Making It Up

as we go along

how we do it

autonomy vs peace and quiet…

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I have been waiting since January for my children to deschool, stop watching endless CBBC or playing on mind numbing websites, for them to show and develop some interests and learn to get along instead of screeching and bickering all day.

I’ve run out of patience 🙁

Maybe I don’t respond in the right way or quickly enough to expressed interests? Perhaps my purposive conversation is either not present enough or too purposive? Perhaps eight months isn’t a long enough deschooling time frame for three years of flexi school at Montessori?

Or perhaps my children just need a bit of structure and to be stretched every now and then. I’m so sold on autonomy and the theories of John Holt that I’ve felt terribly guilty this week – but not guilty enough to not impose a work requirement on the offspring.

So now, each morning, we do a bit of maths, a bit of english and something else. The something else varies from day to day, and I’ve tried to follow up on their interests. The TV is banned between the hours of 9 and 3 (would be 9 and 5, but realistically, that would mean that 3 days a week one or the other of them would see no TV and I can’t be that hard hearted). They each still have their two half hour computer slots, and if they are doing something educational/ work related, computer time extends.

And how has it worked this week?

Well, the first day Small did his work quickly and cheerfully. By the third day, he was resistant, thinking of anywhere he’d rather be and anything he’d rather be doing. Which is irritating, because when he does come in and get set to, it takes him minutes to do the amount of maths I’m asking of him, another few minutes to read a chapter of the book I bought for him as he couldn’t think what he’d like to read (The Thing from Knucker Hole (Young Hippo Adventure)), and then he tends to enjoy whatever the third part is. So he loved science, liked looking at maps, and had no problems listening to and discussing The Story of the World: Ancient Times v. 1.

Big is another story. Her maths will improve with steady practise, but we’ve discovered that her English needs work in a number of areas. And I think that is what is holding her back doing some of the other things she wants to do. So instead of doing a unit a week from Focus on Literacy: Pupil Textbook Bk.5 we’re going to do a unit every other week and concentrate on basics in between times. Handwriting, spelling, punctuation, grammar, that sort of thing. Most of the time she reads of her own accord, although she had been on strike waiting for the next book in the series she’s reading, Conspiracy (Lady Grace Mysteries). That’s arrived now, so she’s reading again on an evening.

I’d kind of assumed that a child who reads as voraciously as she does would pick up the other stuff, but she isn’t doing, so I need to target it more directly. Still really wish I could find Small’s english book so that we could do bits out of that as well. But wherever he’s put it, it’s staying hidden 🙁

She loved the experiment she did this week, out of Outer Space (Funstations) I’d found. Lit candles under varying sizes of jars so that we could see what happened when the oxygen ran out. And we’d been having conversations about first ppl during the week anyway, so nomads in story of the world worked well for her.

In and amongst there was Brownies, Beavers, swimming, a not back to school picnic afternoon on the beach (fabulous weather, kids were in the sea on and off all afternoon), Tim popped to old hosue and brought back all the baby stuff so the children washed it all in the garden yesterday, oh and some blokes came round and cut down one of the hedges. Small cried. Turned out he’d really liked that hedge, even though Tim and I loathed it, and though we’d discussed removing it several times, Small hadn’t picked up on the discussions.

I’ve processed yet more bags of stuff from old house and now have large piles of clothing to process into storing. Oh, and Small had another visit to the doctors, who said that he has chronic otitis and prescribed a months worth of penicillin just in case it’s bacterial. Which apparently it probably isn’t. So am still umming and ahing over what to do about that.

This afternoon Tim and Small are at a Beavers mini Olympics – looks like Small at least is having fun.SmallBeaverOlympics

Curriculum courtesy of the red cross.

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Picked up several good books in the Red Cross yesterday and am planning to require a certain amount of purposeful or focussed activity each week as I still think that boredom is our largest problem here. I don’t want it to take a long time, and I’d rather avoid work for the sake of work, so I’m basing it mainly on their lists of what they want to learn, so we should all be happy.

For Big I found Focus on Literacy: Pupil Textbook Bk.5 which looks quite good – it has 30 units in it that are supposed to be covered one a week in school, and will easily make sure that she’s getting the basics. When I got it home I realised it’s exactly the right school year for her too, although I’d chosen it because I’d flicked through and thought it looks about the right level for her.

