Accidental Unschooling

Apologies for not having posted sooner.  Not long after my last blog post, my much-loved Grandad died, and consequently our time since has been taken up with coming to terms with our loss.  Death is never easy - but I have been so grateful for Hubby taking time off work, and then working from home - and for friends who have come round to play with the boys so that I could be with my family during this time.  Obviously my priorities shifted for this season, and my focus temporarily moved away from the boys' education.  The lovely thing about this is that because we are not heavily structured, it had little impact on their routine. They were far more affected by my not being around so much - but having Daddy and other favourite people to play with definitely helped!
Hence today's title: we had been just starting to get back into the swing of things after the Easter holidays, but then ended up having a couple of weeks of un-planned-for 'unschooling'.  Apologies to unschoolers who know there's much more to it than just an absence of parental direction - but hopefully you know what I mean.  You see, although I wasn't able to give the boys my full attention, I was aware that even without my input, encouragement and suggestions, they were still busy learning.
They may not have done much by way of MathsWhizz or Reading Eggs, and they may have watched more Spongebob or played on the Wii more than I usually like, but they have also read a LOT of books, played in the fresh air, watched fascinating TV documentaries, applied maths to shopping trips and board games, played stimulating computer games, made their own animations, created models, had snuggly chats in the mornings, and learned more about the value of friends and family.  I LOVE this about home ed:  the learning never stops.  And on the times when the boys needed to pause to chat through their own grief or just distract themselves from everything that was going on - well they were able to do just that.  Yes I do like a bit of structure and routine.  But I also love flexibility and the way our education revolves around life, rather than the other way around. 
So this week will hopefully see a return to some kind of normal - but I will always be thankful for the blessing of accidental unschooling.