In our Not Back to School Blog Hop this week we are sharing our learning Plans For The Year.
I am going to express mine as Goals, as the formality of a curriculum plan has not been flexible enough for us in the past. As some of you may know E has had a diagnosis of Asperger's. And while it doesn't define us, it reminds us to continually let go of social conformity and find what fits for our individual family. Our learning future is defined by our desire for E to be happy, healthy and to feel 'useful' in or out of society.
So, after that little ramble...... our Goals are:
- Deschool - letting E do his own thing in order for him to choose to learn rather than me telling him what to learn, how to learn and when.
- Move into Unschooling where E drives his schooling more. The aim is to bring him to a new level of personal responsibility as an individual and for him to find learning as encouraging, interesting and rewarding. Thus his future will hold so much more opportunity and possibility for him.
- I will provide more art and craft opportunities
- I will take us on more excursions....bush walking, city library, art gallery, beach and anything else he might choose.
- I will give him more rewarding opportunities - gardening, mowing, learning to drive (around our yard) and building type projects
- I would like us to become a partnership in learning. This might take a couple of years but we will make a start this year.
- Learn to Read
- Remember all the past Maths so he can build on it when he chooses
- and of course building a solid understanding and desire to 'want' to fulfill his daily chores in life (we have spent 7 years on this already so there is no expected time frame on this one)
Our learning Values remain:
Love
Empowerment
Passion
Talent
Creativity
We take one day at a time, one week at a time and one year at a time. If it doesn't fit we change it. If it doesn't feel right we change it. Keeping our home happy and positive is essential.
Goals, beautiful, a frame and yet so flexible:)
ReplyDeleteThanks Erin
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing. Sensational values! I enjoy reading different homeschooling approaches :)
ReplyDeleteAbsolutetly awesome, wish I had written it! We are kindred spirits in our desires for our children. Warmest Wishes, Renelle
ReplyDeleteI will follow your forays into NL with an Aspie with relish! We tried for a while last year and there were greatly enjoyable as well as very challenging aspects. I would like to return to it but its a bit out of our reach for now.
ReplyDeleteHi Rosemary, thanks for following. I have also joined your blog. Any hints and tips as I go would be greatly welcomed.
DeleteFrom a NL perspective I found we still needed routine and direction. Vince became very anxious when he felt he wasn't learning. He couldn't see the learning in free form work and kept coming to me concerned that he wasn't actually doing school. Perhaps it would have been different if we'd HS from the beginning. I struggled cause I'm not home during the day, so I wasn't as readily around to talk through learning as it happened. I tried to help him set goals for himself and, although he is very self directed for an Aspie, it was just too loose. We ended up going back to incremental studies with a clear roadmap and daily tasks, he just felt better about it all. In retrospect I should have known. He struggled lots with the self-directed Montessori environment he was in for 3 - 6 (and I love Montessori and am trained in it, but it lacked structure for him). If I were home, though, I may have been ale to provide more structure for him, so don't be put off. Just be prepared that he may need a little more structure than expected.
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