Journal

a small peep through our window for a day ….

A Day in the life.

I remember, when I first started looking for other people who have done this already, chosen this unschooling or homeschooling lifestyle. i was looking for guidance, or for them to tell me everything was going to be ok. I came across an ‘unschooling’ blog @sara_happiness.is.here , She had on her blog “a day in the life” and it really made an impact on me. It was just an ordinary day, and it was one of the things that made me believe that this IS the life I want for my children and that I could do this. It took some more of the fear out of making the leap of faith into this very new and different path for us. Because at the time what I thought homeschooling was, seemed like pressure, like i had to perform, or basically i imagining school at home. Now i can see what it really is.

I hope this helps you if you’re feeling overwhelmed with the unknown road ahead.

So here is my version, a simple ordinary day , we have taken almost four years now at home to set up our lives to suit us, we have spent lots of time DE-SCHOOLING, and we are now at a stage where we are all very settled and happy in our rhythm and learning for life.

So here it is A DAY IN THE LIFE .

It is an ordinary day, a Wednesday in October, the weather is unusually cool for this time of year, I wake up at 530am to the sun peeking in my bedroom window as I do every morning. I look over to see my daughter, my husband and my youngest son lying next to me, somehow I slept all night in a bed full of bodies. I get up greet my puppies at the back door and go for my morning walk, it is very cool and crisp, the full moon is still up, the sun is rising , its beautiful,. and peaceful .

After 11 years of being too tired to wake up early before everyone else, after breastfeeding and co sleeping, being awake more than asleep most nights, I am really soaking in this new little chapter of my life and loving having some sleep again at night and some time for myself again in the mornings .

Once I get home everyone is awake and greets me as I come inside, my husband makes me a cup of tea and we sit in the lounge room drink and chat for a while, kids are playing with marbles. Until they get hungry and I realise I have an appointment to get to at 9am. Oops.

Ivy and Vince (the little ones 6 & 3), have a tea party at the kitchen bench while I make breakfast and pack lunches for the morning. Brax asks to fold the washing for some money to go towards his motorbike he wants to buy himself. (He is 11)

After breakfast the kids do their morning routine, tidy up their place at breakfast, do their morning jobs,( Ivy unstacks the dishwasher and feeds her kitty, Brax takes out the bins and feeds the dogs.) They brush teeth, brush hair, wash face and get themselves dressed for the day. I help Vince.

Suddenly it's almost time for me to leave and I quickly have a shower , I can hear Brax helping Ivy and showing her how to count her money from her piggy bank.

I quickly get dressed pack kids hats, lunches spare clothes, water bottles into the car. My husband is dropping the older two off to a craft workshop they do every Wednesday morning where they go to a farm and do craft, they have lots of baby animals, and some of their unschool friends go with them , they absolutely love going. While they are there he takes Vince with him to do a rubbish (dump) run.

I go off to my Physio appointment. After, I go to Kmart quickly grab some sushi for lunch (I forgot to have breakfast )

Home, Around 1130 by now, I drop Brax off at his casual job , he packs bait for a local seafood wholesaler. He wants to make enough money to buy himself a new motorbike as he has outgrown his, so this opportunity came just in time and he is very very excited and eager to go. I go back home again and make the little ones lunch, leftovers from last nights dinner.

Vince is tired so I try to put him to sleep, this is getting very hard now days with no more breastfeeding him to sleep , he has very recently almost weaned himself so there’s not much milk left. We read books and then he gets up to play with Ivy, I decide to stay and have a little lie down, I can hear Ivy and Vince playing with magnetic blocks in the lounge room, they play for a long time, then Vince goes with his dad on the fork lift and it puts him to sleep, my husband brings him back in and he stays asleep. now next to me in bed.

Now with Vince asleep next to me Ivy comes in and wants me to draw dots for her to write something in a journal I gave her, she tells me the words and I write them down in dot form for her to copy over top of, We haven’t taught Ivy how to read and write yet, we are going to wait until she wants to. We dabble in a program called Pinwheels by Rooted in language, but only when she wants to. we read a lot out loud to her and we do lots of this type of writing called copywork.

She writes a beautiful poem I know that she will read and write beautifully one day, and I'm so so glad I am letting her decide when she wants to , there is so much time right now needed for her to play . And she gets to dabble and play with language arts in her own time…

Here is Ivy’s poem;

It’s Spring,

It’s Spring,

The flowers are blooming,

The magpies are swooping,

Summer is starting,

Theres going to be mangoes soon.

