It’s been a few weeks now since Lauren has put an end to the Unschool Monday meme she hosted at Owlet, but I’m going to write one last Unschool Monday post simply because I’ve got something to say about unschooling and it happens to be Monday!

Seven months ago I wrote about my decision to return to formal study. I planned to “upgrade” my herbal medicine qualification to a naturopathy qualification and it was only going to take me around 12-18 months. I’ve recently decided to withdraw from the course and I made that official today.

There are so many reasons, but it all really comes down to the rather simple fact that I don’t really want to be a naturopath. I’m heading in a different direction and so I’m happy with the herbal medicine qualification I currently have. Currently I’m able to help my family and my friends with the knowledge I’ve already gained from 10 years of formal and informal study and that’s really all I want out of natural medicine so there’s little point in continuing just to finish the naturopathy degree.

The primary difference between the qualification I have and the qualification I was working toward is homoeopathy. I don’t want to practice homoeopathy. I’m very skeptical of homoeopathy and it just doesn’t have a place in my life. I’ve tried to include it, but my passionate belief lies with herbs and nutritional therapies.

The last 7 months haven’t been wasted though, it’s been great to revisit this study because I’d be forever wondering if I should return to it had I not given it another go. Now I am certain I don’t want to work as a natural therapist in a clinic situation and I’m really excited to close the book on that chapter of my life and move forward to the next adventure.

I haven’t joined in with Unschool Monday for a while, I’ve dropped in to Owlet every Monday and followed the links to read everyone else’s posts but haven’t contributed myself. I suppose I haven’t had much to say about unschooling, it’s just becoming so much a part of our lives that I don’t compartmentalise it enough to come up with a fresh and original post each week. Other stuff going on has also meant I’ve been a little absent from the blog of late, and I rarely have photos to add to my posts so I don’t bother writing any! Ha, lots has been going on… lots of learning, lots of living, I’ve just stopped documenting it very reliably!

So here I am, the prodigal Unschool Mondayer, here on a Tuesday and wanting to tell you all about the writing that’s been going on here at the shed.

Sprout has been showing some interest in reading and writing for a while now. Every day she’ll spend a little or a lot of time sitting on her bed flicking through the various books she’s chosen at the library. She asks us to read the stories to her all the time, and she has begun recognising some very simple words from the books. Everywhere we go she’s recognising the letters “Z” and “O” which are the first letters of her name and her brother’s name, and one day last week she wrote a “Z” on our garden path with chalk which she proudly exclaimed was a “Z for (her name)”.

Today she was drawing on a pad of paper and after a short time she showed me a Z and an O. She asked me to write the rest of her name and Moe’s name so she could copy it. Amazingly, she came very close to writing the names properly. When she asked me to write “Kimba” so she could write my name she astounded me, and her Dad, with how accurately she copied it. She was chuffed with herself every time she asked if she’d got a letter right and we told her that she had. It was just delightful to see her so pleased with herself.

I have asked my Mum to get her an alphabet chart for Christmas, so she has the letters to refer to in her own time and in her own space.

It’s quite exciting to see these seeds of writing being sown, all in her own time, all under her own steam.

I loooove natural learning!

Unschool Monday is inspired by Owlet.

Due to my own study committments, lack of (local) family support and an as yet unestablished local support network I’m having to consider placing the sprogs in care for a few hours each week. I have called around looking for a place that is suitable (there are a number of criteria I require) and I found one carer that appeared to tick my boxes but got a call from her this morning, the day I was supposed to meet her, telling me her funding had been cut! Back to the drawing board.

I don’t actually want to place my children in daycare though.

I know it’s not like school, but it’s not like homeschooling either! It’s just not what I want. We have chosen to be a single income family so there is always a parent home (or out!) with the sprogs. If we lived closer to supportive family, or if we knew folk down here who we could call on for child care help then we’d take that opportunity. Daycare just doesn’t fit anywhere in our parenting & educational philosophies.

The solution we’ve come up with so far is for Bean to continue to work a five day week, but substitute one weekday for a Saturday so he can spend the time I’m at college being their primary carer. It’ll take longer for me to finish the course, because I’ll need to do classes until I’ve finished all the units and then do clinic prac, instead of being able to do them concurrently. I don’t mind though, life isn’t a race and it’s taken me six years to get back to this field of study anyway! I’ll never get back this time with my young sprogs, so what difference will it really make if I take another two years to finish this course instead of ome?

Besides, in that time we may find an alternate carer for the sprogs for the three or four hours one day a week that I’d be attending the class. Nothing is impossible!

