astrophe. ah yes, those conversations....
My christmas...jaysus, I had those conversations with pretty much everyone. The trouble is-I KNOW they are genuinely interested but...by the third or fourth I am thinking of doing an A4 sized FAQ and just handing it out...god it gets boring.
DP helps quite a lot. He will help more, we are really just easing into it since ds is technically Foundation Stage. We are taking this year to get ourselves into a rhythm. He does 3 things. 1. gives me time to plan by taking the kids (I spend a lot of time on this ATM as I am getting my head round it, I expect this to reduce substabtially) 2. Input on "curriculum" (oh more of that below) 3. He does some specific "curriculum" stuff with them in the evenings, which works well for everyone.
We are kind of unschoolers atm and hope to stay that way. BUT only really because both my kids are quite unteachable, even by normal 3 yo/18 mo standards...it works for us, ds is picking up early reading stuff, BUT if he is asked to do something and he in any way feels he is being patronised, he will switch off.
My "method" is to think of fun and exciting things that teach what I think ds needs to know, and invite them to do them. Basically cooking, gardening, and so on. Before an activity I normally prepare (or find on t'internet) a large print sheet with pictures going through what we are doing, and also try to find and read some books to support what we are doing. And then if the activity sparks any further questions or whatever, we follow those up.
One thing I have been struck by is how much ds LOVES non fiction and instruction stuff.
Am not sure if this is unschooling or what...actually I think technically its "strewing"...but if it works...
there are some good websites out there with "lesson plans" which help a lot with this. Just structuring, really.
I also have some montessori stuff which is good cos it breaks things down into steps.