Day 18

28th October 2021

Seeds Of Doubt

Every day, no matter how great the day was or how tricky it got at times, that thought is still there in my mind, am I doing this right?

I believe in the unschooling philosophy, but am I doing it right?

Are mums reading this and thinking,

“Jeez, she has no idea! When’s she gonna figure it out?”

Monica and I have been trawling again. 🙄 I came across an unschooling site that says,

It is hard to imagine how playing and exploring interests can lead to useful adult and college-material knowledge.

Yes, that is VERY hard to grasp once you put it into practice.

My worry is they won’t find anything they are interested in, other than going to the beach, skateboarding, playing on the trampoline & watching TV.

We sat down after breakfast to eat some more Universal Yums (http://thehomeschoolyear.com/Universal%20Yums), and can I just say, Indonesia, shame on you!

Palm oil is in everything in our box! 😢 Our hearts broke that we supported the deforestation of the Orangutan’s habitat. I will be writing a well worded letter!

So anyway, we all wrote a list of daily chores for the kids and chatted about how they are in control of their learning now, and they can learn anything they choose!

We asked them, what did they want to learn? Let’s get some great resources and we can look into anything we want.

Mila said she didn’t know what she wanted to learn.

Lincoln just stared at me and kept eating Indonesian Yums (http://thehomeschoolyear.com/Universal%20Yums) full of palm sugar. 😭😭

They don’t even know what they want to learn.

Is this how it starts for everyone?

At bedtime Mila asked if I could watch over her while she played and if she looks like she was enjoying something could I remind her she might like to learn about that.

She then looked at me with a sincerity that broke me in two, and asked if unicorns are real?

I said yes, I think they are. She scrunched up her nose and said I do too.

Then she asked if she could learn about unicorns.

Is that a thing? Where would we even start? Mythology?

I need an unschooling teacher. 😫 I’m feeling a bit lost.

Popcorn

After our chores (which came with a fair amount of hoo ha), Lincoln wanted to make popcorn for morning tea.

They’ve made it a few times with Liam, but he does it in the microwave.

I told them, its WAY better to make it on the stove so you can watch the popping!

They didn’t fully get how cool it is to make it this way until they saw it.

They were mesmerised watching the corn (http://thehomeschoolyear.com/Pop%20corn) explode & pop!

Mila says,

“Next time, lets make it with the lid off so it can pop out!” 😂 (As an unschooling parent, am I obligated to say yes to this??)

Popcorn — I quickly took the lid off to take this shot & corn popped out all over the place. The kids scrambled for it, even eating it off the floor. Ew.

Lincoln & Mila with popcorn — Hot buttery, salty morning tea. 😋 (We wanted cinema popcorn)

Linc & Mila in the garden — Their friendship is strengthening so much now they’re home schooled together.

Books

I can’t even talk about a textbook without the two of them balking,

BUT

I can leave books around for them to discover, and they will sit and read for a while.

Not long, maybe 15-20 minutes, but that is the recommended time for concentrated learning at their age.

It made me happy that they sat quietly and read.

I bought this great vintage book from a market because I liked the illustrations and the layout. We’ve had it for a few years, and they were never too interested in it, but today Lincoln picked it up and was really engaged.

He told us how cars used to run on batteries, but we changed over to petrol, and how motorbikes and cars omit carbon monoxide from the exhaust which is really bad!

Mila was reading about stars and planets and was so excited to tell us how many moons Jupiter has.

66 moons!

Linc reading book — Learning all about how things work from a vintage book first published in 1972.

Mila reading a book — Learning about stars and planets.

Stars and planet books — So many moons!!

Chasing Waterfalls, Take 2

After lunch, Daddy pitched a hard sell.

“Let’s hike up to another waterfall!”

There was wailing.

There were protests.

A friend of ours had gone recently and insisted, it was only a short hike to the falls, and you could even swim.

This got them over the line, and they headed off.

They went with a friend of ours who is kind of like the much older brother they never had.

They LOVE him.

In the end, the warm sun had dried out the falls a little, so they didn’t swim but they hit the fresh juice machine on the way and enjoyed the hike. (Apparently, orange juice & hikes go together).