Our School is Growing...

Ok so to be clear the number of students in the school is NOT growing. Only our ideas and goals are growing. Now that we have made that clarification I would like to share a few tidbits of where our thinking has changed and my hopes for our school next year.

When we first started I wanted everything laid out day by day, I wanted to not think about it on HOW I would teach it because I had no idea HOW to teach it in the first place. Anyway I am noticing I am feeling more and more confident and not feeling like everything has to be canned (basically tells you what to say to your child to teach them) to more of a relationship of learning. I want to snuggle on the couch and read a good book together and then have that lead to some questions and ideas of how we could learn more (even if I had to prompt those questions) and then that hopefully will lead to teaching the kids the skill of being able to learn for themselves later in life. If they wonder something I don't want them to ignore that I want them to know where to find the answers and to feed the desire to know more.

In the past I think our school has been hard on me with burn out happening often because I am a fairly creative person but the thought of the books and restrictions and the boredom would get to be too much sometimes. The only thing that sometimes was able to pull me thru was the fear of failing completely or the excitement of summer being around the corner and getting to do more creative learning.

I have since run accross information for two types of schooling that I want to learn more about. The first was Charlotte Mason and the second style is a classical education. I am excited to learn more about these two types of learning and how I can use them in our school. I have already decided to work slowly towards it, I want to implement several of the things this year, however where the workbooks work well for us (Math) I want to keep those in place. I am VERY excited about adding in more literature and classic books to the kids' learning plans. There is so much I have yet to learn and so much more I need to know before I think I can take the time to get it right. I think the point is to start somewhere and enjoy the process of the growth that happens.

The past few weeks I have been making a point of snuggling in and reading from a good book. The kids so enjoy this, I mean sure they are kids and they squirm and make noises and it drives me crazy some days but what I notice is that they love just having my attention be on them....doing something for just them! It is amazing how when I just sit with which ever of the kids I am working with and give them my full attention and not trying to check emails while they work or thinking about those dirty dishes or just feeling overall distracted that they respond so much better to me and their studies when I just sit and be with them. Now of course they have to be able to work independantly and they do but there are a lot of times where they are just struggling and I want to be able to line them out in something and go about my day. They were frustrated and I was frustrated when I'd get back and nothing was done. I keep thinking I need to be productive but they need me to be still sometimes. I have some learning to do, here I thought that I was teaching the kids, right?

I am really excited to share what I am learning as we go. Hang in there, when I am in planning stages, the plans are bound to change at least 4-5 times. Hee Hee