It's PBS Day!

Yesterday Zoe told me she wants to be a veterinarian, because she wants to rescue and take care of animals. Today she asked to watch Nature and Nova, and made a list of the ones she wants to watch. They include, but are not limited to: "Moment of Impact: Jungle," "Kings of Camouflage" (about cuttlefish), one about spiders, hummingbirds, and Stonehenge. She loves to watch the parts where the scientists are testing things to find out more about the animals. And she's interested in the Stonehenge program because of a Celtic store we happened to walk past in Bethlehem, PA that had framed their door with an "arch." 

She also told me that a physicist is a scientist that studies the universe. When I asked where she heard this? Animaniacs. Beautiful.

She asked if she could read to me last night. She read some of Fox in Socks to me. Then she was tired and wanted me to read the rest. Lately, she's been asking me to point at the words as I'm reading them. She also requests subtitles sometimes when we're watching movies. And sometimes she doesn't want to follow along in the book or with the movie. She just wants to sit and enjoy the story. 

I don't push her anymore. I used to, and I see some performance anxiety left over from that. If she feels like she's struggling, sometimes she stops or doesn't want help. I'm hoping that as I learn to be less judgmental, she'll feel less pressure to be perfect and will understand that it's ok to make mistakes. That's something I never learned as a child, so I was always afraid to try things that I wasn't SURE I could do well. How sad. I think of all the opportunities I missed because of my fear of failure and of the unknown. I don't want Zoe to go through that.

Exploring life with her is so fun and interesting. I feel blessed to share learning with her and to see life again through fresh eyes. Children love to learn about their world, especially when they can share it with the people they love.

Starting Over

If you knew you only had a year more with that child, what would you expose him to? Where would you go? What would you eat? What would you watch? What would you do? 

If you had only ONE year—and then it was all over, what would you do? Four seasons. Twelve months. 365 days. 

Do that THIS year. And the next. 

That's how unschooling works. By living life as if it were an adventure. As if you only had a limited amount of time with that child. Because that's the way it IS. 

~Kelly Lovejoy

We've made the move back to Texas and I'm unpacking all our stuff. I've been feeling unsure of how to do unschooling, afraid I'll do it wrong. Then I read the above quote from Kelly and I feel like it's simple. Life truly IS an adventure, and as long as I keep that in mind, we're headed down the right path. 

I've found some unschooling groups in my area, and am hoping to be able to get together with some unschooling families soon. I think it will be helpful to see how it's working for others and get some ideas of things that are available for us to explore in the Dallas area. I know there's a lot for us to do....now we just need to get started!