Weekly Wrap Up: A stitch in time

(Confession time--this is actually from a few weeks ago. I've kept this in my 'drafts' box till I got around to getting the photos in. All two of them. BUT, I'm sharing it NOW, and that's what's important.)

We have been sewing and unschooling this week. All week.


I'm a little nervous about this.

I don't know why.

LOTS of learning has been taking place. Sweetling is making something from a purchased pattern for the first time. So, she's learning to interpret the weird wording found only in sewing pattern instructions into actual "oh, so that's what they mean" steps. She's used a seam gauge, dress maker's pencil, and stitch ripper (cause mistakes do happen.) She's threaded the machine, wound the bobbin, machine basted, and reinforced selected edges. She's learned to slip-stich by hand and learned what fusible interfacing is and why its used.

Meanwhile, Toa of Boy, not one to be left out, has learned how to thread a needle and knot the thread on the end. He's learned sew on a bead (for a turtle eye of course) and how to repair a seam on a stuffed animal. (There was a small discussion when he first started trying to sew and was getting a little frustrated. He demanded to know why boys had to learn how to sew. My answer was that everyone needed some basic sewing skills to be able to do simple clothing repair or replace a missing button. He said he could get someone else to do that for him. I asked if he really wanted to pay someone $10 to replace a button when he could do it himself in half a minute. He said he'd get a friend or relative to do it. I asked what if he was by himself on a business trip to Japan and the button popped off his dress shirt right before an important meeting. He conceded to me the argument.) He then raided my scrap basket and is now sewing his own stuffed Kirby doll.

Toa of Boy also kicked my butt in chess. He's gotten much better at his end game. But truthfully, I was in trouble very early in the game. Look at this box he has put me in. What move could I make, as black, that would help dig me out of this trap? (Click on the photo for a larger, clearer picture.)

Now, we've done a little bit of our regular academics. Toa did three pages of math by himself on Wednesday and Sweelting taught Toa all his regular subjects on Thursday while I was babysitting. (That's part of our regular Thursday arrangement.) And we've started out each day with our Bible Truth curriculum.

But mostly we've unschooled this week.

I think I like unschooling for a specific length of time (this week), to accomplish a specific student selected goal (learning to sew from a pattern.). But I don't think I'm ready to jump fully on the unschooling band wagon just yet. 

I'm not worried about "falling behind" or not learning. I think I'm just worried that without just a little structure, days and weeks will go by....and we'll have done some housework, a couple baking projects, and just goofed off. I think I'm worried that we won't have the motivation to tackle anything that seems like too much work. Sweetling's sewing project happened because she wanted to make a costume for an anime con. But that's the exception to the rule.

I think my question to the unschoolers, because I do like the concept a whole lot....my question would be how do you stay motivated to attempt challenging projects?

So, that's us.

 Check out what others have done on Weird, Unsocialized Unschoolers.