Always Changing Directions

Other than Math, my plans and curriculum choices weren't working. Lots of resistance which led to bad moods, distrust and power struggles.

I asked them, "What do you want to do?"

The boy said that he wanted more science projects. The girl said she wants to build a play house.

Well, it's January in Upstate, NY. Building a play house can happen but not right now. I told her she needed a plan or a blueprint. We'll see if she goes anywhere with this idea.

The boy's idea is a bit more reachable. I put the curriculum aside and took out the dig a dinosaur kits, some books on dinosaurs, printed up some worksheets and fun dinosaur puzzles and cued up some things on Netflix.

Today, even with me not feeling 100% and the oldest being home sick, was a pretty good school day (or unschool day?), They watched a few Dino shows and dug out dino bones. This went on for 4 hours. 4 hours of us watching and discussing topics like evolution, the impending ice age, how the continents were one huge land mass and other assorted topics.

Currently, they have pulled out various art supplies to do an art project of some sort. This is completely their spontaneous idea. I hope this spark continues!

We may be moving in an unschool type direction which is a bit scary for me. I think I need more deschooling time!

You can lead a horse to water.....

but you can't make him drink.

Sickness has been rolling through the kids this week and last.

It's possible that more deschooling time is needed before we jump in but there was a ton of resistance today.

However, they are asking for more science projects and more hands on. So, I'm going to look at what we have and go from there. 

In the meantime, I'm going to reboot with some wine! 

Math isn't literal...

We started back with academics this week after deschooling since September.

He was less than thrilled honestly. My daughter was happy to get back into it though.

He finally sat with me to do a math lesson. But, he wanted to work in the workbook and not on the computer. This surprised me but we went ahead. 

Then he got stuck. The problem was: 

6-1= _____

His answer was 6. Now, this is review and I know he has done this basic stuff before. So, I pulled out pennies and he got the answer right. But, back to the worksheet and he still says 6. 

I asked him why his answer was 6. He looked at me and then covered the number 1 with his finger and said the 6 is still there. 

He definitely sees things in a different way!