A change in school plans, as always

Remember like 5 seconds ago when I said I would not have my kids do any kind of sit-down workbook learning until at least the age of 7?

Well, I meant it.

But H has other plans.

Typical.

She's been telling me for at least 2 weeks now how she wants to go to school (thanks, Sid the Science Kid!). So finally I said to her, "You were on school before Christmas. Remember that? Do you want to go back?"

We pulled her primarily because I couldn't justify paying for it when we were gone so frequently but also because she was continuously telling me she didn't want to go.

"Well, I liked my teacher," she told me. "But the other kids were too little." (She was one of the youngest in her class).

"They're your age. They'll still be your age. It will be the same. Mommy will do school here with you when it's the right time."

"It's the right time," she told me matter-of-factly. "I need to learn things."

I kind of laughed, which was probably inappropriate. "You learn things ever day," I told her, "Just by playing."

I feel very strongly about education through play. So of course H needs to prove me wrong.

I'm all, let's paint the windows with shaving cream and dye daisies and make play dough. She's all, yes, that's fun, lets do it! But also, lets sit down and work out of books like little drones.

I guess. If that's what works for her. I do believe in child-lead education.

Even if it doesn't lead me where I wanted/anticipated.

All we have are preschool work books. And two dry erase books to work on writing. She really wants to write, but she needs a lot of practice. And since she's a type A perfectionist it's a hard process to watch.

Now I have to figure out where she falls academic wise, and what I can do for her that follows her rules of school.

I bought her a giant Discovery Kids felt map that was 90% off and we are working on geography now. She loves that.

Well, back to our conversation. She replied with, "Playing is playing. And it's fun. But school is school and I need to go."

Well, she probably never will go to school. I won't say she definitely won't because we will take her desires and opinion into consideration always. But I think she'd realize pretty quickly that it's not quite what she's thinking anyway.

So we are changing things around here. I'm going to find her the things she needs. Even if she changes her mind, her needs change, and she realizes that just playing is okay in a week from now.

That's the point to child-lead education anyway, right?