Coincidences and Their Infinite Possibilities

When you live your life with an appreciation of coincidences and their meanings, you connect with the underlying field of infinite possibilities.- Deepak Chopra

I am continually surprised by the coincidences we experience as we venture along our new educational path. Serendipity, kismet, luck, coincidence. Whatever you want to call it. Certain opportunities didn't present themselves to me before, or I wasn't able to see them. Now that my eyes are open and I am looking, I see opportunity everywhere.

My daughter loves chocolate, science and hands on creating. So a perfect gift, from her grandparents, was this Make Your Own Chocolate Kit. At the end of a unit, my daughter asked if we could do a unit on chocolate next and finish the unit by making the chocolate from the kit. I had loose plans for our next unit, so was able to think about it and say, "Yes!" The next day, we went to the library and gathered tons of books. We were ready to learn all about the history of chocolate, making of chocolate, farming of the cacao tree, fair trade laws and more.

The day we began our new new unit, I received an email from the homeschooling group we joined. The author of the email stated they were putting together a tour of a local chocolate factory and asked if anyone was interested in joining them. Serendipity, kismet, luck, coincidence! We replied at once before spaces filled up.

Thanks to the homeschooling group and the parent who organized the tour, we were able to see something so cool right here in our own town. What a fantastic addition to our unit on chocolate! From the library, we learned a lot about the bean, from plant to factory and the process the bean goes through until it is chocolate. I incorrectly assumed the tour would be more on this, reinforcing what we learned. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this factory melted chocolate and formed it into shapes, bars, pretzel clusters and more. Most of this work, they do by hand! So, we got to see, in person, what happens to chocolate after it's created, a great extension to what we had already learned.

I'm still amazed that this tour popped up right after we decided to study chocolate. But, as I said, I am finding more coincidences like this one. We saw cool skeletons at a local farm museum right after we completed a unit on the skeleton. The children's museum has an exhibit on the planets, and our first unit was the solar system. The list goes on. While these coincidences may have existed before, I didn't see them before. Maybe it helps knowing the kids' curriculums first hand, maybe it's that we have more free time to explore opportunities that present themselves, or maybe it's just my willingness to go out and "do it". Serendipity, kismet, luck, and coincidence are everywhere and I feel lucky to be able to take advantage of them!