Why can’t I just relax??

So why is it that every time I have a freak out about unschooling, the kids seem to sense it and begin to do things that make me go, “Geez, woman! Calm yourself!” It never fails. You’d think by now I could recognize that whenever one of my freak outs begin, we’re on the verge of a flurry of activity. Yesterday, we were sitting together watching TV in the morning, a show on TLC called Hi-5 to be exact, and one of the characters was playing a violin. Well, Iain has a violin but he hasn’t touched it in a while but after watching the show he was inspired to go upstairs and get it and play it for us. In addition to that, he took it over to my parents house and played it for them, too. They gushed over him and he was so pleased with himself also. Later in the afternoon, the art bug bit the boys and they asked if we could go out and buy some clay for them to make models of their favorite characters. We were off to Michaels to pick up as many colors of Sculpey as we could afford and when we got home, there was some creatin’ goin’ on!

Ryan’s first try didn’t turn out exactly as he wanted. We baked it in the oven but the pieces were too thin and not attached well enough so it fell apart.

You can see Luigi in pieces, Mario, a Goomba, and mystery box.

I suggested using toothpicks so his model would have a skeleton and it turned out much better!

This was interesting because Ryan was able to get an idea of why it’s important for us to have a skeleton. One of those unschooling connections you hear about.

Iain got in on the act, too, and began making hats for his dudes. That’s as far as he got but hey! They’re really nice hats! 🙂

Today we got up and went for a walk before it got too hot. While we were at the park, the boys met a very nice girl, named Katie. She was quite the personality and the three of them did more talking than playing. It was very sweet to watch. After that, the boys and I washed my car. Man! that thing is D-I-R-T-A-Y!! We washed it for an hour and it’s still not clean. But The boys were awesome with helping me and I really appreciated it. We went and grabbed lunch at Wack Arnolds and then headed over to the library per the boys request. At our library they have this little house set up in the kids’ section so they can pick out books and sit down and read them while parents look around. I was so surprised when Iain picked up a book, proceeded over to the house, and sat down and began to read! After a little bit, I asked the boys to go ahead and pick out the books they wanted so we could get home. Iain got a couple of Encyclopedia Brown books, a joke book, a movie called “Shredderman Rules” which they’re watching right now, and a book about baseball. Ryan picked out a book on King Tut’s tomb and I chose a book about the American Revolution. Since the 4th of July is coming up, and we’re going to PA for it, it seems like a great time to talk about the American Revolution.

It has been an awesome couple of days! I want to thank everyone who left a comment. Even the folks who are down on unschooling. seeing all the different ways to “do” it let me know that I just have to figure out what feels right for us individually and go from there. I’ve spent the past couple of days reading about the “Moore Formula” as well and find that parts of that align well with how I feel about things. Please don’t be upset if I haven’t responded to your comment. There were so many!! I will try and go back and address them if I can.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, the boys want to go throw water balloons and have asked for my help. I’m inclined to oblige.