It might be me being bias but I think this is the cutest thing ever written. Ever. and i know she cant read or write yet, but she is still learning to express herself through written words.

Ivy and I leave Vince asleep and we go out to the kitchen we do a quick house reset, and make a cup of tea read books and chat, Ivy ends up wanting to make a caterpillar out of fruit and so she does that.

Then we end up reading some more books and chatting about eyes and how they are made and what the parts are called. we find a human anatomy book and read more about eyes. We decide to go out and jump on the trampoline together, then it's time to go to swimming lessons, my husband is out picking up Brax.

I make another lunch box up, get togs, towels, goggles, spare clothes together, I wake Vince up and they eat the fruit caterpillar before we leave.

We stop off at the local grocer on our way home and grab some things for dinner I forgot to get with the shopping, I run into my beautiful little sister and say a quick hello .

Home again, Brax (11) and my husband are home, they have been out running errands together for the afternoon,

I make dinner, Murray and Vince ( 3 ) go and get some firewood for a fire.

Ivy (6) helps me prepare dinner and Brax chats with me about his day at the kitchen bench.

Then we all head outside together, the sun is just going down, kids jump on the trampoline, go roller blading and riding bikes. Making up games for hours.

We have dinner, and sit out by the fire under the stars, chatting about things and listening to music until 8:30.

Everyone goes back inside showers, brush teeth and bed, We play musical beds in our house, , tonight the two little ones want to sleep with Daddy, Brax says goodnight and off he goes to bed, excited about his day tomorrow going back to work. we don’t have a set bedtime, we have tried so many times but we find it utterly exhausting , we prefer if the kids let us know when they are tired then put them to sleep.

I am not worried that we didn’t do any structured learning, we don’t do that, learning happens naturally and organically, I don’t need tests or reports to tell me if my children are learning or if they are at a standard, we are free from that. They can learn what they need to when they need to.

Life is learning and always will be for them.

I hope this day in the life touches your heart, I hope you know that homeschooling is beautiful and fun and full of connection, play and rest. And just being able to do as you want to, not how you may think you have to do things.

We get to determine how our days go , our children get to learn as they naturally want to.

Some days we go on big outdoor adventures. Some days are full and busy , some are slow and quiet. Some days we go out socialising, sometimes we stay at home, some days we do lots of craft, some we read and play. I think so much of the beauty of home education in the huge variety we can have in our days together.

But in a whole , most days at home with them are wonderful, I plan on making these few short years I have with them count, I want us to have strong bonds and strong connections with one another, I don’t care if we haven’t done a test for a project / activity or my 6 year old not reading yet., I want my children to have incredible memories of their childhood. I want them to learn for life. I want them to never have to perform, or conform, to anything or anyone.

There is much more to gain from staying at home, academics is not one of those things, we stay home for the whole child. Their well-being. To keep them as close to THEMSELVES as we can.

Thank you for reading this little journal, it means the absolute world to me having you here xx

Loretta

One of the most common questions I am asked is why I decided to homeschool my three children, so here it is…..

I had my oldest son at a young age, I was 20. I hadn’t had much time to work out what my values were , what I did and did not believe in. So my first baby was raised completely different to my younger two, who came 5 and 8 years after my first.

When my oldest was around two or three years old running around with his friend, naked in my friends backyard , I can remember sitting in a chair watching him and this sudden realisation or thought came to me. I don’t want to send him to school. I want him to stay with me. These thoughts were very quickly over taken by, ‘you can’t do that”, “no one you know does that.” And so in a few short years I was following what was ‘done’ and I, almost as if on auto pilot enrolled him into the public school in our home town.

My gosh I was excited for my bright, beautiful boy to start school. He was so smart. He was so beautiful , he was so excited curious and bright eyed. I made sure that I was heavily involved in the class room, I made sure that I kept communication open with his teacher. It was a huge thing for me to send him away , we had spent five years together, just him and I.

As the school year went on I started noticing something wasn’t right. He would get into the car at the end of the day and yell at me. Scream at me, cry. For no particular reason. Now I asked for advise and was told by lots of mums that yes that is normal. He is adjusting to sitting still all day, not speaking unless he is allowed, playing only at scheduled times, and not having me his mum, his safe place to land, to express any big emotions that may have come up during the day. I just didn’t think that this was normal, or acceptable, but we tried to make it work. that little voice in my head whispering, something isn’t right.

His teacher was starting to complain about his behaviour , this became a regular thing. I knew he was a ball of energy, he was a five year old boy, I just didn’t realise how little play and how much sit down and be quiet and learn he would have to endure.

