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A Bouquet of Newly Sharpened Pencils

Up to this point in our homeschooling journey, we've done "unschooling" (that is an actual thing, feel free to Google). It's essentially a belief that small children do best with only gentle guidance and don't really benefit from being put in chairs and told to stay there for hours on end, but rather being encouraged to follow where curiosity leads. 

Somewhat to my chagrin, neither of the Bigs had shown much curiosity about reading, despite gentle prodding from me (I was an early and voracious reader and Do Not Understand the reticence). But over the summer they both started getting the hang of it, and Brooklyn agreed with me in discussion that while she appreciates how I've been letting her explore phonics (and therefore phonetic spelling - I think my favorite so far has been "kulring paij"/coloring page) it is now time to learn spelling and get a bit more organized about how we learn (although I'd definitely like to continue our commentary-on-existence and read alouds that we've engaged in so far).

We've got workbooks because I am a firm believer in the value of putting a literal pen to a literal page, nice little organizers for their supplies, and also tablets. Up to this point I've tried really hard to limit screen time (the pandemic put somewhat of a twist into that, but I still held firm with passingly educational PBSkids shows and only recently let Brooklyn have a few games on the iPod she mostly uses for music and photography). But I was a bit over my phone being used for that, and also there are a lot of great apps and sites that are both educational and fun. Tobin especially responds well to gamified learning.

Another issue the pandemic created was the phasing out of cash, which meant the phasing out of allowance. But I found an allowance app that comes with its own debit card (it's called Greenlight, for the curious), so the grown ups can assign chores and divvy out money and the kids can budget and save and spend (and invest, if you want to enable that feature). It seems to be a viable solution to the problem I was having. The Bigs have been very enthusiastic about checking off their chores (although my little collector still prefers having a jar full of clinking cash) and being able to buy things both online and in person. And I am definitely not above paying kids to do things they should do if it helps them form a beneficial habit.

So our current routine is breakfast together (they don't have alarms but breakfast time is after their normal wake time and they use the time before to get dressed and clean their rooms), then they have write on/wipe off books with handwriting practice to keep them occupied and at the table while I finish my own meal. Then we have what they call "activity pages," followed by learning apps. We all sit at the table together (it's a great opportunity for me to do my own reading/journaling) and it's a pleasant and productive way to spend a morning, which is honestly my goal.

I know that I work best in phases--I used August's energy to get things together and plan a little, and now I'm trying to harness the organized vibe of September to get us all in a rhythm before I go into hibernation for the winter. There's no use trying to force things that aren't ready--or people who aren't ready. I've been pleasantly surprised at how well both the Bigs have done so far this year, and I honestly think that's because we did wait until they were interested rather than forcing a societal standard onto them. Brooklyn actually sighed contentedly and said, "I love you, Mom--and I love school!" the other morning. Let's hope we can keep that energy moving forward!

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