It's a while until September, but it feels ominously close. This is because I leave on Sunday for a two-week trip to Uganda and return just a couple of days before my husband goes back to school. Last week I was away helping to look after my mum as she recovers from surgery so this week I am trying to do all the little bits and bobs of admin, gardening, housework etc. All in all, it isn't making for a relaxed August!
My mind is like my bread-machine. The 'dough' of next year's 'curriculum' is rising, occasionally 'knocked-back' by some note-making or the search for a handwriting book. Last year I had a 'Grand Schedule' that I was happy with, I wrote my children start of year letters and we set to with gusto. This year, the plan feels stale, I know I won't be ready, either practically or mentally, on September 1st and I feel ragged and uninspired. I have tried getting the children to free-write about what they would like to do but it just seemed to produce answers I thought that they thought I wanted to hear! Once idea is a project on Shakespeare, incorporating making puppets to act out a play, probably 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. I don't know the first thing about how to make puppets and my stomach knots with anxiety, despite me knowing that this is something we can learn together - a central tenet of my Home Ed philosophy. I cannot quite let go of the need to be a little bit in control, one step ahead of the children. I want to be a loud and proud radical unschooler, if only because I know futility of coercion and the joy of self-motivated learning, but still I crave a time-table, targets and tick-boxes - it feels a little bit safer.
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