We picked up some autumn stencils at Target today, on our weekly window shopping trip. The Sunchild is planning his Yule list, or perhaps I should say editing it. He has been working on it ever since last year, when the whirlwind of Yule, Christmas, and his birthday hooked him into the 'get more stuff'' paradigm of our culture. Luckily, I told him to start his list last winter, and he has been working on it ever since.
We played around with the stencils for awhile, which transitioned into free drawing. This made me very happy, as he used to draw all the time when he was in Montessori school, and his desire to do that has evaporated since he stopped attending there. I have tried to intrigue him numerous times, but it always felt like a struggle, and I felt that I should follow the unschooling paradigm, and just let him be for a while.
The deschooling process is tricky. Every so often I get the urge to break out the worksheets, and do something, anything, which I can show off as 'progress'. Generally, these moments pass, though, and I can compromise by leaving them somewhere that he will see them. If he is interested, he will ask to do them. Meanwhile, I work on ways to capture his interest without forcing the issue. I really feel aligned with the idea of child-led learning, but as a product of our hurried culture, sometimes it is very hard for me to back off.
He enjoyed drawing immensely, today, and told me stories about what he drew. We went hunting for our other stencils, and found a Sand Art set in the closet that my friend Sunmountain & her family gave him last year for his birthday. He played with that for a couple of hours, while I cooked dinner and cleaned up a bit.
We have been playing Rummy 500, over the past week or so. We play with all of our cards out, so I can help him to spot his patterns. He is getting better at seeing them, as well as organizing the cards so the patterns are more obvious. He also is becoming quite proficient in counting by 5s, 10s & 15s. He startled his papa today by announcing that "3 15s make 45."
Earlier today, I asked him if he wanted to read a Clifford book with me. We generally switch off, line by line. He told me, "I don't really feel inclined to do that at the moment." I love how he picks up vocabulary from the books we read & listen to together.
About the deschooling.... really, I need to remind myself not to judge our progress by how busy we are. Being busy as a goal in and of itself is something I learned in Catholic school. It is a strong part of our culture, but as David Elkind reminded me in The Hurried Child, which I just finished, it is not necessarily a healthy one. It is definitely not a legacy I wish to pass on.
We played around with the stencils for awhile, which transitioned into free drawing. This made me very happy, as he used to draw all the time when he was in Montessori school, and his desire to do that has evaporated since he stopped attending there. I have tried to intrigue him numerous times, but it always felt like a struggle, and I felt that I should follow the unschooling paradigm, and just let him be for a while.
The deschooling process is tricky. Every so often I get the urge to break out the worksheets, and do something, anything, which I can show off as 'progress'. Generally, these moments pass, though, and I can compromise by leaving them somewhere that he will see them. If he is interested, he will ask to do them. Meanwhile, I work on ways to capture his interest without forcing the issue. I really feel aligned with the idea of child-led learning, but as a product of our hurried culture, sometimes it is very hard for me to back off.
He enjoyed drawing immensely, today, and told me stories about what he drew. We went hunting for our other stencils, and found a Sand Art set in the closet that my friend Sunmountain & her family gave him last year for his birthday. He played with that for a couple of hours, while I cooked dinner and cleaned up a bit.
We have been playing Rummy 500, over the past week or so. We play with all of our cards out, so I can help him to spot his patterns. He is getting better at seeing them, as well as organizing the cards so the patterns are more obvious. He also is becoming quite proficient in counting by 5s, 10s & 15s. He startled his papa today by announcing that "3 15s make 45."
Earlier today, I asked him if he wanted to read a Clifford book with me. We generally switch off, line by line. He told me, "I don't really feel inclined to do that at the moment." I love how he picks up vocabulary from the books we read & listen to together.
About the deschooling.... really, I need to remind myself not to judge our progress by how busy we are. Being busy as a goal in and of itself is something I learned in Catholic school. It is a strong part of our culture, but as David Elkind reminded me in The Hurried Child, which I just finished, it is not necessarily a healthy one. It is definitely not a legacy I wish to pass on.
posted by jen | 6:35 PM
1 Comments:
I know that busyurge too- I feel uneasy when we take it easy. I just got a call from a friend that totally blew apart my careful plans for rest of the week- but I have to let it go.
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