Unschool Monday is inspired by Owlet

When I was at school my Mum packed an apple in my lunchbox every day, and every day that uneaten apple would go home again. It wasn’t that I didn’t like apples. I just didn’t like lunchbox apples.

Lunchbox apple bounced around in my lunchbox, in my backpack, on the walk to school every morning. Lunchbox apple got bruised by all that bouncing, and lunchbox apple squashed my sandwich too.

By the time lunch break rolled around the bruises on lunchbox apple were an unappealing shade of brown and my squashed sandwich looked much less appealing than the gloriously presented sandwiches my Mum made for us at the weekend.

I’m so glad I don’t have any pressure to pack a perfect (or even merely adequate) school lunch each day. I don’t have to worry about having lunch (and breakfast) made at sparrow fart five days a week, I don’t have to worry about my sprogs having the latest lunchbox fad foods, and I don’t have to worry about how I’d pack the lunches we do have into a small box.

Yesterday for morning tea we shared a platter with cut apple & ABC* paste, carrot sticks, cut orange, cashew nuts, goji berries, date & coconut rolls**, honey-cinnamon pop corn***, and a cup of rooibos tea with honey and raw cow milk. For lunch we had cous cous with tuna & salad vegetables, it took a couple of minutes to make and tasted great. I’d be hard pressed to have both of those meals presented nicely in a lunchbox before the school day began. I’m very pleased there’s no pressure to do it every day, it makes those days when we have to pack a lunch feel like a novelty, not a chore.

*almond, Brazil nut & cashew – we use it as a dip for cut apple

**blended dates rolled into logs and coated with desicated coconut

***melt 2Tbs butter & 2 Tbs honey with 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon on the stove, then pour over freshly popped popcorn

Unschool Monday is inspired by Owlet.

Not going to school means not being confined to holidaying during designated term breaks. It means unschool holidays when we would like to holiday, not when the calendar determines we can. The sproggets and I are in Perth right now. We plan to stay for two weeks. Bean drove up with us Friday evening but, unfortunately, had to return to Albany Sunday afternoon because he has to work weekdays.

I chose to bring the sproggets to Perth at this time for a few reasons, practical reasons & emotional reasons.

Practically speaking, Bean was scheduled four or five days work 2.5hrs drive from home, not very far away but far enough that he’d have to stay on site while the job was done. Four or five days and nights in our little, still toiletless, shed without Bean didn’t seem very appealing to me. We are using a camping toilet which Bean empties at his parent’s house each night. I don’t go to their house, so the reality of not having a permanent toilet (yet) would become more than a mere inconveience.

Emotionally, I knew the sprogs would find Bean’s absence from their evenings harder if their environment was the same & their Dad was just not around, so it made sense to change the environment, to turn it into a holiday. I’m also aware of how empty my cup is after 5 months in Albany, I have come to rely on the relative break the end of Bean’s work day brings, and I lack confidence in my ability to parent the sprogs respectfully all day & all night without respite. Knowing that I’d find support in Perth, practically & emotionally, I arranged to stay with my Mum for the week that Bean would be working away.

Then, his boss changed the schedule! I had built up our trip to Perth to the sproggets and to myself, I didn’t want to change it at late notice! So our one week in Perth has turned into two weeks.

I’m quite excited about our time in Perth. We’ve got so much planned. We’ll be catching up with the natural learning network a few times, which I’m very excited about since we don’t regularly see other homeschooling families. We’re also catching up with a lot of our Perth based friends, familiar people who we’ve already done the budding friendship rituals with, people we just know better than the acquaintences we’ve met at the library & park in Albany. I packed our bathers too, because it’s so delightfully sunny here in Perth that I feel certain we’ll have an opportunity to use them over the next two weeks.

Right now, the sproggets are in the courtyard of my Mum’s townhouse – they’re nude, playing in the sunshine with buckets of warm water. It’s still far too cold & windy in Albany for such an activity so as far as they’re concerned the unschool holidays are off to a great start!

Unschool Monday inspired by Owlet.

This morning I was granted a little sleep in.

Bean goes to Tafe Mondays, so he doesn’t have to be out the door quite as early as other weekdays. Bean got up with the sproggets today & while I lay in bed dozing, he put some Cat Stevens on the stereo, changed Moe’s nappy & dressed him, left Sprout in her pyjamas at her request*, made them all some porridge for breakfast & then cleaned up. He let me know when he was almost ready to go so I could get up & do my morning ritual without any interruption because I was not the only parent at home & the sproggets had been catered for already, amazing!

Once Bean left I made a smoothie for myself & the sproggets. We sat together & drank our smoothies then the sproggets each did their own thing while I cleaned up the blender & glasses. Yes, you read that right… the sproggets each did their own thing.

