Child-led learning

It was a Gil only day this Friday as Ferdy went in to school.

'Ahh, I'm looking forward to a nice and play-oriented day', I thought to myself on Thursday evening.. 'What we doin' tomorrow', demanded Gil whilst I was planning the drawing I might start the next day. 'What do you want to do, poppet?', I asked. 'First, pleeeease can I 'ave some worksheets', he replied, 'I want to do letters a, b, c, t and k'. He then pointed out the ones he'd like on Twinkl which looked far too tricky to me.

After breakfast on Friday, I made myself a cup of tea and got ready to help him with his worksheets. 'All done', he declared. 'Now what we doin'?' I had a look and yes, he'd somehow managed to complete them all before breakfast. Realising the pace of the day had slightly changed, I gulped down my cup of tea and we moved on to some number work learning about adding up to 6, 7 and 8 please..

I'd been thinking we'd do this outside but it was raining so Gil suggested doing it with Lego. We got two bowls and Gil had to work out the different number sentences adding up to 6 and 7. It worked really well and he thoroughly enjoyed it, even pointing out that adding 0 was a number sentence too (I had forgotten that one).

Next he suggested we learn about autumn so we watched a lovely video about the changing seasons, read a few books about migration and then headed out for an autumn walk to search for different autumn colours.

Then it was time for a nice chilled out lunch. But alas, Gil doesn't have chilled out lunches. It was actually time for Gil to beat Mum at a memory game and proudly boast to the cafe owners about what a loser his Mum is.

At home later, I suggested that he had worked so hard today so might like to play some Lego or play for a little bit (and give Mum a rest). No thanks, he decided that we needed to play the Shopping List game (which he won), followed by a drawing from Art for Kids, and had Mummy forgotten that she'd promised to do some leaf rubbings?

I'm a fan of child-led learning, I think it instills confidence in a child and am often surprised how, when left to their own devices, my children come up with their own brilliant and creative ways to learn about the world around them. 

But as I collapsed on the sofa at 4pm, I wondered whether child-dictated learning may be a more suitable term for our experience today..