How 'Bout Some FUN?

I have to confess that I am LOVING the freedom of homeschooling. Our schedule is delightful! Joy and I can take a field trip on a whim, make "school" out of moving the kindergarten stuff to a new room, or have a shaving cream party in our yard!

That's just what we did yesterday. A couple of weeks ago, I had provided Joy and her best friend some shaving cream, and they played with it. They had a great time, but I thought of lots of possiblities for foamy fun. So I planned a Shaving Cream Party. Kind of like our Mud Party, only cleaner.  And boy, was it fun!!!

The kids slid and slipped and danced and fell and surfed and belly-flopped in the shaving cream. They giggled and chuckled and outright squealed with delight in the slippery fun. They covered themselves (and each other!) in shaving cream, clapped their hands and sprayed cream everywhere, and they added the big plastic political signs (from about 10 years ago; they were stored in our barn!) to make the slide longer.

It was great fun! I wouldn't trade that afternoon for much of anything in this world. It was one of the joys of homeschooling: The freedom to pursue silliness with abandon. I'm certain that's not in any educational standards or benchmarks! But was it educational??

Hmmmmmm...... Here are some of the things that convince me that Joy was learning yesterday, amidst her fun:
1) She helped plan the party! In other words, she counted cups, popcicles, figured out what we might want out besides shaving cream, and generally prepared for the guests;
2) She realized very quickly that the political signs added lots of fun, but should be overlapped. We all learned that they should all be overlapped the same direction to avoid small gouges in knees and ankles! And
3) Joy learned that meeting new people and including them was a positive thing. She hadn't met one of the families that participated before, and she was a little leery of having new kids, but she absolutely loved  the slightly older girls that helped spray the shaving cream and then slid with as much enthusiasm as the smaller kids. She said to me afterward, "Can we invite _______ again?? I wish they had come to the Mud Party!"

I'm sure she learned much about balance and slipperiness and more, but the most important thing that happened was the pure bliss of doing something goofy and enjoying it so thoroughly!  I loved it, too.