The beauty of saying “Screw the plan”.
Every Sunday I get out my big binder of organizing our lives and decide on a fun activity for the early morning, late morning, and afternoon of each day in the coming week. A master plan of awesome, educational things that the kids will love… and do you know how often we follow that plan? Never. We have never once done all the things on that master weekly list.
Because the point of all those activities isn’t to do all those activities… it’s to find new things that the kids will grab onto and pursue as a full on passion.
Case and point, I had a week’s worth of activities centered around the theme “art with autumn”. But two days in we did leaf rubbings and the Squirrel was in love, just in love. Every morning for the last two week’s she’s grabed crayons and headed outside shouting “Mom! Come do leaf rubbings with me!” behind her as she goes.
If we were stuck inside the almighty plan we wouldn’t be able to, or we’d have to do it later. If I put the plan and all the work I’d put into it above her passions what good would that do anyone? Would it help her learn more? Would it help her love learning more? I doubt it. It’s that very reason that as she and the Baby Pterodactyl get older we plan to continue on the same path, learning and growing together while following passions instead of becoming slaves to a curriculum.
So we’ll keep doing leaf rubbings. And talking about how leaves work, what photosynthesis means, the difference between deciduous and coniferous trees along with a million other things while we do them. And I’ll keep making the master list of activity possibilities knowing that the majority of them will go unused because chances are one will spark something beautiful inside that adorable little monster of mine that we can follow and learn so so much from.
Because “the plan” isn’t beautiful, but watching your children beam with delight over learning something new is.