and so we begin....

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A brand new year. A brand new beginning for our children. 3 of them are off to new grades. Grade 11, 9 and 7 and the forth is being home schooled in grade 5. 

We begin for real now and my tummy id full of butterflies. I keep thinking," what the heck have we done?"

This weekend I got to share a birthday with a friend and she brought with her a whole bunch of homeschoolers. One mom I am getting to know and we are sharing Science together with two other home school families.

I shared my fears!( daring greatly and being authentically vulnerable. Thank you Brene Brown!!)

To my surprise she told me she felt the same , often. What a great and honest thing to share with a brand new homeschooling mom. Thank you oh fellow brave one.

And so here we are......

My other boys keep asking me if we are actually going to do any school this week. They are as curious as I am!

The Uncomfortable Place!

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Today I decided and acted on this one word.

STOP!

The truth is that although I had these amazing ideas to un school or to de school and in reality we have to a certain extent, the teacher in me.... the fearful one in me... the voice that worried about the " what if " won and so we have been soldiering on with Maths and some English .

Last night, after a darling friend dropped off some maths to peruse , I decided to STOP. And so today we did out last maths for the year.

I can spot the gaps and I can see the cracks as he works but hey, next year is another year to begin a fresh and get going.

STOP!

The firmest and friendliest word I have said!

So we blew up balloons and made  a tactile balloon ball with cornstarch  that did not work as well as the bloke on Youtube made it work.

We made those beaded iron shaped goodies and we bought some dough to make "Suzzelle" bread tomorrow.

While I explore Project Based learning , lets get some projects going.

As Jets fellow grade 4 kids write exams and have Christmas assembly  and all that jazz, I have to say that strangely, none of that feels at all as though we are missing out.

I think it is because of this one all pervasive truth.... Jet is still singing, loving art and drama, joining in and did I say singing.

A friend popped by that has known Jet since birth. She spent some time with Tom and Jet as I was teaching art and then she came through. Her eyes all shining and happy as she shared with me how totally happy Jet is. How engaged and chatty. My eyes brimmed with tears. 

He may very well NOT be getting the absolute best of education but can we put a price on this boys  deep happiness?

Lets get Doing!

This is week 5 of the term. For us as a family we are busy as bees with exams. Our older two are writing grade 8 and 10 exams respectively and the third is about to begin grade 6. For those who do not know, Grade 6 exams are the ones the high schools use to decide if a child is the "right" fit for their particular school , or not.

I find exam time both slightly stressful and also great. The kids get to come home early  and I loving having them around. The banter and fun amidst the learning and serious stuff is a delight. Our school going kids are lead extremely full lives. Some of this is great and other parts are not. Learning to juggle,balance, pace , re-adjust and even say no are things that they are each learning along the way.

In the midst of all this, this is the de - schooling term for our Jet.

As I am still juggling art classes in the mornings , we have had to swish and swash through some days and really plan others.

I am a person who finds education exciting. The different ideas, shifts,offers, and thoughts on what should be and is really inspire me.

I also find children interesting. Having an ADHD family has forced me to investigate alternative brain diversities and learning methods. I am still trying to get my head around some of the workings out of these.

As I sit with Jet, his thinking process fascinates me. There is much about how he learns and engages I do not yet know BUT a picture is revealing itself and it is one that was puzzling and concerning me .

If you know anything about ADHD children you will know that their learning and engaging with the world is different and complex. ADHD that we experience is the tip of the ice berg and below the ice berg are many complexities unique to each child. 

As I watched him think I could literally see the frustration and anxiety one day as we did some maths. This was AS his meds kicked it. But , as soon as they  had, he was off.

Settled?

Not really. One of our aims in taking Jet out of school was to Switch him on to learning again because we are all designed to learn and love it, to inquire and ask questions and yet that was not his experience.

Partly his ADHD played into it and partly not. ADHD people experience a great deal of bordem ( I have written about this on my ADHD blog). Jet was extremely bored. Not because he is supper bright or the work was dull but because he struggled to engage it.

Coming home I can see that struggle still exists. So now I have a problem. I kept thinking that there must be another way. A way to engage him that is really going to get to him.

Last night I found it.

As I have been working with him, I can see the difference between his engagement on project work and making stuff as apposed to a simple written task. While he will need to do some of these, there is another way.

