New Beginnings...

Enjoy Life Unschooling is hosting it's first blog carnival, with the topic of New Beginnings. Two of the questions she asked were what are some favorite spring activities, and how do you celebrate new beginnings in your life?

We tend to flow with the seasons - and spring is a time of new beginnings. For us, spring is about finishing up all of our winter projects, spring cleaning, and preparing for the next season. Right now that means planting seeds, cleaning garden beds, prepping the soil, re-connecting our rain barrel, and sketching all the plans for our garden ideas.


It also means thinking of what we want to do next, as each new season means new opportunities, ideas, and activities. One way we kick off each season and put to rest the old is by creating a dream drawing. We sit down together and brainstorm all of the things we want to do, places we want to go, and ideas we want to explore for the next few months. Fresh ideas, goals, dreams, interests...we always feel refreshed and jazzed again looking forward this way.


One way we like to do this is to cover the dining room table with a big piece of paper. We pull out markers, pencils, crayons. We start to draw images, write ideas, and color it all in as we go. What do we want to do? Where do we want to go? What have we been wanting to learn more about? Each of us (kids and parents) expresses what we are interested in and dreaming of doing, and we think of new ideas as we read and look at each others drawings. At the end, we have a big list of all the things we want to do as a family, plus we have it all written down so we don't forget!



Our lists include all kinds of things. Seasonal/holiday activities and family traditions. Themes and topics we want to learn more about. Places we want to visit. Activities we want to do. Museums we want to visit. Projects we want to work on together. Community service we want to volunteer for. From robotics events to a family ceramics class to animal tracking - we put it all out there, and talk about what we dream of doing, learning, seeing, exploring. And yes, there are new ideas every season!

From our list, I can go look up things online and find out about dates for events and activities in advance. I can also get books and supplies and research where we can go that has the kinds of things we are looking for. This doesn't mean our next season is set in stone (we do pursue ideas & interests as we go, of course), and it doesn't mean we always do every single thing, but it does mean we are all excited by our ideas, we have each had a voice in the family plans for the next few months, we have some activities planned to look forward to, and we have talked about it and know what everyone is interested in! All good!


So for now, new beginnings for us means laying the winter to rest and working this spring so we are ready for the nice weather when it arrives. We have some great ideas for what we want to do this spring and summer - I can't wait! Happy Spring!