Home Grown Happiness: Try Try Again!

So I decided to take a small break from blogging - just a couple of weeks holiday as I took some time back for myself. There are many brilliant things about home ed, but one of the biggest challenges is carving-out time for myself. When the children were at school, I could go for coffee (without a self-imposed curfew) and my day was pretty much my own to work, think, tidy, shop, run errands. Now my days are filled with the company of three others and 'my own time' is limited. Fitting a blog in started to feel like a chore - and a burden - instead of something that I enjoyed doing, so over the past two weeks I have been re-evaluating where I focus my time and what my priorities are; writing is a priority for me and something I love, but not at the expense of my sanity, so I signed up to an e-course on making time and it has been really helpful in seeing how and where I can take time back.

During my 'mini-break', we have been busy at home with the new 'half-term'; the children have signed up to Ice-Skating lessons and we have decided to structure our learning a little again, so the Maths and English books have come out. When we tried this at the start of our home ed, it was a disaster and we shunned the books whilst we de-schooled. We all still have a lot of de-schooling to do, but everyone has taken a keen interest and is enjoying challenging themselves so I guess it was the 'right' time to come back to them. I have re-visited some of the homeed books I brought, and The Ultimate Book of Homeschooling Ideas: 500+ Fun and Creative Learning Activities for Kids Ages 3-12 (Prima Home Learning Library) talks about 'school mind' and 'education mind'; school mind works like this:

Compulsory attendance + Curriculum + Focus on lack of meeting existing

standards = schooling

education mind works like this:

Time + Purpose + Focus on what is being achieved = Education

So whilst we are doing 'work', it's actually being led by the children, who are only comparing themselves to themselves and are enjoying it. So whilst I do miss my own time, one of the best things about Home ed is it gives us the flexibility to keep trying different things................