I wonder?

Sometimes I wonder, what have we done today? Some home educators use a curriculum or are semi-structured. Some are autonomous and some Unschool. These are all terms that are used when home educating. One of the beautiful things about home educating is having the freedom to choose the how and the where and the when of your educational journey. I guess that it's easier to keep track of what you've taught if you use a curriculum. I say "I guess" because we don't have one and I say "taught" as I don't think everything presented to anyone is always learnt. 

Sometimes it feels like we aren't doing much and I wonder, what have we learnt today? And then I blog. 

Today...

...Bean has played minecraft with me and joined a home ed charity fundraising minecraft server where we learnt about pvp and Bean worked out immediately how to improve his position and equip himself better (and although he still continued to lose he was in good spirits about it.) 
He ended the day with a game of monopoly with daddy and a story or two before bed.

...Pumpkin was up late for him especially as he had gone to sleep early yesterday evening too. He played the Lego Indiana Jones game on the pc with Bean and then put some fence panels on the balcony of my minecraft house for me. He spent the evening watching 'I can cook,' choosing a recipe, printing it off and ordering the ingredients we need to make it. Tomorrow's dinner looks like it will be baked bean soup.

...Plum was up early and suffered with grumpiness for the morning. I had thought that this was our lot for the day but about 1pm she took to watching Peppa Pig on my tablet in my bed. I remembered that she has been having some 'relaxed time' in the afternoons recently and was hopeful that this might help her mood. As it happened she went to sleep and woke up perfectly restored. And I remembered that this is just as important for me as all the other stuff that our children learn, that she has the freedom to sleep when she is tired, to recognise her own tiredness cues and to respond to them by going to sleep and waking when she is rested.
She also had the playdough out today, the doll's house, the dressing up, and dolly. Plum also helped me to pair up our mountainous pile of socks, which took four times longer than if i'd done it on my own but we did have lots of giggles together as we did it.
She has gone to bed wearing her "party dress" so she can look like the fairies that decorate her duvet cover.

We all played together on the wii and tried out the balance board together. There was a family game of IT and a copycat free-running game across the sofa. We played hide and seek, and a throwing and catching game with some of the cuddly toys. And we put together a mold growing experiment. Bean bought a science kit last week and has really enjoyed it and Pumpkin has been experimenting with various bathroom products recently (soap, shaving foam, toothpaste etc) so I found a book with household experiments in it and the boys chose this one, so now we have several slices of bread in strategic places around the house, deliberately growing mold. 

And I realise that our days are full of learning and full of fun and full of togetherness. And life is enough.