Friday, 20 November 2009

Spontaneous

I enjoying my new planner, but using it has thrown up a dilemma. The format has encouraged me to think about my "Weekly Priorities" and also to divide up our activities into the various subject areas. This has given me some focus and a sense of what areas we are not really touching on at the moment. It is also giving me a better record of what we have done, should I ever need to demonstrate to anyone that there is learning going on in our day.
What it has highlighted, although I guess I knew this if I'd stopped to think, is that we are not doing anything that would be classed as Science. We have done in the past and we will do again, but this term, nothing. So I found a game on the Internet to do with classifying living things and my daughter played it while I helped the boys with their bookclub work earlier this week. Is that rounding her education nicely, or papering over an imaginary crack, motivated only by the desire to fill in an empty box?
Today I have scheduled some work on our Shakespeare project and a poetry tea, but we have a game of Monopoly (technically Los Angeles in a Box, but you know what I mean!) which we didn't finish yesterday. We were due to go to choir but it was cancelled so we had a spare afternoon. I offered Poetry Tea out with the world's most delicious Brownies and this was greeted with polite nods. I suggested we could bake our own and play our new game, the response to this was loud cheers. So, today, should I let my planner keep me on track: after all, I did designate Shakespeare a priority? Or do I embrace the freedom of Home Ed and play the game until we're done (ssh, don't tell the inspectors)?
Of course, I could dress it up and call it 'Team Building', 'Personal and Social Education' or even 'Business Studies'. I could rub out what I have written (there's commitment - it only ever was pencilled in) and put "have fun", "be spontaneous" or "play games" in the appropriate box. Which are the true stars by which I am navigating and which are just lamps I have lit in the dark when it all feels a bit scary?

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