Project based learning

and its fellow friend 

Inquiry based learning

These are not the same thing but both engage the child in the learning process although in different ways. There are overlaps. 

This is all new thinking to me and I am really excited by it all.

For the first time I think we may have hit on something here. I was thrilled to see schools are using these two approaches in the USA and they really seemed to be places of awesome learning.

Isn't that what we all want. Places that kids actually learn and enjoy doing it? 

There is so much more for me to explore here.

But for now, God has answered our prayer in this regard, in a day actually.

Thanks be to God!

The Educational Fizzer and the Release of a Butterfly

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We decided to take our youngest son out of school and to home school him. For obvious reasons it has been an enormous decision and one that has had exceptional consequences.

We are in the de-schooling process  which is for both of us. We are kind of doing bits of school that are interesting and helpful but other wise we are rediscovering ourselves, our space and our relationship. It is enormous fun! Educationally this is blowing my mind . It feels like a fizz inside of me and it really is explosive.  There are amazing curricula available for us to use as home school families . In addition there is a world of wonder ,online!

 Education as we know it is shifting, and shifting fairly quickly. People are able to access free online courses at universities like Harved as an example.

Kids have access to excellent , visual, clear lessons on Maths and Science and much more.

There are ideas and examples and help on platforms like Pintrest.

Khan Academy is absolutely brilliant and anyone can benefit from the excellent visual explanations.

We checked out a few on Time in Maths and came across spectacular way of presenting time, especially for kids who do not quite " get it".

Our son in grade 10 is using Khan for science upskilling.

I keep calling this an adventure and that is exactly what it is for us all.
The adventure includes not only what we are learning but how slowly or quickly we do it and more then that HOW we do it.

Jet is a kid who needs to move. This is the perfect space to experiment with how far and how much we can move and learn new concepts. He is using words like "fun" and "exciting" and "interesting" which he has not used for a very long time - in relation to learning ( enrichment is the exception) but then I think we are doing enrichment most of the time right now.

He is also a kid who get tired easily and so we can have those spaces too. Time to just rest the brain and take a break - just when he needs to.
There is a body of knowledge we need to do and we do not need to get through it all right now. There is time and this choice has afforded us that precious gift.

Time!

People are so encouraging and helpful. Some don't quite get what we have done while others somehow wish they could be as brave.

There are many unknowns but I am choosing to live in the here and now. We are enormously grateful to God for this opportunity. It is absolutely the very best thing for this darling  boy right now! 

He is like a caterpillar escaping its cocoon!

Oh Happy Days

So here we are. Two weeks in...

My emotions have zig zagged from excitement through to thinking. " what have we done".

This is definitely the settling in phase or the de schooling phase.. We are ALL adjusting. In so many ways, small and big, this decision has effected us as individuals and as a family.

We are adjusting.

The biggest and most beautiful change is in our son Jethro. He is happy beyond happy. Jumps and sings about and keeps saying. " this is fun hey mom.". These are the words that make me glad. Learning is fun and if we can bring THAT to him and alive in him then this is well worth it.

These are photos from our week thus far. Clay café which brought some good discussion time and a happy place for us both. 

The others are of Jet doing x table game outside. He loved this." Take a photo for dad" is all he kept saying.

This is good.!

Let all fun begin

So we are two days into the homeschooling adventure.

It has been weird. It has been strangely busy. Day one day an into into woodwork with these two really great men who helped the group build various items.

Day two saw a time with a group of kids for science. Friction. We spent some time talking this evening about how strange a neccesity friction is.

Maths and postcrossing, drawing and reading have filled the spaces.

Jet keeps saying... It is fun!

Long, long may I keep it fun. After all learning should be fun.

Last but not over

So.. We begin.....

This photo is Jets" last day at school" photo. It was a happy / sad day for me but a glorious day for him.

He has not stopped smiling all week.

The second photo is a realisation photo.

We were out for pizza, just the three of us, and Jet was sitting on Doug's lap. As we chatted and shared about this wing of our adventure,, Dougie turned to Jet and. Said,, " I hated school Jet!"

And then it dawned..... This is the experience Doug had at school.. The sore tummy,, feeling sick, anxious and perpetually bored kind of experience.. Not that Jet had this exact response. No, his was different and yet the same.

Phew.

So deeply grateful to give this boy another kind of experience.. A privaledge and blessing. Thank you Lord.