Sometimes people ask “So if you don’t do lessons, what do you do?”
A couple of weeks ago I decided to keep diary of a week with Jonathan (11) but only got half way through before I forgot. So here instead is just one day – Friday. This is not particularly a typical day but most days aren’t!
We start with a late rise (Thursdays have a late night activity) and rush out of the house as Martin and I need to get to an appointment at the bank. Ruth and Jonathan stay in the car and listen to the radio/read.
Rush into Lidl to buy Ruth some new boots.
Off to ice skating, Jonathan hasn’t been for the whole year and Ruth has maybe been once, we’re going today as we have other things to do in Ryde so makes the petrol costs worthwhile. Jonathan enjoyed meeting up with a friend he doesn’t see often enough and despite the fact that this pic just has Jonathan and Ruth in it we met up with quite a few other HErs there – they were just later than us!
After 3 hours spent in the ice rink, and lots of knitting in the very cold cafe for me, it’s time to go on to a friend’s house for lunch and continuing with some mosaics. We got completely drenched on the way and ended up crafting in an assortment of borrowed clothes!
Coming home with a stack of crafting stuff so we can continue at home we are stuck in lots of traffic. We still manage to get home just in time for Ruth to grab some tea and head out to volunteer at a local YFC kids club and then off to Catalyst.
Jonathan had tea and then we listened to 3 chapters of Harry Potter while he made giant cookies, started outlining his plaster of Paris leaves and then continued to practice drawing dragon heads.
So we don’t break any of this down into subjects, we tend to view things more holistically, but if you were to do so we fairly obviously have:
Art
PE
English (Harry Potter, reading in the car, lots of discussion about everything)
Home Economics
We also have lots of hidden subjects – either because we have dealt with them conversationally through the day or because they are not immediately obvious – here are a couple as examples:
Maths – our meeting in the morning was about out mortgage – so in the car we had a discussion about debt and percentage interest, Jonathan was dealing with weights and conversions in his cooking, we covered everyday maths in money and timetables and I’m sure more that I can’t remember.
Music – while doing the crafting we were treated to some acoustic guitar music and discussed styles of music, as they did somewhat critically in the car while listening to a lot of 80s dance music (I just enjoyed the reminiscence).
For those of you who actually know us and wonder what Rebekah was doing all day, she is typically out all day on a Friday too with Foodbank warehouse in the morning, volunteering at church in the afternoon and off to Catalyst in the evening so we only have the most fleeting of conversations with her as the day passes – in fact I’d gone to bed before she got home last night!
So there is a day in our lives and what we actually do, another day might and probably would look completely different.