The years went on and I made sure that I was really close with his teachers, I tried everything to allow him some space to unwind at the end of the school day and on weekends. I tried everything to make this work for him.

Three years into schooling, I thought to myself , he’s eight now, surely things will get better. Then the headaches started, we tried to find out what was the cause of these daily headaches but no answers. The anger was getting worse, he started to not want to go to school because he had assessments that day or just because. I tried to speak to his teacher and she assured me that there was nothing she could see that was wrong, he was perfect in class, she did notice that he didn’t eat his lunch.

This wasn’t adding up, I had the feeling she was hiding something from me. All of his teachers in fact. I felt this dishonesty in our conversations that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I could see the light in my little boys eyes fading. That spark he had. He was becoming angry, headachy, depressed. At 8…..8 years old. I did not want this to be his reality. Or mine.

I told myself that I would see out this year. But there was this tug at my heart, that whisper was getting louder. Maybe my intuition . I had to Bring him home. Why?,,, I didn’t exactly know. How?,,, I wasn’t sure.

The weeks to follow I spent hours each night researching homeschooling, the how’s, why’s, and found nothing. All I found was how to register for homeschooling with the government department .

I wanted someone to let me know that I could do this. I was looking for a role model I guess. Someone who was going to tell me that everything would be ok.

I was full of questions , I was imagining homeschooling and I was not imagining that I could pull it off. I was not great at school, how could I homeschool my children and give them the absolute best that they deserved.

What if I fail them ? What if it doesn’t work out? What will people think? Will I ever have any time to myself? How will I manage everything? The questions and doubts were endless. And still… that little voice kept saying, you need to get him home before it’s too late. Before the light goes out. Before he believes that he is not smart, a good person, before he learns he was wrong for being ‘himself.’

After weeks of debating what to do, talking to my husband, hours at night researching desperate to find out if I could or should do this. Knowing I wanted to but was so scared, not sure if i could.

And then fate set in.

The world went into lockdown. Everyone had their children at home. I knew, this was It . I have to do it now, or maybe I would never have the courage to make such a huge change.

I told myself that yes this may not work out. But I can’t make a decision for tomorrow’s ‘what if’. I have to live for today, what feels right now and trust in myself.

Looking back all of those fears I had, they were my brains way of keeping me safe. My egos way of keeping my identity intact.

I can’t believe really that I managed to silence those fears and do the thing that was in my heart, not knowing how it would end, but knowing that it felt right.

Now I have been home with my three children for three years. I have found a community of people that do what we do, I have found my way as a homeschooler, I have pivoted and learnt so much over time and am now unschooling. My children are so happy and free and I know that this was the right thing. In fact, I truely believe that there isn’t really such thing as right or wrong.

There is only left, or right.

The new path is different and it is scary. We feel vulnerable. We feel like something bad might happen once we turn the corner . I realised that life isn’t so linear and structured as what our brains tend to think it is. It isn’t black and white .Its so big and vast and freeing if only we can take that first step into what feels like the right thing at the time, we will always be guided and safe no matter what we choose.

Now we are settled into life at home, we are so blessed to be building such strong bonds and going on adventures everyday. We did go through some growing pains in the beginning, we had to re define the meaning of homeschooling and find our own way. my son had some trauma to work through from his years at school.

I was thinking we would do the planned curriculum that I paid for, and then have free time. I thought I had to teach my children. I thought I needed to recreate school at home. We didn’t. and I would love to tell you more about how we went through the ‘un ‘ schooling process. About the progress my children have made, about our beautiful lifestyle, relationship with each other and so much more . I will save those for another time .

The spark is back in his eyes, he’s that energetic, curious, happy person that I knew he was, he’s now 11 and he does not want to go to high school. He is happy with his social life. He gets to pursue his interests , and be as creative or as bouncy as he needs to be. Basically he is able to be a child. He is surrounded by people who love and believe in him, the good and challenging parts of him , and I think that is so important. to be accepted for all of who you are and loved unconditionally.

I have not one regret. Only maybe that I didn’t listen to that voice that told me to keep him home from the beginning, or follow the crowd like I did. Then again, maybe this was perfect and as it was and meant to be this way.

If you are like I was, deciding what to do I would say to make your decision based on what feels right now. and life has a way of opening up and making room for all things that matter to us.

There is no way we can begin to guess what lies ahead, you would never be able to guess the ways that everything works out

The way you secretly want life to be like is really, truly possible. All we have to do is take the next right step. and trust.