One of the things I say about our life is as a family, we are adaptable, which is lucky as we seem to need to be everchanging. We settled into our educating routine for a little while which seemed to be somewhat working and then we went on holiday, had a week of sensory play whilst the children settled back into being at home and in those two weeks everything went to hell. The children couldn’t settle for anything, they were unable to get along, there were tears, meltdowns and really high anxiety. OK time for a stop and rethink.
It was the start of a new topic anyway, we were starting autumn (as the children wanted to wait for the equinox to start the topic) so the perfect time to shake things up a bit. As much as I would love to follow the unschooling method of education in its entirety, it does not work for our children as there is not enough structure for them so we are following a child led, life learning ethos (at least this week!). Speaking to the children they were desperately craving time at the table doing structured work.
So off I went to Twinkl to pull off worksheets (as fun based as I could make it, lots of puzzles). We start the morning relaxed with TV in pyjamas, something mostly educational, we then do the worksheets for 1-2 hours based on what the children want/need. After lunch we will either have an outing to a home ed group (we do this once a week at the moment so the children have some social interaction but it’s not overwhelming for them), the park, woods, library (with Lela, as this dysregulates the children so the children require 1-1) or a local soft play or I set up a craft activity or tuff tray. I am trying to arrange it so we are splitting the week 50/50, in and out. Usually in one day, out the next but we also need to go by the children’s needs. Sometimes they wake up and it is clear they need a physical outlet day so regardless of what we had planned we pack up and we are out the door for the day at the soft play. Other times they may need several days at home to recover from a previous activity.
It is difficult on the days when their needs do not match and I have one of each needing something different and only me at home. These are times you need to get imaginative, it’s hard but mostly doable especially with coffee and chocolate.