Not only that though, they continued to do their own thing for quite some time after I’d finished cleaning the smoothie dishes. In that time of quiet, self directed play, I was able to do some study(!). I read (& understood) 3 pages of a chapter on the endocrine system without interruption(!!) & they were still playing when I finished.

In the end, I actually asked them to play with me. I was energised & in the mood for meaningful interaction, I was feeling able to make ammends for the times I’ve said,

“Not right now, I don’t want to/I can’t be bothered/I’m too tired/I’m too busy.”

I asked Sprout what she wanted to do & she told me she’d like to play with the playdough.

“Yes!” I said, “And we can do better than just playdough… we can do playdough & coloured pop-sticks & pipe cleaners & GOOGLY EYES!”

We played playdough together, on & off, all day. Interspersed with lots of scrummy snacks & more self-directed play. I’m amazed at the complete lack of input required from me today. I’m amazed at the relative harmony between Moe & Sprout, so few disagreements, so much co-operation. I’m amazed at how nicely the day flowed, both sproggets freely entertaining themselves for a whole gloriously easy day, with me even being able to get a bit of stress free reading done for college!

*Sprout stayed in her pyjamas all day, until we all went for a quick walk with Dave when Bean came home at 4pm. That’s the beauty of Mondays, our only full weekday at home, we can sloth about in our jarmies all day long & still learn heaps, laugh heaps & love heaps!

Unschool Monday is inspired by Owlet.

We found this sign when we went for a bushwalk yesterday. It was a quiet opportunity for more discussion about where this unschooling path is taking us.

One night last week the sproggets weren’t going to sleep. Bean was getting irritated, he didn’t want to devote several hours to getting the sprogs to sleep. It had been a long day at work for him, he’d been digging trenches through rock all day. We had a lot to do around the house before we could go to bed. Dishes to wash, laundry to fold, floors to vacuum & mop. If we spent time trying to get the sproggets to sleep before we started on those jobs we’d be very late to bed ourselves.

I was feeling surprisingly zen about the whole sproggets awake at 10pm thing. I put some relaxing oils in the oil vapouriser & played some of Sprout’s “sleeping music” and I just got on with doing the dishes. I stopped a few times to breastfeed Moe. I massaged some calming oil into Sprout’s feet at her request. I asked her if she’d like to get up. No, she was happy where she was.

Bean was still irritated. He was tired, and he had a lot to do. I told him to just do it. The world wouldn’t end if the sprogs were awake while he got on with his jobs. The world wouldn’t end if we told the sprogs we couldn’t spend hours laying with them as they grew tired enough to sleep. The world wouldn’t end if we just waited until they were tired enough to sleep. Ironically, in the past it’s been him who is quick to remind me of this.

We have spent far too much time & energy getting stressed out about our children’s bedtime. Too many tears (from us!). Too much frustration (from them!). That old saying, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink, came up in my mind. No matter what we do, if the sprogs aren’t tired, they’ll not sleep. And no matter what we do, if the sprogs are tired, they’ll sleep!

We’ve been talking about it on & off ever since, & when we were walking yesterday we talked about it a bit more, this whole unschooling thing. The trust required from us. Trust for the process. Trust for each other. Trust for the sproggets.

We’re feeling more trusting of unschooling, the further into it we get. We’re more aware now of the self-regulation the sproggets have been displaying all along. When I make pikelets Sprout tells me every time when she has reached her limit, it’s always something like,

“I’m going to have just one more, otherwise I’ll feel sick.”

Recently, when Sprout had a chest cold she told me she couldn’t drink milk because it made her throat “thick” & caused her to cough.

They know their bodies better than anyone. They know if they’re tired enough to sleep, or hungry enough to eat. I can see outward signs that they’re tired – glazed eyes, yawning, sudden ratty moods – and I can ask them if they’d like to rest, but I can’t make them sleep.

I can help them wind down, with the aromatherapy & the relaxing music Sprout so loves to hear, but I can’t shut their eyes for them!

I can provide regular meals, but that doesn’t mean they will feel hungry when a meal is set in front of them, or that they won’t feel hungry in between meals.

We have a wide range of fabulous food in our fridge & pantry, which recently Sprout has begun helping herself to, or at least being quite specific when she asks me to get her some food. Moe is also being specific, and he’s is just 20 months. He can’t reach the handle to the pantry door, but he can get up to the sink by using a chair so he climbed up this morning to grab a spoon then tapped on the pantry door. I opened the door & asked him to point to what he wanted. A spoonful of honey… No problem!

