Welcome to the 9th edition of This Homeschooling Life.
April has been a really good month, for all of us. I know things will change again but at this moment in time balancing everyone’s needs is working really well and everyone is happy. I realised a few months ago that I wouldn’t be able to put as much into my blogs as I would if I had some time to myself but I reached a point of acceptance with that which definitely needed to happen. Although funnily enough though since that point I’ve had more than enough time to work on them because when we are at home I barely even see the kids, although I can always hear them ;).
People quite frequently ask me how I get anything done with both the kids around me all the time but they keep themselves occupied with very little input from me. They have a whole range of games around the house that they play. Most of them involve taking cushions of the sofa, then they bury each other, make dens, bouncy castles, slides or jump off the storage unit on to them. They also play ‘push’ which is where they push each other off the side of the sofa. All of this is usually done with no t-shirts on for some reason! They have access to all the craft supplies and Play Doh so are free to play with that as they please.
They are also allowed to go on the iPad as and when they like. I actually read this article by Lucy from Lulastic the other day which I really loved, it’s about why she doesn’t restrict screentime and I am totally with her. There was a time a couple of years ago when I worried about them spending too much time on there but the more I tried to restrict it, the more obsessed they became with being on it. Nothing is more appealing than forbidden fruit is it?! So I just let them work it out of their system and now they go for entire days without even going on it. In fact there are even times when I wouldn’t mind them chilling out a bit (and being quiet!) so I suggest it and they point blank refuse. I know it doesn’t work for everyone but with the way we are homeschooling it’s very much about them being in charge of their time and what they do with it, that wouldn’t really work if I tried to control some of their choices. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t worry again if they suddenly wanted to spend every minute of their time watching the iPad but there are ways to get around it, such as making sure we aren’t at home long enough for them to do it.
I’ve mentioned before that Cherry hasn’t really had an interest in writing or reading, well all of that has changed now. All of a sudden she is spending lots of time writing and in the space of a few weeks she’s gone from needing me to write the words down for her to copy to just being able to ask me the letters. She’s also started sounding out the letters of words in books which is the first sign I’ve seen of her being ready to start reading so that’s exciting. I know some people feel worried that homeschooled children won’t be at the same level as children in school but that’s kind of the whole point for me, all children are different. We don’t expect them to start walking and talking at the same time so why expect them learn to read and write at the same time?!
Another thing I’m keen to avoid is the association of any kind of academic activity with the word ‘work’. As soon as something becomes work it takes the fun out of it and before long there has become a divide between activities that should all be fun. Equally I don’t want there to be the assumption that playing outside or building with Lego isn’t teaching kids anything. The world is a new and exciting place for children and they can learn things from everything they do.
On the subject of Lego, Cherry and Tiger are both Lego mad right now. In fact as I write this they are upstairs building with it, the only downside is the fact it ends up all over the floor in every room of our house!
And this photo kind of sums up what I mean about the difference between ‘work’ and ‘fun’. Had I suggested Cherry sit down and do this then I know for a fact she wouldn’t have wanted to, it would have become ‘work’, but she came to me and told me she was going to draw all the animals then write about them and she sat at the table for ages ‘working’ on it because she wanted to, because she found it fun.
Do you remember these Wildlife Fact-Files by the way? I had one when I was little girl and was so excited to spot this in Bristol Scrapstore last week. Cherry loves it as much as I did when I was little.
Cherry still spends a lot of time making things, in fact she’s never happier than when she is creating or crafting. We also picked up a load of scrap in the scrapstore and Cherry spent ages building this with it all.
This one another one of her craft activities, she asked me to cut a plate out of some cardboard then she cut out lots of meals to go on it.
They still love playing outside, this was at a wildlife group where they had to make a stinky potion.
And they are still absolutely loving their trampolining and gymnastics classes, and science groups.
This Homeschooling Life is a linky for you to share either a week, a day or just a moment from your life as a homeschooling family. We are hoping it will be a really nice way to discover new blogs and learn how we all do things differently.
2. Link up a post from your month, no more than 3.
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