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carnival

On not going back to school. Staying at not school?

13th August 2018 by Jax Blunt Leave a Comment

We went out and about today, and bought stationery for the new not-school year that’s fast approaching. None of this terminology makes much sense. As I’ve said, we’ve drifted into an unschooling lifestyle where there’s really not a lot of division in the day between overtly educational activities and games and playing and just life really.

Having said that, with me heading towards (hopefully) an out of home work routine, I have put a reward chart type thing up on the wall to remind the younger two of their options. I’ve recently signed up to Skoolbo for them which has a batch of curriculum linked materials – little and often is useful in building confidence particularly in core subjects like Maths and English that they *will* need qualifications in. I’m also looking into Doodlemaths after a reasonably successful trial – yes, the more maths games the better. So they’ve got a line on the charts to remind them to do one or the other of those 5 days a week, and I’ve got a line to remind me to do writing πŸ˜‰

Yup, I’m on the reward chart too. I’m not using it as a reward scheme, I’m using it as a visual reminder – a prompt for the days when I’m not about all day to do the prompting in person. Obviously there will be one or more other adults about (yes, we have two other adults in the household these days!) but I’ve taken the lead in educational terms, and this is my way of keeping that running smoothly.

As well as that, today we bought some fab cardboard people templates (Poundland, 20 for Β£1, and some brill Bic crayons, really bright and not messy, 8 for Β£1) (sadly not a sponsored post, do let let me know if you’ve got any openings there Poundland!), and then spent some time making paper clothes for them. (Spot that sneaky fine motor control, pen work etc etc.) The conversations were brilliant as well, as Smallest made herself a girl doll, and then gave her a naughty younger brother – no idea where that inspiration came from!

One other bargain today – a copy of Britannia, 100 Great Stories from British History for Β£1.50 from a local charity shop. (Amazon affiliate link incoming).

We read the introduction and the first story tonight, as we did our Whangdoodle chapter at lunchtime. (I like reading to them as often as possible, and from as many varied types of books – fiction, sort of fiction, poetry – they love pretty much anything.)

And that was our home ed day.

I was wondering if anyone wanted to write a bit about their not back to school plans, and we could have a bit of a carnival, say in about 3 weeks time? A carnival is where you write something on your blog, and send me the link and then I write up a post with all the links in and preferably you put a link in your original post to that post and then everyone can find all of them. So like this – from back in 2013. If you’d like to submit something home education, or flexi schooling, or unschooling or alternative school related, either pop a link into my comments, or send it to me on twitter or facebook. Preferably by 31st August, so that I’ve got time to compile the carnival posts πŸ™‚

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Filed Under: carnival, Doodling, drawing and decoration., how we do it, It's where it is Tagged With: Britannia, carnival, doodlemaths, educational resources, Poundland, skoolbo, unschooling

Getting my act together as an educational blogger – call for carnival posts.

10th September 2013 by Jax Blunt 20 Comments

I really really loved running the not back to school carnival. And I get the impression that it was pretty popular with a lot of home ed and other bloggers. So, I wondered if we could make an educational carnival a regular thing?

Who is up for that?

I was thinking maybe 4th Thursday of the month, which would be 26th September, so if people are up for it and got posts to me by Monday 23rd, I could have it live then. I’d be open for any home ed related posts, but could suggest a theme each month so there would be two sections – themed posts and otherwise. For this month I was thinking maybe favourite resources?

That could be online, offline, books, TV programs, DVDs, games, whatever floats your boat really. And I’m also thinking that this isn’t about school bashing, so if anyone who does use school, but also likes their educational resources would like to join in, I’d be quite happy for that to happen, I hope that makes sense. When it comes down to it, we’re all in this together, however we choose to parent and educate our offspring.

If I’m going completely mad, feel free to let me know. But if you’re up for joining in, feel free to send me a post via the contact form, twitter, or the comments here. Looking forward to seeing what you all come up with.

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Filed Under: carnival Tagged With: carnival, home education, resources

The Not Back to School Carnival – because education is mandatory, but school isn't.

2nd September 2013 by Jax Blunt 24 Comments

Bubbles on the beach

Home education is a valid and legal option. And there are lots of people doing it. This is a carnival of celebration, of encouragement, and I’m thrilled that so many people have joined in.

So without further ado, let’s take a wander. You may remember I posted some prompts – a few people have taken me up on some or all of them.

Hannah of Caterpillar tales covers the lot, including some wonderful pictures. In one of two posts, Anni addresses the daftest question she’s been asked about home education – that’s not actually a question I’ve been asked, but there you go. Keris is wondering how anyone could think that home education removes the children’s choices – she’s got a reasoned response to the question though.

Someone who has made a life out of following your heart, Nic brings on the dancing ponies as you would for a carnival – I’d call her inspirational, but I know that makes her giggle πŸ˜‰

Tech is another person who has upped stakes and travelled. They are settled at the moment, and she describes a primal sort of education in her carnival post.

Jo has done a round up of how home education has worked for them over the past 4 years. Mamacrow had a think about what her ideal home education would look like while Jo is growing weeds. Peapod is waiting for exam results as she ponders my questions.

Momma of mojo shares a lightbulb moment while Zoe answers why she home educates her hobbits. Mother Scuffer has a mix of back and not back to school children as does Alison of the Portico, who thinks this may be her last not back to school year.

Heading towards flexi schooling Leoarna wants to know whose curriculum is it anyway? and Nikki chooses this time of year to do an annual reevaluation of their education and how it works. She has also written up a fab post describing what home education looks like for them now.

Some older posts – Mamacrow chases away the doubts of I couldn’t do that Vanessa shares why they chose to home educate, Tania has compiled a why, where and how and Katie answers everything you ever wanted to know. We’ve even a post from down under, from when Shae’s children didn’t go back to school in January.Β And here’s the last carnival I shared, back in 2010.

