Unschool Monday - downtime or what's the hurry?

I'm learning (and relearning) the importance of time. Time to stop, time to just be. Time to take two hours to walk to the park (20 minutes at adult pace) in the Winter sunshine if that's what we need.
Today is Unschool Monday over at Owlet and we are having a "Home Day" to recuperate from a busy weekend. What are you doing?

Unschool Monday - screentime

No, not a self-righteous post full of impassioned arguements for or against. Just a description of our day. M's day at least involved a lot of it. A lot. She grabbed the iPad and started playing her new Magic School Bus app before even getting out of bed. Actually most of the day was spent with that app. It would possibly be an understatement to say she loves it. She also tinkered around with a few other apps - mostly phonics/spelling type ones and currently she is on a youtube enabled Magic School Bus marathon. I think we're on maybe the fifth one for the day. I politely suggested this might be the last one since (appropriately) she is booked in for a CSIRO run chemistry workshop at the local homeschool co-op tomorrow morning.
Joining in with owlet

Unschool Monday - Sibling connection

 Had M started school this year, this would most likely have been her second week of school. This morning at an activity we witnessed a very very sad little girl. Not a meltingdown or a tantruming little girl, but one who is just very sad at heart. Too sad to play with some of best friends. M has two very dear friends, siblings who are quite close in age and very close emotionally. Today this little girl's brother started school. Today and from now on she will not see him between the hours of 9 and 3 on weekdays.

Today the brother and sister who live here took a nap

and a walk

Another Monday Rolls By - Unschool Monday

Was it me or was that week ridiculously quick?
We are all enjoying having P work from home for those crazy days between the big Christian celebration and the big calendar celebration. There was some mention of camping but nightly downpours and (lovely) misty days have done away with that idea.
Peter Pan was the order of the day today, precisely Return to Neverland. Can't say I'm all that comfortable with all the questions the air raid sirens are bringing up but I guess that all counts as deschooling for me. Well, it's not entirely accurate to say Peter Pan, rather when one has memorised all three of the existing Tinkerbell movies and listened to Peter Pan read aloud one needs to search further afield to get one's Tinkerbell hit. Which leads me to the fact that we now own not one but two Silvermist dolls(and if you don't know who that is you haven't watched enough Tinkerbell) as well as Iridessa and Rosetta. So much for no barbies! At least they have a reason for having such ridiculous feet since they don't actually need to walk.
What else today? Well, lots of cubby houses, painting. I love love love that a gift of a sideboard plus taking the legs off the craft cupboard has meant that all the art stuff is accessible. I want to do some painting has become I'm going to do some painting. Piano for both littles (I guess it's a sign of a younger sibling when one of their early phrases is "fist first me!") and violin for child the larger. Actually she played a concert for a knitted mermaid doll (we do have some non Disney Fairy toys, phew) who enjoyed it very much.
Lunch was in Kat while scrambling to shop at the co-op before it shut early. We read a second grade science textbook in the car on the way there and at the table while waiting for our food. It occurred to me that it may not look particularly like natural learning to be reading a science textbook while waiting for our food in a cafe but I suppose most parents know you just do whatever works.
Oh, I almost forgot that child the larger wanted to read a book for her library Summer Reading Challenge thingo so I pulled out an easy one she has read before but hasn't counted towards this round of the challenge, no dice. "I've already read that one!". She grabbed a much harder one and struggled through it with all the stubbornness of a childhood me and the single-minded drive of her father. Wow. No amount of "let's finish it tomorrow" or "shall we read a page each?" made a difference. No, she read Every. Single. Word.

Unschool Monday

Joining in with Owlet et al. Today Child the Larger:

• Sketches planning, more sketches and more planning for the movie M woke up on Saturday morning wanting to make.
• All of the mazes from the local Library's "school holiday entertainment pack". Wow, I'm impressed with her maze solving ability.
• Used water colour pencils to paint colouring pages from same (note to self - water colour pencils would make a good present).
• Painted a diorama of mountains against blue sky (acrylic paint this time)
• 4 pages of Miquon Maths Orange Book.
• Carried around the broody chicken, pushed her in the wheelbarrow and swung with her on the swing seat (chicken didn't like swinging very much).
• Watched segments of the latest Tinkerbell movie seeking inspiration for her own endeavour.
• Watched all of The Princess and the Goblin (I love the flute in the soundtrack)
• Quizzed her brother endlessly about all his new words (many many many)
• Listened to an audio book
• Op shopped
• Walked in the cold cold wind and
• Asked a million challenging and insightful questions

Child the smaller:

• Answered correctly every word his sister quizzed him about (since she had just modeled it for him when asking)
• Made quite a few deliberate jokes
• Was adorably cute despite the fact that he
• Insisted on the millionth read-aloud repetition of "Sparkle Fun Christmas Shapes" in that way only toddlers can
• Delighted me with his little pre-sentences such as "Mama. Apple. Up. Cut." ... "Shankyyooo."

And much much more between them of course.