Unschool-ology

Unschool-ology
Unschooling: Living Without School; Living Free Range-Freedom to Learn What One Wants When One Wants

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Reconnected

Last Tuesday was amazing to say the least. Over the last year, Samantha and my relationship has been....on hold, I guess you could say. I found myself becoming increasingly irritable with Big S even after the girls left. I am really not sure why. I think I just needed rest. We took the rest of December off. And when I say "off," I mean we took a vacation. We celebrated holidays. We had no activities. We slept in even on the weekdays. And we spent a lot of time sitting around reading.

Our homeschooling also took a break over the last year. And I know, when you homeschool, you never stop learning, because life is learning, but our style of homeschooling took a back seat. We did stuff and learned. But the biggest element in our unschooling way of life-spontaneous trips-disappeared almost completely. It was hard to get up and go somewhere last minute so she could photograph something when we had to be home by 2:30. And to be honest, it was hard for me to get he motivation as well.

But this semester we are back on the horse. Tuesdays are going to be our craziest day. I would liken it to other homeschoolers' co-op day. I spend the morning cleaning the house and putting dinner in the crockpot. Then we eat lunch and head off to acting. It is 25 miles from the house. It is also a 4 hour class, so I found some stores and parks in the area that Little S and I can go to while she is in class. Then we head straight to Heritage Girls, 54 miles in the other direction, get home around 10 and crash.

I stayed for the first half of class because I had never met the teacher, and she was nervous, so she asked me to stay. They had so much fun. Generally, they will rehearse the first 2 hours of class. But this was their first class, so she had them "audition in groups" by doing improv together. She numbered their groups and gave them a topic to act out. They only had a few minutes to plan. She explained that chairs often serve as props when rehearsing and of course taught them the few "rules" of improv, like never telling your partners no.  Then she switched around the groups and they got a new topic to act out. She told them they did not have to have a speaking part during improv if they didn't want, and I thought Sam would run with that because she was so nervous. But she didn't! She spoke and she was funny. And she worked together with her groups. She bit her nails the entire time, but hey, it's a start. Her teacher asked who did not want a part (like who only wanted to work backstage), and what they wanted to do. She took every suggestion and said, "Yes!" She told them this was their play, and they would get to design the set and costumes, everything. She gave them the option to learn special effects makeup, because someone asked. She made everything a learning opportunity. I was thoroughly impressed. During the lesson, which is an hour and a half, then snack, social time and games for the last half hour, Sara started to get fussy. It was naptime, so I asked Sam if I could leave. She said yes, since she had 3 friends there-one was a new friend-she thought she would be okay.

When I came back, she was so excited to have something to tell me that I did not know. We talked all the way to Heritage Girls, and all the way back. We both agreed we felt reconnected. We didn't just talk about acting. Although hat was the bulk of it. We talked about her future, her relationship with God, her feelings toward the situation with the girls...It was nice.

We went home and immediately crashed. The next day Sam went to a friend's house, and it was all about Sara. Just her and me. Like when Big S was an only child. She had a PAT meeting at the house. We read some books together. We played outside for a long time. We explored, looked in the grass, found rocks, chased leaves, rode bikes. She took a nap. The house was quiet. I got some housework done and calls made. We went to the library where she sat on the floor and pretended to read...

I have missed the slow days with both my girls. From now on, Wednesdays will be Slow Days for Sara, because Tuesdays are rough on her. We always go to storytime in the morning and play outside. But we usually end up doing errands the rest of the afternoon.  From now on, I will do those on my own on Saturday night. Instead, we are going to go home and start adding in paints or something specifically for her. Sam will still have her independent work, but that day will be reserved for Sara, and I won't be helping Sam with any major projects until Thursday.

These are the kinds of days that remind me why we homeschool.

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