I think I may have inadvertantly given the wrong impression of our home ed life on twitter this morning.
https://twitter.com/liveotherwise/status/384976183114596352
This week, having once again given up on the idea that my children would organise themselves, I started a new structured routine. This calls for education to run between 9 and 1 each day, followed by lunch, then each child has a 1 hour tv slot each day (Tigerboy shares with Smallest). I get 2 hours of work time in the afternoon during Tigerboy’s nap and we’re still working out the finer details of who cooks when and who does what housework when.
(By which I mean I’m still trying to get other people to pull their weight.)
Like I say, day 2 today. And as today is Smallest’s swimming lesson, the morning gets a bit compressed as we’ve to set off to the pool at 12.30 at the latest.
So, by the time that tweet was sent, I’d assisted both older children with maths (Conquer maths for Big, Mathletics for Small), read a number of picture books to Tigerboy, fixed the body book after Smallest accidentally took apart the eye, and studied a Bob book or two with Smallest. I’d also done all the usual nappies, breakfast, washing on and even managed to get myself showered and dressed. (I did forget my own breakfast though.)
I *was* feeling quite impressed with myself by that point 😉
It then all came crashing down. Small is doing history, from Galore Park Junior History book 3 (see affiliate link for further details) and he had done all the easy exercises. Then he got to an exercise that asked him to imagine how a boy living in Colchester in 60BC might feel on hearing that Boudicca was approaching.
Oh dear. He is imaginative. He is creative. But he doesn’t do other people’s emotions, and try as we might, he could *not* put himself in another person’s shoes. Especially an imaginary person. (Although I did point out that the boy in question wasn’t imaginary, there doubtless were British boys of his age living there at the time.) So we to-ed and fro-ed over this for a while, and then I thought that I’d got him sorted and took the small children outside for fresh air and a snack while I got the washing hung out.
I was so wrong. He came out about 20 minutes later, still struggling. But, give him his due, he really really tried, and while it’s obviously something we need to do more work on, he got it done in the end.
Then the rest of us went off to Smallest’s swimming lesson.
Hm. Smallest is 3. 4 in November. She’s been having lessons for a while, she started at just under 2 I think, and then there were two teachers to four children. She’s gradually moved through a variety of groups and there are now up to 8 children (usually only 5 or 6 though) with two teachers. Except today there were 5 of them there, and only one teacher. All of us mothers muttered among ourselves, and then one headed off to the desk to ask what was going on. I sent Big through to the cafe with Tigerboy and followed on. At which point the first mother left me to it, and I got to take on the swimming lesson coordinator myself.
Apparently it’s legal. I can’t find any guidance for under primary age, but beginners of school age (education age!!) you can have up to 12! 12? Seriously? Can’t think that they’ll learn very fast. And she insisted it was safe. And that they would get their lesson properly. And then she gave up and took herself off to poolside and remained there. She didn’t speak to us after the lesson, nor did the instructor. I’m going to wait and see what happens – right at the moment Smallest is loving her lessons, so I don’t want to disrupt her unnecessarily. If we can muddle through until next year, she’ll be old enough to join the swimming club, and I know she’ll get thorough instruction there.
And obviously I asked twitter for opinions 😉
https://twitter.com/liveotherwise/status/385016817368182784
And after all of that, we unwound for a bit on the beach.
So tell me, was I overreacting? Is 5 three year olds (apparently one of them was 4 three weeks ago) in a swimming lesson acceptable? Or would you have had something to say too?
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