And the pendulum swings...

I need to find a rhythm. I am a schedule person. I want nothing more than to make a schedule, teach, have Andrew learn... and move on with the day. (I used to 'play school' and librarian when I was a kid.) I honestly believe he has to have some things he doesn't want to do..just to learn that he can trust me as his guide and that he can learn to believe he can be a good apprentice.

I have purchased parts of YET another math program. It has simple things like 8+3=X. He balks at that but if the page says, "this number has two more tens than 40 and the same amount of ones as 17" he can get it faster than I can. So what should I be concerned about? Should I just drop everything basic? In the picture above, he was making sure we had enough candy for today's Trunk and Treat. He added up the bags of Milky Way and Butter Fingers. Then he had to figure out how many more to get to 100. He does not subtract- at least in his mind. "Subtraction is too hard." But he can tell me how many more he needs. He does this with great exuberance. It is effortless.

Do I care that he NEVER writes a lower case L? He just writes a capital L smaller. He draws his letters. Apparently this is a no-no. Do I care that he already hen pecks the keys because he gave so much resistance in typing that I just cried Uncle? He can make his own Power Point presentations already. He learned that several years ago actually. With a day of instruction I am sure he'd customize Excel spreadsheets to figure out his math.

When doing our science he resisted and said learning about mixtures was 'toooo hard.' But watching Alton brown mix sucralose and fructose he draws a great analogy between mixture combinations and super heros and their arch enemies. He 'got' it when Alton broke out the tinker toys to explain it.

But in his free time he fills it with screen. He draws, reads and does something with a screen. We are starting Art Therapy on Monday. We need to find more 'interests.' He is much like a two year old in that he needs constant direction. But Mama tired!!!!!

I want to embrace Unschooling but not even sure where to begin. Will he learn? Will it be way less structure than he needs. I think this will be on the hot topics with our RDI consultant next week.