Not Back to School

We've been easing out of our Summer Slothing and back into a bit of routine.
Of course, our learning like the learning of many other children does not cease over the holidays but sometimes we all need a bit of guilt free media indulgence and days of drifting around without plans in our pj's.

Today most children went back to school so we picked up our routine again, which just happened to say "Unschool Monday".
This is something we trialled last year where the kids choose what they want to do and I support them if they need it but mostly I just catch up on cleaning and pursue my own interests.
They love it and I really think it creates the balance we need beween complete routine and unschooling.
The kids have always had free choice after morning lesson but more and more I felt they were going for the easy option and choosing media to entertain them for the afternoon. Unschool Monday forces them to look outside the box for activities and new experiences and we also end up having alot of fun together.

Today has seen us :

Creating paddlepop stick puppets
Writing letters to a sick loved one
Experimenting with wet paper and water colour paints
Using Mathletics
Discovering the magic of tracing pictures with tracing paper
Staging a boat race with homemade boats and learning that cardboard boats are not water proof!! ;0
Devouring Wimpy Kid books

And of course their ipod always is on the list somewhere...