It's a Mystery

Okay, so sometimes blogging on a Monday can be more of the same old same old and as I don't have to put any effort into preparing for Mondays I wonder if there is any new learning going on?

I was asked today by someone very dear to me what we were doing at home with the boys? I'm never quite sure what answer people are expecting especially when they know us so well and know what we're up to most of the time but I took the idea, as I do most times I'm asked this sort of question, that they mean either, when do you sit down and teach your children? Or, What do you sit down and teach your children. And so I take the mandatory deep breath (deep breath for me) and began by explaining that 'we don't follow the traditional school route and therefore don't use a specific teaching programme or curriculum and don't timetable our day in the way that a school does.' Pause....to judge response...All seems well, person in question seems to have computed information without any technical hitches...I continue. 'We spend our days out and about or at home and learn from the world around us, the children have a large say in what we do and what they want to do which at the moment includes a lot of bike riding, playground visits, meeting friends and family, exploring places of interest, crafting, crafting, crafting and watching iplayer.' pause again... 'Oh' is the quiet response 'I don't know much about how it works.' Which is a very gracious response and one which I did not feel requested a response with more information about our lives at this point (as I said, it was someone that I do know well and see frequently so we can pick it up at a later date if they come back to me after processing this information)

So back to the original question, what have we learnt today? Clearly I don't know. Too much for me to observe, too much to write down, and too much that I haven't even noticed that my children are busy processing in their brains as they sleep. Maybe that's a cop-out but that is the way it is and as I haven't sat down with an educational game or worksheet for them to do I have little paper evidence of their development from one stage to the next but I do know that they are busy learning, all the time.