and a long week since posting. Properly, anyway ๐
So is there anything to recap? I’ve had days with the children Mon and Fri – Mon I was supposed to go in to the office for the evening but I was so shattered I worked from home and keeled over into my own bed. Fri I was due to work from home and that went OK, apart from Small trying to kill himself by diving headfirst into the side of the bath ๐ Yesterday afternoon we went to M’hell yet again – I wanted henna ๐ We had food in the Oasis foodcourt, where there was a display from the Bollywood Dreams dance academy – got to say I really rather preferred it to some displays we’ve seen recently, and the children were utterly fascinated. We popped into the Crocs shop, but they didn’t have any that fit Big ๐ so the rest of us didn’t try. Then to Build-a-bear workshop for the last bit of grandfather’s birthday money – Frog now has his very own Buzz lightyear costume, and Big’s bear has a makeup kit?!
Middle of the week was nice – we spent Weds evening off the path and had a lovely curry. Kids got to run around and scream for a while which always seems to go down well, and we got to spend an evening with J & J, which we very much enjoy. Broke the week up nicely as well, with a whole evening away from computers and tvs.
Which brings us pretty much up to date. I’ve been doing some more thinking about this education lark – there were some comments made, not to me, last weekend that imply various relatives feel we are shortchanging our children in educational terms. I find this difficult to believe – Big is now reading at a level I wouldn’t begin to try to assess age wise, and is miserable if prevented from doing so regularly. Her grasp of geography far surpasses mine (though that really isn’t all that difficult :oops:) and her maths is coming on, with lots of exercise around money giving her practical skills as well as what she’s learning in school. Her spelling/ writing are still a little rough, but she loves to write and I’m sure that given time and chance to exercise those skills it will come along. Tonight she wrote out the shopping list and it’s all pretty much there. Above and beyond the variety of subject type assessments I could make, she is mature and caring, with an attitude that scares me a lot of the time, but overall, she’s just great.
What is she supposed to be missing? The two days she doesn’t go to school (in the week, discounting the weekend) I try to let her lead the way, although if I get nervous at the amount of dead tv, I will suggest a variety of activities. She uses a computer a lot, plays games, is proficient with google, blogs, emails and tonight was using Google sketchup. Hm, maybe I didn’t ought to discount the weekend after all! Last night Small and her made a book – he drew the pictures and she annotated them. They did it together without any assistance other than an explanation of how to use the stapler, and it’s absolutely fabulous. I’m really hoping they will do more. His artwork is coming along another jump – he drew a tractor last night. It’s in yellow though, so I’m not sure it would photograph or scan. Won’t be long before he is writing his own narrative I think – he’s bursting into letters all over the place.
Why oh why do ppl feel that they should stick their oar in without first finding out the facts? I think Montessori isn’t considered proper education – it’s a bit faddy. Nowhere near as faddy as the national curriculum and sats if you ask me. And unschooling is definitely out of the question, you can’t trust children to just do what they are designed to do and learn, can you?
I’m glad I wasn’t party to the conversation last week, as it would have spoiled a lovely day for me. But I’m looking forward to taking up the topics raised with the ppl concerned very soon. grumph.
HelenHaricot says
ya boo sucks to rellies. mine are not overwhelmed with HE either.
looking forward to kessie
Jax says
two weeks of evening shifts to Kessie I think…
Daddybean says
I tend to think that it’s not worth the effort to try to make people understand what HE is about. People are so used to the idea of education=school, and of school being about certain things (lots of sitting in a classroom etc.). They can’t really separate the two. So they then assume that children must be missing out because they aren’t doing what they would be doing in school.
Deb says
What is she supposed to be missing?
My thoughts exactly; it always sounds to me like she’s doing very well indeed ๐
Gill says
Ditto. She sounds to be doing great. Is someone jealous, perhaps? Or worried about their own, or their offspring’s education and projecting their fears onto you?