Power of Play

I just read a wonderful blog about the Power of Play. The author talks about the beginning of her homeschooling days when she though she had to set everything up to make it look like a school classroom. From the sound of the article, her two children, ages 2 and 4 were quite miserable. Finally with the help of a more experienced homeschool mom, she was able to let go of the need to do things "just like school" and relax a bit about her homeschooling. Instead of sitting at little desks and writing on the board, they began doing things like building a teepee in the backyard and making turtle shell rattles. Yes, they still did sit down work. But now they were more likely to snuggle on the couch to read than to sit at their desks. And they went out and actually did things instead of just reading about them in books. Where the first few months of their homeschooling seemed to be full of tears and wanting to go play. The rest of their time was filled with learning while doing and going to fun places.

Reading this article made me wonder whether I was spending too much time worrying about why my son doesn't read as well as other kids and not enough time having fun with learning. I want to go play more and worry less about all the sit down time we do. I think it's time to go bake some bread and stop worrying so much about the math lesson. After all, isn't there math involved in cooking. Maybe after that we will work on building our little worm compost bin. It's time to Go, Play, Learn.