Allowing Choice

The number one thing that you will find here - and I hope to continue it for a long time - is to ONLY teach my children through play, experiences and reading together.  Once children enter Kindergarten I find that a lot of teachers want them to sit in a chair, listen and print/trace page after page.  There is no play!  I have always wanted to home school my children - I am a teacher by trade (preschool) - but I don't for a few reasons.
1) We financially could not afford for me to stay home.
2) I do love the social aspect of school
3) I love my children, yes I do, but it is also nice to get out of the house and do my own thing with other adults during the week.  I don't consider my job "work", because I am doing what I love.
But that doesn't mean that on weekends, after school or during the summer my kids are just going to sit and watch TV (although this does happen lots, sometimes it's a nice quiet break!).  They play by themselves, but I also wanted to play with them and TEACH them at the same time.
Sometimes I choose what we will do because of the weather, the day, what we have on hand or what comes up in the heads of my kids.  Other times, I want my daughter to choose.  She is really smart and she loves to learn.  Not always is she going to want to learn about numbers, sometimes she may just want to read a book.  So I made up some cards for those days that she gets to choose the direction of play.  She already has her favourites (Math and Art) - but she has also chosen Gym a couple times because that's what she wanted to do that day.
Other times, our play will be lead by what they say to me.  For example, the other day my daughter said, "Let's go play store." So that's what we did - with real money and learning how to name each coin.
This is our life!  Welcome and enjoy the ride!