Beginning to explore education options more deeply

Lily is turning four in a couple of weeks.

Last month she started teaching herself to write words. She has been writing her name for a while now - and occasionally a couple of other words like Mama, Papa, Nana, Grandpa and Grandma.

But last month she made the connection that all "things" have "words" and all words have "letters".

And that if she wants to write about something she can find the word (in a book, on a sign, on a toy) or ask someone what the letters are and then she can write the letters that make the word, that represent the "thing" that she wants to write about.

And she is THRILLED with this discovery.

She has a new mode of expression and she is having SO much fun with it -- labeling her pictures, making cards, writing letters and addressing envelopes, drawing on our chalkboard...

And when I witnessed the amazing process by which this learning took place -- in our car, at our dining room table (which is actually in our living room because the former "dinette" next to the kitchen is now a play area), at her nursery school, at my parents' house, at the grocery store and just about anywhere else we went in the last several weeks -- it made me realize that learning can and does happen EVERYWHERE!

Which made me feel really excited about the idea of unschooling our kids.

And so I spent the next several weeks moving/dreaming in an unschooling direction...gathering items off Craig's List and Freecycle, like old (but working) digital cameras for my budding photographers and aquarium tanks for our growing critter collection, and checking books out of the library on insects and gardening...and feeling really in the flow of life while I was doing.

And then I crashed.

I had a couple of events that I was hosting -- a blessingway for a friend's new homebirth midwifery practice (the first in our state in 100+ years) and a potluck picnic for our friends and family -- and a writing assignment that made my heart sing and suddenly my needs and the kids needs seemed really at odds.

And we all started fighting a lot. And I tried to push through with my stuff (because I was really, really excited about the events and the writing project and not having time/space to do them felt really frustrating).

And things got more and more tense.

And then I thought, "There is NO WAY I can homeschool (or unschool or roadschool or any of the other cool things I've been reading about) because I will go totally INSANE!!!"

I need some regular blocks of time away from my kids (or anyone else who wants anything from me) to create and dream and write and do whatever it is I most want to do. I do not enjoy ALWAYS having them with me and ALWAYS having to take their needs into consideration.

And then I started moving/dreaming in the direction of them going to school -- a charter school or a Montessori school or a Waldorf school (yes! I realize the philosophies are VERY different and some would even say opposite) or an Enki school or some other awesome school that I don't even know about yet!

And then Thursday (Lily has preschool, Quinn has daycare and I get to write, or garden, or both!) and the energy in our house was SO peaceful. And we parted ways joyfully in the morning and reconnected joyfully at noon and life felt REALLY groovy and fun! And I thought, Yes! School really is GOOD for our family.

And I talked to my friends whose kids go to school and they told me all the things that they love about it. And all the things they love about what they do while their kids are in school.

And I continued to think, Yes! School is REALLY good for our family.

And then my friend who is finishing up a year of homeschooling her kindergarten-aged daughter and exploring options for going to school for first grade said that her big concern is how much time kids are away from home.

When would we do all of the fun things that we love to do with our kids?

(In our house it's reading books and having our morning sharing circle where we speak our intentions for the day and do yoga and sing songs, writing in our journals, working in the garden, going on nature walks, and collecting eggs and visiting with our chickens, and having a weekly "adventure day" where we do something different/fun, and cooking, and baking, and listening to my daughter act out plays with her wooden animals while I cook dinner.)

When would we do those things if they got on a bus at 7:30 or 8 o'clock and got home at 3:30 or 4 o'clock, five days a week??

So now I'm starting to feel myself dream/move in the direction of a cottage school that meets two-three days per week...where we get some of the many benefits of a school community, and I get a regular chunk of time for my work, but we are not committed to a five-full-day school week schedule.

To be continued....