Category Archives: Ages past

telling it the way it was

Historyetc – Design your own Kingdom – one of the ways we home educate.

Posted on Wed Nov 16 2011 by Jax

We’re using Story of the World Book 2 with our history etc monthly meetup. The idea is that each family does the reading separately and then we come together once a month and each family brings one or two craft … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past | Tagged | 6 Comments

Just to prove that we still home educate – chinese peg dolls.

Posted on Wed Jul 27 2011 by Jax

It’s history etc day hosted by Helen, with crafts supplied by Zoe and Katy, which mainly my children ignored and ran around with their friends in the sun. Apparently Smallest can climb the wrong way up quite a large slide … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Coming towards the end of our Kentwell time this year

Posted on Wed Jul 6 2011 by Jax

We’re well over halfway through our re-enactment time at Kentwell now. We have dressed as tudors, spoken as tudors, worked as tudors, eaten as tudors. We sleep, thankfully, as 21st century folk, although it must be said that there are … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past | Tagged , | 8 Comments

Preparing for cybermummy

Posted on Fri Jun 24 2011 by Jax

Or maybe not… So far this morning I’ve turned linen into a shift, and now wool into a kirtle. Yes, that’s a kirtle. Bit like a pinafore dress. It’s not finished yet, but it’s a lot closer than it was … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Making things, review | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Nazca peg dolls for historyetc

Posted on Thu May 12 2011 by Jax

If you’ve never heard of Nazca culture, you probably aren’t working through The Story of the World the way we are. One of the things I love about home education is learning alongside the children, and history is a fairly … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Doodling, drawing and decoration., Making things | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Barely tweeting, mainly living.

Posted on Sat May 7 2011 by Jax

Wake up. Feed Smallest milk before getting out of bed. Potter a bit, put kettle on, breakfast Smallest and snack myself, eventually saunter out for a run. Run 1.5 miles on just under 16 minutes. Home, shower, dress. Somewhere in … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Big, Getting to know you | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

Kentwell and 1553.

Posted on Sat Mar 19 2011 by Jax

Today I dragged the children out of bed just after 7, nearly three hours earlier than their preferred rising time in order to drag them 45 mins across country to an open day for potential re-enactors at Kentwell Hall. It … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Big, It's where it is, Small steps, Soa | Tagged , , , , | 5 Comments

Minotaur peg doll puppet for historyetc

Posted on Thu Jan 27 2011 by Jax

Once a month or so we clamber in the car and trek a fair distance to meet up with other home educating families and join in a history club. It’s based loosely on The Story of the World: Ancient Times, … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Making things | Tagged , , , , | 10 Comments

I really must stop shooting myself in the foot.

Posted on Thu Nov 11 2010 by Jax

Especially when it has adverse effects on the children This morning we were due to set out early or mid morning for historyetc. I stayed up late trying to get stuff done beforehand, and then got up early to finish … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Getting to know you | Tagged | 5 Comments

More prize winning shenanigans

Posted on Sat Oct 23 2010 by Jax

A little while back I entered a competition in the Times. It was celebrating/ promoting the National Trust Food Glorious Food campaign, and it included both admission and meal vouchers. I won. I like winning competitions So on Thursday we … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Getting to know you, places we like | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Blickling hall.

Posted on Sun May 9 2010 by Jax

While we were camping at Deersglade campsite, most of our friends spent bank holiday monday at Bewilderwood. As a family we didn’t fancy that – we’re not good at queuing, and I had a feeling queues may be involved on … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Big, Doodling, drawing and decoration., It's where it is, Small steps | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

How do you get from no structure to sats

Posted on Mon Dec 7 2009 by Jax

in one quick year? Today I had the children do a Level 3 Sats Maths paper. Earlier this year they were doing nothing structured at all while I waited for them to deschool, so how and why have we got … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Big, Jonny had two apples, Small steps, how we do it | 29 Comments

Quick round up.

Posted on Sat Dec 5 2009 by Jax

While soa is happy in her bouncy chair. She’s increasingly awake and alert during the day, and also increasingly happy to be separated from me for more than a minute at a time. It’s not many minutes though, so I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Big, Doodling, drawing and decoration., Jonny had two apples, Puters!, Small steps, fainting in coils, reeling, writhing | Leave a comment

A tale of two children.

Posted on Thu Nov 5 2009 by Jax

My children are very similar, and very different. I’m often accused of cloning, which I find amusing now that they are growing up – Big’s hair has darkened and her blue eyes are now brown. Small is still blond and … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Big, Doodling, drawing and decoration., Jonny had two apples, Puters!, Small steps, Where did you say you were going?, how we do it, reeling, writhing, rhythm of the day | 8 Comments

Still trying hard.

Posted on Wed Oct 28 2009 by Jax

Didn’t get through our routine bits yesterday due to an early morning appt for Tim and myself, but did on Mon and today. Regular maths is giving Big confidence to attempt sums while out and about – she worked out … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Big, Doodling, drawing and decoration., Jonny had two apples, Making things, Puters!, Small steps, fainting in coils, reeling, writhing | 1 Comment

Never off duty

Posted on Mon Oct 26 2009 by Jax

for reasons that we won’t go into in detail here, Big was banned from gameboy, tv and computer today in a triple whammy never seen before. And as we don’t do sit down work on a Sunday, this meant I … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Big, Doodling, drawing and decoration., Jonny had two apples, Making things, fainting in coils, reeling, writhing | 6 Comments

Another week sails by.

Posted on Sat Oct 10 2009 by Jax

Wednesday was Maths, English and comparative religion. Well, comparative in that we compared it to the theory of evolution we’d looked at over the previous couple of days Small didn’t think much of it, he likes evolution, and keeps drawing … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Big, Doodling, drawing and decoration., Jonny had two apples, Puters!, Small steps, fainting in coils, reeling, writhing, rhythm of the day, speaking in tongues | Leave a comment

More idioms, new shoes and rhyming slang at the dinner table.

Posted on Wed Oct 7 2009 by Jax

Children did maths and English first off – more work on idioms for Big, trying to draw humorous pictures to illustrate various idioms. Not sure about the humour value of the pictures, but it did get her thinking about the … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Big, Doodling, drawing and decoration., Jonny had two apples, Puters!, Small steps, fainting in coils, reeling, writhing | 2 Comments

Not everything has a why…

Posted on Mon Oct 5 2009 by Jax

declared Small this evening. He’d been asking for Brown Beaver’s phone number, and I wanted to know why he wanted it. He said that not everything had a why, and I said I thought it did. His response was that … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Big, Doodling, drawing and decoration., Jonny had two apples, Making things, Montessori minded, Puters!, Small steps, reeling, writhing | 9 Comments

Orford castle.

Posted on Fri Sep 25 2009 by Jax

After a couple of days off working due to our hectic social life I was quite pleased with the children’s attitudes yesterday. Small did a sheet on telling time, plus a maths practice, and some reading, while Big did some … Continue reading →

Posted in Ages past, Big, Jonny had two apples, OU, Puters!, Small steps, fainting in coils, places we like, reeling, writhing, things that go bang | 1 Comment