Some fabulous posts there. I’m really hoping I’ve included everything I’ve been sent, but if I’ve missed something, just yell! If you’ve one you’d like to link to, please do pop it in the comments and I’ll add it into the post when I’ve a minute. Grab a cup of tea and enjoy.

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Filed Under: blog for good, carnival, how we do it Tagged With: carnival, home education, homeschooling, not back to school

Learning to read – a carnival!

10th May 2011 by Jax Blunt 2 Comments

So sorry this has taken me so long to post.

without any further ado…

Here’s Katie from Outside the Box with her Change makes you wanna hustle post about different approaches for different children.

Drool over the absolute gorgeousness that is Chris’s post on the subject, Ready to Read, Something for the weekend. (Seriously, I felt inadequate trying to blog about the topic after I read this one. I need a better camera at the very least!)

And then take in the wise words from TbirdAnni who knows that not every child just gets it from the start: When words are an uphill struggle. Great tips and encouragement from someone who has experienced dyslexia from both sides of the fence as it were.

Katherine at Teknohippy shares how the process worked for her daughter E in E learnt to read while Zoe isn’t quite sure she’s doing it right – To read or not to read?.

Maggie from RedTedArt shared a fab crafty post sneaking letters into baking, or is that the other way around? Book and Cook – Alphabet Book while Carol tells us about four different children enjoying Real Reading.

Tasha reminded me of her Book Week posts – Tuesday was a whole day of learning to read posts, so check the round up while Ali from Fantastic Reads shared her memories of learning to read and the books that inspired her

Rachel from Midlife Singlemum shares her thoughts on the deeper importance of sharing stories at bedtime.

And my own post on it all? All I know is it’s different every time. But I have a plan. Learning to read, take three.

If I’ve managed to lose anyone’s post I grovel and abase myself hugely, and if you remind me, I’ll oh so happily add it in. Hope it’s of some use to ppl and thank you to everyone who contributed.

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Filed Under: carnival, how we do it Tagged With: carnival, dyslexia, home education, learning to read

Learning to read, take three.

9th May 2011 by Jax Blunt 2 Comments

What with the whole home education thing, I’ve been very involved in the learning to read process for both of my older children. I think I’ve learnt something from that experience.

Point 1 – there is no one way that suits all children. I know about the current educational vogue for synthetic phonics, and I suppose in a way Small learnt to read using phonics, but he doesn’t sound things out and never did. He skipped that stage of Montessori in a matter of days and went from not appearing to know all the individual sounds to working through Stile trays to a quick flirtation with Oxford Reading tree and suddenly reading fluently in the space of a single term. And when I say reading fluently, I mean reading Harry Potter. By contrast we laboured on a huge variety of methods with Big from age 3 (when she asked to learn to read) to about age 6 when she finally cracked it. Not a set of years I plan to repeat to be honest, it wasn’t fun. (And if you don’t believe me, have a wander through the archives. It’s all there, in glorious black and white.)

Point 2) It ought to be fun. Reading is a fabulous tool, but it does no one much good if they don’t enjoy it. Turning kids off by trying too hard too soon to get them reading is totally counter productive. The vast majority of kids *will* get there in the end, so take it easy, and trust the process.

Point 3) I’m not sure I have one πŸ™‚

I do have a plan though. With Smallest, we read loads. More I suspect than we did with either of the others, when reading had to be fitted in around everything else we did (like working and commuting and living and so on), and kind of was an item on a good parent checklist. So reading happened, but it wasn’t natural or spontaneous in a way I think it probably works best.

my bookThis time around, there are books everywhere (well, OK, there have always been books everywhere…) and reading goes on all the time. In the bathroom during nappy change, though I don’t let her take board books in the bath. Mean mummy πŸ˜‰ Out in the garden. At the leisure centre. Wherever we are – there’s always a book or two in my bag, or she might even be carrying her own… There are also extra readers who both demonstrate the skillset in use on a near to daily basis and read to her as well.

demonstrating

And I’m not planning on actively teaching her to read. I’m going to follow a bit of a Montessori approach with it – I already do in fact. So when we look at alphabet style books, I trace the large letter with my finger and “This is a. a.” in much the way sandpaper letters are used. (I won’t be using sandpaper letters when we get to that stage. I might make them out of hama again. But sandpaper makes my skin crawl, so no, no sandpaper!) Sometimes she traces the letter too, sometimes she doesn’t. It’s not that important yet, and really, I wouldn’t expect her to do any of that for a good couple of years if not longer.

As she gets more interested though, I will try to find some kind of movable alphabet. I think this is a fabulous tool – children learn to ‘write’ without actually having to write. It means they learn to spell, and hear the sounds in words without having to decode the squiggly things on the page, it’s coming at reading from a whole different direction. And I know it works – I saw it in action at Montessori lots of times.

When we get past that stage, I might bring in pink materials (probably home made rather than this sort of download, I’m linking it to give you an idea. Note that really you should start with real things instead of abstracts in the form of pictures, so a very small toy cup, a toy hen, that sort of thing) mainly because they are fun. And if I go to use a reading scheme, the one I like best is Bob books. (And you can get it as an app for your iPhone! Drat, first time I’ve wanted an iPhone. Maybe not the best reason so far…)

And hopefully, that will be pretty much all we need. That, and time and patience. So, like I said, I have a plan.

This post will soon be featured in the learn to read carnival I’m ever so rapidly writing…

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Filed Under: carnival, how we do it, It's where it is, reeling, writhing, Soa Tagged With: bob books, learning to read, Montessori, Stile trays

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