm grunt until he saw my newest book arrive in the mail. A fantasy novel with it's own imagined land and what do you know.... it has a key! So now Kookaburra wants to draw one of his own accord. Instead of my pushing him, Kookaburra was inspired from a source that he thinks is worthy - a good book! and now he's doing what I want anyway but without the push and misery. Instead it seems that exposure to ideas from what he thinks is a valid source may have won some more direction and willingness from him.

I've been reflecting on his lack of enthusiasm towards writing and I think the problem is the cursive program we're using, so I'm going to simplify and will likely change to Penny Gardner's Beautiful Italics. Less fuss, joined letters, lovely writing, inexpensive and I think it will help get Kookaburra over this bump that I think is stalling him from putting all his amazing ideas and quirky stories down in print.

Did I mention this was a day in review? Well, if you've gotten this far, you are kind :D

Whilst I held out for years on the no gun rule I've rescinded the ruling recently after realizing moderation really is going to be key for our little boys who are dying inside to play cowboys, policemen, hunters, pirates and so on with the guns that the characters always carry. I feel that it may perhaps be better to teach and guide them rather than have a blanket no gun rule, which I fear may in the end be more negative than good.

Kookaburra has been designing some great guns out of his ubersticks. They even have a trigger which the boys have been trialling rubber bands onto to make rubber-band guns.

More writing from Kangaroo and more reversals. He writes and then asks what does it say, which are key 'school readiness' signs. I'll post those signs another time . We have two night and day children. Chalk and cheese. Very different. Kangaroo has never been to a childcare, kindergarten, preschool or prep program and his babyhood has been a stable, loving and, yep! sometimes crazy environment. He has been progressively immersed and surrounded by print by means of great picture books and literature. This is something Mr E and I had to learn . To be discerning about our literature choices.

Kangaroo is displaying typical school readiness signs. Whereas Kookaburra at the same age, who has had a great many negative experiences with childcare, kindergarten, preschool and prep programs, rarely voluntarily made letters, or asked what they mean of his own accord or for his own interest. I'm sure he thought and still sometimes thinks that someone will want to teach him and if he can't do it or has trouble performing, then things will quickly become a negative situation for him. He'll feel guilty, frustrated, dumb, and maybe scared. I don't squarely blame the institutions for his attitude. There is also my untangling of myself from this system and my journey in this and the coming to really believe that children will be ready to learn in their own time has had it's causalities. Poor Kookaburra. His early experiences with education hasn't been entirely conducive to leading him to be happily internally motivated towards putting pencil to paper.

But he's a curious kid. And oh so chatty when he's comfortable. Whilst drawing his plans this morning, Kookaburra was noticing Morgans very long whiskers and began to explain to me what he thought they were for and how it may work. He then compared this attribute of a cat to those of his bird Hermes. Yesterday he examined the positioning of both their eyes and compared them and talked about why he thinks animals are designed the way they are and discussed various animals position on the food chain and whether they were a predator or prey and how this contributes to their overall design. He then combined his thoughts for his own conclusion on the subject. None of this went into writing but so valuable even if I can't quantify it.

We have no lessons at the moment but Kangaroo and Kookaburra are still learning and with minimal input from me. Mostly I need to be available and help them go a little further with their interests.

Kookaburra knows Kangaroo is treasure obsessed and showed his little brother how to craft jewelery from aluminum foil.

More plans later in the morning but after that they wanted to throw the ball around in the back yard. Kookaburra is trying to direct the destination of the ball when he hits it in a flat fist underhand style. So to get it right he's messing around with angle, speed and force.

Painting up his treasure chest from Christmas. To get just the right look Kangaroo and I mix various colours with a medium designed to look rough, almost like little stones in the paint.

As they played trains together, my boys listened to the music from Pocahontas. They asked questions about John Smith and Pocahontas and the relationship between the Indians and the Englishmen and the reasons for the animosity. They like to think about what else was going on in the world when this was happening. Discussions about books we've read and where the characters are placed is a conversation they'll have then.

More copywork from Kangaroo as he considers the theme of his birthday party this year. He's so excited and is in planning mode.

After being on a penguin theme for a few days Kookaburra has now decided to play with ice. He of course understands the expansion of the water molecules when they freeze and watched a short youtube video about what happens to water when it freezes. He found out that even though the molecular structure changes slightly during freezing, the water and ice will continue to weigh the same. I encouraged him to start a log documenting his observances whilst waiting for the different sized containers with their various objects to freeze. 'Meh' greeted my suggestion. I explained the advantages of a log from his perspective rather then a learning perspective and gratefully this was received warmly. He even started it after that :)

Kangaroo baked a chocolate cake this afternoon. Proudly, he cracked the shells completely by himself and the crunchy bit in my cake was probably just a little more fiber then I really need but delicious all the same.

Obligatory taste test! Followed by a video on how chocolate is made.


More building after his shower.

And more crafting. This time Kangaroo was carving shapes from what was left of his 'dinosaur dig' at Christmas time.

I'm aware that this is a bit of a long post and it may not be all that interesting but I wanted to reflect on a day at home's behaviour with regards to home education occurring naturally. Weighing on my mind heavily at the moment is our choice of education approach as we head into our new 'school' year. Today we covered a quite a lot of different subjects without trying. Minuet even came up twice today. Once in a poem, something about a snail wanting to perform the minuet and being scoffed at and I don't remember where else and for a traditionally non-music family the influence of homeschool has been enough for us to hum two different minuet tunes. They also had swimming lessons today.

Well, if you made it to here, you are incredible and I'd love to hear others thoughts. Traditional homeschool regardless of charter school, Charlotte Mason and Classical or the random joy of natural learning. I already have a fairly firm decision in mind. I love balance so in the name of it shall be our school year. More holidays and less 'school' days but more definite structure and goal setting for when we do lessons and more opportunistic band wagonning during the down time.