There is a technique sometimes referenced in home education circles called strewing, in which you casually leave educational resources round and about to sucker entice your children into educating themselves. I like to think of myself as an extreme strewer.
I’m not, of course. I’m just disastrously untidy 😉 But today it worked well in my favour.
First of all, Tigerboy found some pieces of a Baker Ross sewing kit, and brought them to me. “Teach me to knit” he said, as he handed me the needle. 😉
So I sat him on my knee and he sewed half way round the pieces of felt before losing interest. I was quite impressed with his manual dexterity to be honest, I don’t think any of the others could have managed that at this age.
And then Smallest, who had wanted to do reading, and writing today, turned me down on pencil work, but demanded to write a blog post, so we loaded up her blog and she dictated. She also did some Reading Eggs and Mathseeds, but turned me down for any actual reading books.
Then the next thing I saw was her first chess lesson. Sat on Small’s knee, they were playing chess online.
The first game rather predictably ended in tears. Then Small left her to it, and she spent the next hour or so taking pieces. I’m not sure what site they were using – it was pretty good though, as when you clicked on a piece it showed you all the possible moves, so she was learning lots about the pieces just by experimenting.
So, crafts, chess, reading and maths. Alongside the usual playing, eating, talking, stories and a bit of TV. Sounds like a pretty full day really.