Day One (Giving Up School - A Lenten Adventure)

Day one! Wow!! I have learned so much....

I kept my notebook just kind of around all day and I made mental notes of what the kids and I were doing... I found out a few things.

1) I payed SO MUCH more attention to them today. And I feel like they could tell as well because by the end of the day they were arguing about who's turn it was to be with me. <3 Which makes me feel both sad and glad at the same time. Sad because they must have been starving for more of my attention than I was giving them... and I suppose I felt like I was already giving them a lot. But this also made me glad though because I can feel that things are about to change for the better in our home!

2) THEY LEARN SO MUCH without my "interference" at all!! I tried really hard today to just butt out! I didn't break out the workbooks or the curriculum. I let my idea of their day go and just let them have it. And they took it with a force! Suggestion after suggestion and topic after topic naturally flowed out of them! And because I was paying attention I could help facilitate what they were needing. This all happened naturally through conversations and day to day life!

3) I am a control freak.... Like I said above, today I was trying really hard to just butt out so it was OBVIOUS to me when moments happened where I would normally try to... how can I put this? Moments when I would normally try to control my kids! HA! There's not better way to put it! For example: My older son wanted to hand sew a little guy today from the math book that he loves and I totally took over the making of his guy's mouth. Man... I feel bad about that! He made a mouth and I got critical of it. I watched his face sink... I watched his confidence shift... I was paying attention to the whole thing... and my heart hurt a little bit because I felt like I had taken something from him... I had taken his ideas... and I replaced them with mine.

Is this really how I have been parenting/homeschooling my kids?

Ouch!

So yea... lessons learned today for sure!! And on to tomorrow we go!! I ended up getting 3 whole pages of notes today of their learning! Here's some highlights!



My son loves these books!
I don't know why because when I read them out loud they are really confusing to me! Lol! But he loves them! We get them from the library because they are way to expensive IMO to ever buy.
My son likes to sew so today he made this guy! ;) He's Subtraction from the book set above! I helped a bit by holding tools and fixing bumps in the road but just like all of his hand sewn little guys... This was all his design! :) 





My little son Jason has been teaching himself to read for weeks now! It's a neat thing to watch! I have never forced reading on him but he has eagerly asked me to teach him. He looks over his older brother's should when he's reading aloud. And he taught himself this to read book! He read it out loud today 3 times! :) It's eye opening for me because my older one has been through a multitude of phonics/reading programs with me and has been THE MOST reluctant reader I know... meanwhile my younger son has just taught himself to read because he wanted to... crazy! 

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