Keeping Up

Today was better and smoother. We didn't have any appointments other than picking up Ian from his home school workshop/pre-school that he has started so we were able to just take the day a little less chaotically. One thing I am seeing as an advantage and slight disadvantage is that Will loves to learn and is SO curious (I should have named him George). It's an advantage because he has the desire to learn and that takes care of a lot of problems. I don't have to coerce too much to get him to want to participate, if anything I am having a harder time keeping up with him. The disadvantage is he wants to learn about everything. Every day it's a million questions that could be turned into research and projects. For example, he found some Rollie-pollie bugs outside while playing and decided to create a little habitat for some in a plastic container. He told me he wanted to learn more about Rollie-pollies and so we looked up things on-line and he adapted the habitat to fit the "pill bug" better such as adding moisture and fruit/veggie scraps to the container. This has been great and he has learned a lot from this little 2 day project. However, I am a planner and it is hard for me to jump from one thing to the next. In addition, my learning and how I know how to teach includes a lot of writing and other demonstrations of showing what you have learned. Most of what we are doing is verbal and so there is not much documentation of what is going on. I know I need to let go of this and realize that Will is learning even if I don't have a report he wrote to show it. My favorite thing is the safest thing and that is his math. Concrete, documented and has a clear start and finish. I guess for now I will hold on to that for my sanity and have faith with the rest!