A Trip To The Melbourne Museum - The Homeschool Experience

Just last week we had the opportunity to travel with my husband for work and spent the week in Melbourne. We visited friends, enjoyed science works and spent nearly a whole day at the Melbourne museum and the surrounding parks and playgrounds. We had a ball!

Here are 2 of my boys building in Mesopotamia!

....and where was my other son?

... over here performing his own puppet show!

My boys spent almost an hour doing these activities. The museum was (clearly) very quiet so they were able to play in the the children's activity museum interruption free.

I sat back, fed the baby, and watched them. I watched them explore. I watched them create.I watched them play. I watched their little brains ticking away..thinking..thinking...and I fell in love with homeschooling all over again!

It was during this time that something fascinating happened. As I watched my boys playing, a group of school children arrived. They were told to line up directly in front of my boys activities. These school children stood and watched my boys giggling and creating in silence. In fact, I could almost see in their eyes the desire to just run over and join in but they couldn't. These school children (for their own safety of course) had to stand in a line and move through the museum in an orderly fashion. They couldn't just run up to look at the dinosaur bones if that interested them or linger that little bit longer to read about frogs.

For me it was one of those times where I realised what my children are gaining through homeschooling - the freedom to learn. Homeschooled children are free to learn, to follow their interests, to be themselves and to develop a deep rich love for learning about the world around them.

Even if those school children had been allowed to create their own buildings in Mesopotamia it wouldn't have been the same experience as it was for my homeschool boys. They wouldn't have had the freedom to explore uninterrupted or to be alone with their own thoughts and creative potential. Imagine 25 kids fighting over those foam blocks!

After a few rough weeks of homeschooling, this was the 'moment' I needed to dust off my doubt and allow myself to once again get passionate about what I am doing for my kids.

A trip to the Melbourne Museum was just what we all needed!

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