I'm going to call this week my first official week of unschooling, since it's the first week that I made a conscious decision not to stick to my schedule. Going forward, I plan to write down anything that even resembles learning, or bonding, or fun of any kind.
The boys did a little bit of handwriting and some math, but for the most part we read lots of books, they played outside, and worked on their own projects.
Lately we've been letting the boys stay up past their bedtime, as long as they play outside and get along. On this particular night they decided to make our deck swing into a bed. They asked if they could sleep outside and we said, "Sure, why not?" (this is definitely new territory for us!) They asked Mark to fire up the heater for them and he obliged. They actually fell asleep out there! (We did put them back in their beds).
Something I read in one of my books about unschooling really stuck with me. The simple advice read, "Say yes as often as you possibly can." So often I say no to things simply because it's inconvenient to me; it will make a mess or make more work for me somehow. But over these past few weeks I've realized that saying yes is so much more fun!
On this night I found Tommy in the kitchen trying to make up a recipe for peanut butter cookies. I suggested that we look together to find a recipe and we found this one for no bake peanut butter protein balls. It was past his bedtime, so I said he could make them under the condition that he makes the recipe by himself and cleans up after, and he agreed. (Okay, so I helped a little bit). I was completely impressed at how he figured everything out mostly on his own and even cleaned up pretty well.
Later in the week we went to The Tech Museum with some friends. This Rube Goldberg machine is one of their favorite things. They can stand their for what seems like forever watching all the balls and the gears turn (and the funny thing is, it's outside the museum, so it's free!)
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