"When Children Love to Learn" editied by Elaine Cooper

I first had this recommended on a email group last year.. Is sounded good but well never made it into my final Amazon order. After all I was sure I didn't need to go back down the Ambleside route. I really didn't need another major change in the content of how we home-school.

Last term was good. We made lots of progress, my Engineer finally started to find school enjoyable. The kids grew in confidence and learning was consistently happening. Only I was exhausted. It was easier to curl up at my desk and potter than connect with anyone. In the middle of it a copy of this book came up on the second hand list and I brought it. So it arrived I looked at it and put it on the bedside feeling like this wasn't something I wanted to read yet.

As it dawned on me that I needed a break, time to relax, time off coffee, time to laugh I took some days off with hubby and the kids and chilled. Hubby cooked, I rested, we walked, shopped, visited the farmers markets, soaked in the thermal hot pools, a relaxed.

I picked up the book.
Good choice...lots of ahah moments.
CM didn't need to be Ambleside,
Maybe it didn't need to be bouncing through more subjects in a day than my brain could cope with.
Maybe there was a little freedom here to enjoy what we were doing right, and freedom to let everything else happen without the stress that dominated last term.

Umm...

So now we have a book basket of the books we need to read over the next few weeks. Now there is a little more freedom to add back some read-alouds and not worry about the boys listening in, maybe there is room for some group discussions. Hopefully this is just a fine tuning of the balance... a return to more us without loosing the independent learning paths that seem to be working.

I need to keep reading but hopefully "everything will stay the same, but something will change so that the connectedness returns to our school days.