Time For Plan B!

Sunday 9th March 2014

Have you ever had one of those days, that starts off like crap and no matter how much you try to change the mood of the day, it just seems to go from bad to worse?

Well I had one of those days last week. Not sure if it was just because it was Monday, but I am pretty sure it was because I had an expectation on how the day/ week was going to go.

I had made all these wonderful montessori inspired resources, and thought by Miss Personalities enthusiasm for them, that we were on to a winner. Errrrrrrrr wrong!

After a day of tantrum and tears (and that was just from me), I was left feeling, what had I done wrong? What could I have done differently? Was I expecting too much? But if I was doing something wrong, how could I change things? Or should I just give up and send her back to school?

I am sure I am not the only home schooling parent who has gone through these thoughts on a day that hasn't quiet gone to plan.

I even looked into a couple of schools, montessori schools. 

But then got totally annoyed when I got told that my daughter was too old to be accepted into their school, based on the fact that she had never been in a montessori preschool or school before. I was very insulted to think that at the age of 9 she was considered too old to learn something new. But I realised that it really meant that they didn't have the time to spend with her to catch her up to where everyone else was.

Any way I climbed down from my indignant soap box and decided screw them, my daughter can learn anything, I just had to change how I was teaching it.

So then I asked around on some of the facebook home schooling groups I am a part of about unschooling. I got introduced to lots of websites and blogs, like:

http://sandradodd.com/unschooling.html - Unschooling

http://livingjoyfully.ca/unschooling/stages.htm - The 3 stages of unschooling.

I enjoyed reading these 2 blogs and found it interesting to find out what 'unchooling' was. But I had also been pre warned that these 2 blogs are more 'radical unschooling'. 

While I am still trying to get my head around what these to terms really mean, I won't say to much about either of these terms, except that there are parts of the philosophy that I like and others that I don't think would suit us as a family. 

The blog I am really enjoying reading though is:

http://www.storiesofanunschoolingfamily.com/p/blog-page_3768.html

I found this blog, real, if that makes any sense. 

They seemed like your average family, that had been through the ups and downs of life, and along the way they had found there way to home school and then modified it to what suited them and their children.

So after reading up and getting a rough idea of what this 'unschooling' was, I decided to give it a go.

I had been advised to 'deschool' myself and my daughter before really getting in to the 'unschooling' journey. 

So what ever you want to call it, I decided to do it :)

Tuesday -  We started off the day with a couple of arguments, but I was determined to have a different day to Monday. Miss Personality was a little apprehensive about what was going on. She thought I was tricking her when I said "You can do what ever you want today".

I wrote my usual daily journal of observations of what Miss Personality chose to do with her day, wow!

It was awesome to watch her happily chose to all these fun activities because she was interested in it. 

At the end of the day I asked her "How would you like to do every day like this?", her answer was "Are you serious", with a happy little grin on her face. 

Wednesday - Miss Personality learnt about mummies and pharaoh's, she watched a movie about gymnastics, she created a comic strip on line, she measured in metres and compared with feet and centimetres, we played scrabble and she looked up the Megalodon Shark on the ipad. All because she wanted to learn about these things. It was awesome!

Thursday - We went do hubby's work for the day, where she got to do a lot of things, that until I sat back and really observed it all, realised that a lot of learning was happening here too. But she did it all with a smile on her face.

Friday - Went just as smoothly, with a happy child and happy mother, because there was hardly any arguments and Miss Personality was getting to learn what she wanted to learn, and chose it when she was ready.

Not sure what the to call what we are doing, so I won't and just enjoy the flow of it all.

I have found people get too caught up on labels, so I just won't label it.

This week reminded me why I wanted to home school after all.

I wanted my daughter to learn, not because she was told to, but because she wanted to.

To be a free thinker, to have passions of her own, to be happy.

I think we may be on to something good here, :).