What Next?

I will admit it: I am stuck. I don’t know what to write about. I created my blog to tell you some stories about our journey to unschooling, and all about Suzie Andres’ books and I feel I have done that. I really enjoyed writing those stories too! And having Suzie visit and everyone comment and share… But now I am sitting here thinking, “What next?”

Could this be the blog with the shortest history in all the blogosphere?

I think, “I could tell you about our day, our unschooling day. But is that really of interest to other families?” Just in case, you have hopped over in search of an answer to the question, “What do unschoolers do all day?” I will round up our day for you. Maybe this will give me time to think of something more important and of greater interest.

Here goes:

We started our day with morning prayers at 8 am. I like gathering together as a family before we all go our separate ways. It gives us, not only a chance to pray together and read the Bible, but also an opportunity to talk over everyone’s plans for the coming day: who’s going where and when, who needs a lift where and when, who’s home for dinner…  And to find answers to important questions like “What shall we have for dinner tonight?”

It‘s so cold here today. After prayers, the girls and I headed for the family room and the gas heater and some maths. Now I know some unschoolers don’t do formal maths, but we are all maths lovers. We actually enjoy the challenge of working out the problems. I’m that kind of person (and maybe my girls are too). You know… the kind of person who gets a thrill from getting a correct answer. I love the black and white nature of maths and I’m fascinated by how the right answer can usually be obtained by multiple methods. But I digress… The girls use interesting online courses which they can handle with little input from me. So I am fairly free to switch on my Kindle and enjoy.

After maths, Sophie wrote some emails and had a think about spelling. She said, “I don’t think I need to know how to spell the word ‘thong’? It’s a word I’m never going to use. I hate thongs. I can’t walk in them.”

This started a discussion on thongs and I told a story of my younger days. My grandmother gave me a pair of Indian leather thongs and I very foolishly took them with me on a university field trip to Spain. One sunny morning, I decided the thongs would be the ideal footway for the beautiful weather.  A few hours later, I’d changed my mind.  I was totally fed up with trying to keep the thongs on my feet while walking along as if I didn’t have a care in the world. I really could have thrust the thongs in the nearest garbage bin and walked barefoot.

So we decided that the big question was: Why can some people walk in thongs but we can’t? Are Elvis feet different from everyone else’s? Not having any other people around to do some experiments on, we moved on to reading.

The girls love listening while I read. They snuggle up under blankets, together with the cats and enjoy. At the moment we are reading  Ballet Shoes and Ramona the Pest (they saw the movie recently) and a historical fiction book about the Eureka Stockade.

Morning tea time, check-our-emails-time, time for a bit of blogging.

Imogen said, “Now you’re an ex-ex blogger, Mum (I’d been considering deleting all my blogs, but my mind was changed) you need to write a blog post. We want to write posts as well.” So for the next hour and a half, we typed away, each at our own computers. Cameras were sought out, photos downloaded and compressed and added to blog posts. Then everyone sat back for a short restful and satisfied moment, before returning to their computers to check out each other’s blog stories. Lots of compliments and a few tactful suggestions later, I suddenly noticed it was lunch time.

We prepared sandwiches to the accompaniment of all the funny bits out of the movie Singin’ in the Rain (which we watched together on Monday evening). “Do you want cheese?” “No. No. No.” “Or would you rather have peanut butter?” “Yes. Yes. Yes.” And then some amusing tongue twister thing about noses and roses. It’s amazing how easily the kids pick up and remember things from movies.

After a quick lunch and clean up, we gathered our library books and headed into town. Imogen had a two-hour house cleaning job and while she was busy, I took the other girls to a library two towns away that we rarely visit. A whole library of fresh books: we were in paradise. We staggered back to the van with twenty books each and then it was time for the afternoon tea we’d packed in our basket. We discovered a playground where I could park the van alongside the equipment. This allowed the sensible soft people (Charlotte and I) to stay in the van and read our newly borrowed library books while the tougher ones (Sophie and Gemma-Rose) ventured out into the wind to play on the swings and get some exercise. We collected Imogen (who had newly earned money to add to her growing buy-my-own-car fund) and headed home.

Walking through the door, we were greeted by the delicious smell of red wine and beef casserole which I omitted to say, the older girls prepared first thing this morning. Imogen and Charlotte cooked the polenta and vegetables in between practising the piano and completing musicianship exercises. The rest of us did a quick tidy up. Andy arrived home from school and the whole family gathered around the table for dinner.

This evening everyone has dispersed. I am writing. Andy is preparing lessons for his class for tomorrow. Some of the girls are reading and some are drawing. And what the boys are doing is anyone’s guess. No sensible person would want to enter the boys’ bedroom.

And that is our day. I omitted all the less impressive things like how the ironing is still not done and how I still haven’t sorted out some household paperwork or organised dental appointments or haircuts…

Now I have described a typical day, what next? It didn’t work: I still haven’t had a brilliant blogging idea.

I guess I could always tell you more about Suzie’s books. I haven’t even mentioned the second one, A Little Way of Homeschooling. Yes, you must hear about that. It could change your homeschooling life. I will think and maybe next time….

Update:“Now I know some unschoolers don’t do formal maths, but we are all maths lovers.”??? I think I was deceiving myself. You’ll already know this if you’ve read some of my later posts on maths!