We’ve decided to be a bit more free, a bit less authoritarian, we’re loosening our grip on unearned control and following their cues with regard to food & sleep. They’ll rest when they’re tired & eat when they’re hungry.

We’re not at that point with screen time (yet?). We don’t have a television anyway, & don’t want to bring one in to our home. We have 2 laptops, Bean takes his to work each day & I have my own. Neither of us want to give our laptops over for the sproggets to have free reign with them. We don’t force them to share their toys, nor do we force ourselves to share ours! The sprogs do watch some programs on ABC iView, either alone while I do some housework or study during the day (Playschool) or with us of an evening (Spicks & Specks or similar), but they certainly don’t have unlimited access to screens – mainly because we don’t have unlimited screens, & a little bit because we don’t see screen time as a need, like hunger or food, so it’s a little harder to self-regulate. We’re observing screen addiction in ourselves & not liking the affects so we’re not going to open that can of worms up for the sprogs just yet. Baby steps… food & sleep for now.

Unschool Monday inspired by Owlet.

Early this morning, right after drinking a breakfast smoothie we got out the craft box.

We started the day with paint. Distinct & separate blobs of colour on paper plates left over from a long ago party. The blobs didn’t stay separate for long, soon the plates were brown. Then bodies were a streaky, stripey, splotchy brown.

When the streaky, stripey, splotchy bodies appeared to have had enough of painting we packed away & had a warm shower.

Running around laughing, shrieking, whooping with delight as the clothes monster tried to dress the no longer streaky, stripey, or splotchy bodies.

Finally dressed.

Some more food. Food dictates the day, you know?

Some “reading” to each other.

Wrapping babies up in colourful play cloths.

A special lunch with Bean joining us at home because Mondays are Tafe days.

Some more baby wrapping after Bean left. Babies eventually abandoned on the bedroom floor.

Drawing with crayons & then textas over the top. Some writing demonstrations from me. Writing in colours I’m asked to use. Writing names, the alphabet in upper case, the alphabet in lower case, the names of the colours in the order they are naturally in a rainbow…

Some Playschool on iView while dishes were washed & vegetables cut for dinner.

Some stories read by me.

Bean came home.

The whole family went to the shop to buy some cous cous.

Dinner was ready when we returned.

We ate together.

The clothes monster chased the sproggets around a little more.

Ready for bed.

Asleep.

A lovely home day for sproggets who have the sniffles & coughs, and for a mother who is still a bit tired from the weekend’s gardening efforts.

Unschool Monday inspired by Owlet

Oh goodness I am SO PLEASED my children will not be subjected to exams until they’re old enough (& foolish enough?!) to decide to undertake formal education.

I have just sat an exam for one of the units I’m studying. My first exam in more than 6 years…

Oh the nervousness. The churning in my belly. The fluttering in my heart. The negative self talk rattling in my brain.

Admittedly, this unit is one of the harder units & it’s one that doesn’t make my heart sing like aromatherapy does, nor does it fuel the passionate fire in my belly that herbal medicine does. It’s just anatomy & physiology. It’s big words. It’s complex concepts. It’s something I find hard. It’s something my memory just doesn’t want to remember! Despite all this though, it’s a foundation unit. It’s concepts I need to grasp so I can better understand the aromatherapy that makes my heart sing & the herbal medicine that fuels the fire.

While I know I have to do this, to get what I want in the end, I am just so very, very pleased that my children won’t have to sit exams at any time during their childhoods. So, so pleased.

Unschool Monday inspired by Owlet

Sprout has suddenly become very interested in reading. She has asked Bean & I to teach her to read. We have told her that she will learn in time. She says she wants to know now. We tell her we understand she’d like to know now & that she’s getting closer & closer to being able to read every day. We’ve told her we trust she’ll learn to read because she wants to learn to read.

The alphabet blocks she’s had since her first birthday are now appealing again, and for different reasons than when she was one. She wants us to sing the alphabet song to her & she’s beginning to remember letter sequences from the alphabet.

She’s much more interested in her library books now also. She’s asking to borrow more books at a time & each evening she’s pushing for three, four and five stories a night instead of the usual one or two. She is also spending each evening “reading” herself to sleep. She pores over each of her library books, recalling the stories we’ve read from their pages & embellishing the stories a little with her own observations from the pictures.

When we’re out & about, she notices signs around her & wants to know what they say. She’s recognising particular letters & remembering signs.

Just last week, Bean’s Mum wrote Sprout’s name on a page & Sprout copied the letters & they were legible.

So, we do trust she’ll learn to read. We trust she’ll learn because the evidence is right there, in front of us. She is learning to read right now.

Unschool Monday inspired by Owlet