Day 1 of the 4 day birthday celebration

LOL, it's going to be a drawn out one this year!

Nathan will be 5 on Monday. Wow! Seems kind of weird to finally have hit the moment of "actually homeschooling". Even though legally he's not required to start school till age 6 (and no exemption required till then), almost all kids I know start on the day of their 5th birthday. It's been a two year build up for me since I first started researching unschooling. Back then I was about 80% certain I'd do it. Then about a year ago I got serious on working on the remaining 20%. That then became certain pretty quickly once I'd busted through the few remaining uneasy issues and it's just been a time of count down. I still feel a little odd going off down a different path to the rest and wonder about what things we will be missing out on if we had chosen to do school - but I know in my heart that this is where we really want to be and Nathan is quite fine with knowing other kids are heading off to school and he's not. I feel comfort in having my various online support groups as well as my Face-to-Face Unschool friends (*waves* to you guys).

So here we are!

Today we had a couple of wee friends over. I made muffins which they then decorated with whipped cream and lollies.

The two bigger kids then spent ages on the front lawn digging up my grass, adding compost from the nearby pile and planting weeds - thanks guys! (There will be a bit of reconstructive work done to the lawn tomorrow lol). They then headed off the side of the house to collect feijoas. The two littlies stayed inside and dressed the dolls.