My friend Caroline asked what we do all day, home ed-wise, and how I fit in work, so I thought I’d keep a diary of the week. This isn’t quite a typical week because David’s away, but I’ll make a note of where things would have been different if he’d been at home. (Also, we’re unschooling – actually, at the moment, we’re still deschooling – so please don’t leave a comment asking why we’re not doing lessons.)

Drop Joe off at preschool and then Harry and I go to Starbucks. One of my favourite things is going for a coffee with Harry on Monday morning. We usually go to Costa in the shopping centre so Harry can have a look round the gaming shops, but David bought him a game last week so I’m trying to avoid temptation. We chat on the way there, get breakfast, and then I settle down with a pile of books, while Harry studies Pokemon form on the iPad. Pokemon is actually mentioned in one of the books I’m reading – How Children Succeed – so I read it out to Harry and we have a chat about the meaning of “character.”

On the way home, we stop at Tesco and Harry puts everything through the self-service checkout.

At home, I go on the computer to schedule the week’s UKYA posts while Harry gets back to Pokepark 2: Wonders Beyond. (I generally don’t limit time on the Wii, for a bunch of reasons that I’ll get around to later in the week.) (Probably.)

Once I’ve got some work done, we have lunch while watching The Gadget Show, which leads to various discussions about speed, bungee jumping, roller-blading, robotics and gender issues (Harry wants to go to the Gadget Show live, but I’m annoyed by the clips of ‘dancing girls’ on the stage).

After lunch, it’s back on the Wii for Harry and back on the computer for me. I send some emails and draft a blog post. And faff around on Twitter and Facebook…

Harry and I look at The Earth From the Air together (I’ve just discovered there’s a children’s version, which I’m going to have to get). I’m trying to read a page a day (each photo is dated) and then we look up the country in Children Just Like Me and write a bit about Harry’s family, home, life, etc, in the style of the book. Then we read a couple of pages of Why Are People Different?

Bit more Wii for Harry and computer for me. I write 750 words of the book I’m working on, along with some research (Google Maps and Flickr).

Watch an episode of How It’s Made about metal plating and buttons. I saved dozens of episodes with things I thought Harry would be interested in, but he sees it as a chore and resists watching them. Later, I notice he’s deleted the whole lot. I think about restoring them and making him watch them, but I decide against it – he’s supposed to be enjoying learning, that’s the point. I need to trust him and not force him to do/read/watch stuff I think he’ll enjoy.

At some point we have tea and Joe comes home. The boys play Spongebob (themselves, I mean, not on TV) while I read/tidy/tweet. (This would be different if David were here. He usually gets home around 5 and I leg it to the office to do the day’s writing, while he hangs out with the boys and makes tea.)

The boys are both sleeping in my bed, so we read Knuffle Bunny together then watch about 20 minutes of Sesame Street on the iPad.

Once they’re both asleep I tweet, tidy up, have tea and a glass of wine, watch TV, and prepare some blogs, etc., for tomorrow (I can’t stay off the computer).