Home School Holidays

Having a newborn baby while focusing on continuing a learning environment for older children has meant lots of household jobs have been put out of mind. Things like washing windows, painting gates and re-organising our storage room.

I thought that a 'holiday' would mean much less work for me and an ability to get more things done. 

What I have seen occur in our home is very little change. Except my focus or goal for a day has been to wash windows, paint the gate and re-organise the storage room. All have been done.

One lady commented to me that school holidays must be chaotic for me having 5 little kids. I had the opportunity to let her know that actually we homeschool so we don't have school holidays. 

This lady said oh so it'd be normal for you. 

She's so right. Normal for us. Routine or rather our families rhythm has remained in balance, meals, daily chores, daily play, self-directed learning. 

As many traditional homeschoolers break for holidays they are relieved for 'no school' 'no planning' 'no work' and chill out. They seem to be burnt out, run down and exhausted. Needing some sort of time to recover. So do their kids. 

In our families path of eclectic home schooling methods I have found the opposite true. I have found our approach to be invigorating, free and fun. Whilst has its challenges is mostly fun for all of us. 

Being a facilitator of learning in the majority of learning areas, placing before children a topic I believe they may be interested in before them, sharing interests or answering a naturally curious child's question with research means for us that learning is natural and freeing bringing family members relationships closer together on a daily basis.

We don't naturally store information (in our brain) in a set program or chronological order. We draw information out of our memory bank as required, so we do not generally 'learn' in chronological order such as reading through the bible from Genesis to Revelation or doing History from the begining of Creation to now. No, our school has a much different rhythym to it, one that relates to our everyday life in a way that is more meaningful than simple facts. 

Truthfully, I am a natural teacher. Not formally trained I tend to sit the family down and give a lesson throughout the day which you can not plan for with pen, paper and schedule. Allowing children the freedom to answer the questions themselves, giving them opportunity to think and respond with words, allowing children of differing age levels to learn by listening to one another. After all that is how they learnt to count.. 

Homeschooling holidays has been an eye-opening experience for me. Shown me how integrated our learning days is simply our pure life. 

5 things I am thankful for:

1. Freedom of life

2. Freedom in life

3. Family relationship bonding. Daily

4. Children naturally choosing educational activities in their everyday life

5. Making the time for larger projects