A Curriculum of Joy

Mind
Body
Family
Community
Play
Explore/ Investigate
Create
Communicate
World

All people are responsive in nature, we react to the people around us, especially the ones we love. We need to practice creating Joy through health of: Sleep, eating, stretching and cuddling. We need to watch each other to see what each of us needs to be balanced and passionate.

A Curriculum of Joy is for our entire family because we are all learners, it is the culture of our family to be learning new things. But there are three of us so it is important for each of us to tell each other of our goals and needs, so that the others can be supportive.

As the primary adult during the day I need to start each morning knowing where our energies that day and how much time I can devote solely to Alder and his wants. There are a lot of gray areas in here, going down to the river might be something Alder likes but I need to end up across town so stopping at the river doesn’t count as Alder time. But if he says let’s go to the river and we go and spend a long time there just to be there then it is Alder time. This also means that when I know I am spending time focusing on him that I try not to be thinking about all the other things that need to get done.

Both Kevin and I need to acknowledge that we spend our time with Alder differently and that this is okay and that they compliment each other.

We need to spend more time as a family together rather than doing so much handing off of Alder.

In terms of formal skills it seems to me that right now he is learning them through his own interest and desire. I understand that some forms of education believes that the younger you start the further ahead you can get, but I think that helping him to love learning is the first and most important thing that I can teach him. Besides 3 is still very young and playing and using his imagination is really the most important thing he can be doing, as well as being read to and experiencing the world around him. I am confident that he will learn to write and read and do math through all his other interests.

Most important is that we do not distinguish between learning and living in our family, it isn’t something that starts on a discrete day (first day of school) or have an ending point (graduation).