Experimenting with the boys | Educating myself

Today I'm linking up with a super sweet crafty Mama, Mel from Needle & Nest Design, for Monday Mamalogues...but its Tuesday!

Our kids have never been in a formal 8 - 2 school setting.
So we have two little boys that don't understand the concept of standing in line and they shout out answers at Catechism. Yep those are my kids!

Forest Walk | Year 2 of Homeschooling

We started our homeschooling journey when Joshy asked to read, he was 4, so by the time he was 5 he was reading beautifully. This is when the dictatorship started, actually military school started. I was just awful, all I wanted from this little boy was perfection, everything he did HAD to be perfect.
Eventually I looked at my 2 boys and saw that these were not kids anymore, they were little computers, spurting everything out that I had programmed in.
I had got this thing all wrong.

Year One

I prayed, and this may sound silly, but I asked God for forgiveness. I fasted and prayed for direction.

"Look well at the child on your knee. In whatever condition you find him, look with reverence. We can only love ad serve and be his friend. We cannot own him. He is not ours." - Susan Schaeffer Macaulay, For the Children's Sake.

For now we don't do a strict curriculum, and we don't have a time table, and we don't do 2 pages of math everyday.

Mistakes are welcome, it helps the Boys grow, it helps me grow.
My boys learn by me working on their strengths and their abilities.
We focus on "self development", just to better understand the bigger world we are part of.

Year 2 of Homeschooling

Just Being

We play, we eat, we make, we climb trees, go on adventure walks, we talk, we look up info on what we want to learn, we go to the Library, we help at a local Baby Shelter once a week, we plant gardens, and sometimes make a food pack for the lady that digs in our rubbish. The boys write letters to each other, well Lijie draws. They have more of a heart now for books than when we did formal learning.

I'm not sure if this will be the way we learn for all time, but I do know that they are learning and experiencing life.

It may sound like I am promoting Homeschooling or even Unschooling, but this is what works for my boys, for now. They have not been in school for me to dislike the schooling system, neither have they been bullied.

I also think that my boys have 2 parents that LOVE each other, LOVE them and LOVE God; and that is some good grounding for any form of schooling.

Painting without brushes | Year 4 Unschooling

Making their own Toys

Sewing

Sidewalk Math | Year 1 Homeschool

A bit of Both | Homeschool & Unschooling

Helping Dad | Unschooling

This is an awesome read...

Love & Light