The Great Lego Debate
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This morning, Tully and I started the day with The Great Lego Debate. Do you empty the entire bucket onto the floor (Tully's preference) or do you fish around in the bucket for the piece you're after? (my preference)
It wasn't a very nice way to start the day. The kind of start where I end up saying he can't leave his room till it's all tidy and go drink my coffee on the back verandah, while he wails in his bedroom that he can't do it on his own.
While overlooking my garden, I started to wonder if this was just going to end up one of those horrible days where I have to follow through with what I've said, even though I didn't put that much thought into it, and he spends the whole day trying to get out of it. It made me wonder what I actually wanted him to learn, and us to achieve together.
The last two weeks I've been doing Rachel from Stitched in Color's Homeschool Handmade course. We plan to start homeschooling 'officially' in the new year. Aside from clarifying what style of homeschool I wanted to create (a decision that has overwhelmed me for sometime), I've found it so helpful to think through my goals for our home. Can I share them with you?
Order: Not in the strict boarding school sense, but in the peaceful rhythm sense. I want to make some (flexible) decisions now about our weekly rhythms so I'm not making little decisions all day, every day.
Shared Family Responsibilities: I've mostly tried to include my kids in the running of our home, but now I want them to know we all contribute to keeping it going. Tully is now Vacuum Boy, a super hero who wears a Buzz Lightyear costume and vacuums the lounge room floor each morning. A finished activity gets tidied up before the next one begins, except for special projects that are going over a period of time.
Free time: I've often felt a quiet, nagging sense of guilt about how much time I spend intentionally with my kids. It's not that I spend no time. It's just that I hadn't defined or examined my expectations, so I always suspected I was failing. A couple of days ago when the kids snuck away from the dining room table to eat their lunch together on the trampoline, I realised (again) what a treasure it is that they get on so well together and play so independently. I wondered if it was actually my job to let them create these special moments, rather than always feeling like I should set it up for them. It confirmed for me that I don't want to take Tully away from this 30 hours a week, and that I didn't want our days packed out with activity.
Holistic learning: It's important to me that my kids learn skills, and not just information. I want us to be learning together how to approach tasks we don't really want to do, how to take responsibility for our actions, how to treat each other, and ourselves, with respect and kindness. And I want to make time for creativity and things we love.
So with this in mind, I went back into Tully's room and pulled him up on my lap. We talked about how I didn't want him to empty the lego everywhere anymore. We talked about how he might find it easier to create on a tidy floor than one covered mess. Then I told him I still wanted him to tidy up the lego, that our days are full of things we don't really want to do, but we can find ways to motivate ourselves to do them. I asked him what would make him feel more like tiding up. He suggested listening to Brooke Fraser (one of our favourite 'tidy up' albums) might help. I suggested thinking up something he wanted to do after that would help him get excited about finishing. We talked about breaking up the mess into sections and doing one at a time. And then he decided to race against the music, trying to have it all tidy before the second song finished.
An hour and a half of fuss and turmoil, was all cleared up by a breather, a 10 minute conversation and 5 minutes of happy tidying.
I am so thankful for this journey we're on. One where I know I'm just learning too, where we can learn and grow together, where we can bear patiently with each other in our different stages.
Rachel's Homeschool.handmade is still available as a private blog till the end of June. If you're considering homeschooling, and want to think through your family's goals, personalities and needs, and read others' reflections too, I really recommend it.
This morning, Tully and I started the day with The Great Lego Debate. Do you empty the entire bucket onto the floor (Tully's preference) or do you fish around in the bucket for the piece you're after? (my preference)
It wasn't a very nice way to start the day. The kind of start where I end up saying he can't leave his room till it's all tidy and go drink my coffee on the back verandah, while he wails in his bedroom that he can't do it on his own.
While overlooking my garden, I started to wonder if this was just going to end up one of those horrible days where I have to follow through with what I've said, even though I didn't put that much thought into it, and he spends the whole day trying to get out of it. It made me wonder what I actually wanted him to learn, and us to achieve together.
The last two weeks I've been doing Rachel from Stitched in Color's Homeschool Handmade course. We plan to start homeschooling 'officially' in the new year. Aside from clarifying what style of homeschool I wanted to create (a decision that has overwhelmed me for sometime), I've found it so helpful to think through my goals for our home. Can I share them with you?
Order: Not in the strict boarding school sense, but in the peaceful rhythm sense. I want to make some (flexible) decisions now about our weekly rhythms so I'm not making little decisions all day, every day.
Shared Family Responsibilities: I've mostly tried to include my kids in the running of our home, but now I want them to know we all contribute to keeping it going. Tully is now Vacuum Boy, a super hero who wears a Buzz Lightyear costume and vacuums the lounge room floor each morning. A finished activity gets tidied up before the next one begins, except for special projects that are going over a period of time.
Free time: I've often felt a quiet, nagging sense of guilt about how much time I spend intentionally with my kids. It's not that I spend no time. It's just that I hadn't defined or examined my expectations, so I always suspected I was failing. A couple of days ago when the kids snuck away from the dining room table to eat their lunch together on the trampoline, I realised (again) what a treasure it is that they get on so well together and play so independently. I wondered if it was actually my job to let them create these special moments, rather than always feeling like I should set it up for them. It confirmed for me that I don't want to take Tully away from this 30 hours a week, and that I didn't want our days packed out with activity.
Holistic learning: It's important to me that my kids learn skills, and not just information. I want us to be learning together how to approach tasks we don't really want to do, how to take responsibility for our actions, how to treat each other, and ourselves, with respect and kindness. And I want to make time for creativity and things we love.
So with this in mind, I went back into Tully's room and pulled him up on my lap. We talked about how I didn't want him to empty the lego everywhere anymore. We talked about how he might find it easier to create on a tidy floor than one covered mess. Then I told him I still wanted him to tidy up the lego, that our days are full of things we don't really want to do, but we can find ways to motivate ourselves to do them. I asked him what would make him feel more like tiding up. He suggested listening to Brooke Fraser (one of our favourite 'tidy up' albums) might help. I suggested thinking up something he wanted to do after that would help him get excited about finishing. We talked about breaking up the mess into sections and doing one at a time. And then he decided to race against the music, trying to have it all tidy before the second song finished.
An hour and a half of fuss and turmoil, was all cleared up by a breather, a 10 minute conversation and 5 minutes of happy tidying.
I am so thankful for this journey we're on. One where I know I'm just learning too, where we can learn and grow together, where we can bear patiently with each other in our different stages.
Rachel's Homeschool.handmade is still available as a private blog till the end of June. If you're considering homeschooling, and want to think through your family's goals, personalities and needs, and read others' reflections too, I really recommend it.