For both of them to share I picked up Flower Fairies of the Autumn. I don’t know whether other ppl’s children are as utterly oblivious as mine are to the world around them, but I am forever telling them to open their eyes and look about. With this and the usborne spotters I am determined to get them observing nature and recognising plants, insects and animals.

To follow Small’s expressed interests I found Space (DK Eye Wonder) and Outer Space (Funstations). Along with George’s Secret Key to the Universe which he’s still dipping into every now and then, I think we’ve got a pretty good basis for a space/ science project.

The final book turns out to have been part of a set. I don’t know what the rest of the set was like, but the maps and geography activity book I got for 25p is excellent. Another little project to come on maps, coordinates and so on I think 🙂

And of course we already have maths, in the form of My Pals are Here singapore maths. So I think we’re pretty well set for some routine work, which we can work more interesting projects around as and when the fancy takes us.

Until the next time we all fancy a change 🙂

home education, why and how – a blog roundup.

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At this time of the year, when so many children are starting or returning to school a small percentage are not. They are staying at home with their families and being home educated.

I asked readers to write a little something on why they chose home education, and how it works for them.

Sarah‘s children are back in school now, but she sent me a link to the posts she wrote about their home education journey – a fascinating read. It covers several years of their lives, so feel free to get yourself comfortable before you get comfortable.

Helen and Chris educate two beans, and Helen sent in a post explaining how they came to the family decision to home educate. I love peering into ppl’s pasts and minds, and Helen really opens up for us here.

Debbie shares with us 5 years of home educating life and freedom, summarised in just one post.

Tech set up a whole new blog so that she could write about her home education. It starts with why, and goes on to how and I’m really hoping she’s just going to keep on answering questions.

And as for us, I wrote a whys and hows post back in May which is still fairly pertinent 🙂 There are a couple of good comments on there too which are worth reading.

Merry comes through for carnival with a fab post on how to home educate, still, what would you expect from Mrs Muddlepuddle? 😉 and then goes on to write about why would you home educate, another thought provoking essential read. Without Muddlepuddle I wouldn’t have met many of the ppl I now call close friends, we wouldn’t have the blogring that sits at the top of this blog and my children wouldn’t have friends all over the country.

And Nic has done a round up of her previous blog posts which give insight into the why and how of her family’s home educating lifestyle, go and peruse.

Michelle gives us the history of why and how she came to home education and how it has evolved and worked for their family over the years they’ve been doing it. Fascinating to read another version of getting to a similar place but via a different route.

Maire joins in our round up by explaining how her daughter prompted their move to home education in response to her individual needs, and how it is working for them 3 years on.

Still they come, these marvellous posts. From Joyce, why do they home educate? Because they can. And Alison, my HE twin :lol:, HE, why and how. The why of how they got there, the how of here and now. From Grit, a photographic version. If it doesn’t make you aw, there’s something wrong 😉

Another post to add, from Kirsty this time, her answers as to how the internet provided the information and support she needed to home educate from the very start of her children’s lives.

Lovely quick soundbite from Mamacrow as well as a how it works – in defense of tables and a typical day 🙂

Mieke answers the question Why do you home educate? by turning it around, in the process giving us some handy answers to some of the standards myths that surround the home ed lifestyle choice.

Fabulous post from Kelly, inspired by a lovely day. It takes a village to raise a child, but I would rather it was a really funky HE group.

Caroline shares the home ed journey of a large family, including why they started, how they do it and the way it’s changed.

Sharan explains how they came to EHE child by child for their family of four, and how they go about it now.

Elizabeth explains the inspiration behind her home education, a quote that she found in her own childhood: Everything in life is an aspect of education, even if we don’t immediately grasp the lesson.

I’m hoping that I might get a few more posts trickle in over the next couple of days, so I’m going to sticky this to the front of the blog for the time being anyway. And Debs is planning a home education blog carnival to coincide with International Freedom in Education day, so get your thinking/ writing caps on for that one too 🙂

Home education – why and how? Call for posts

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In the past I’ve read some really inspiring posts on various ppl’s blogs on the why and how of how they came to home education and how it works for them as a family now.

I’d love to read some more of those posts, either updates from ppl who’ve written them before, or a first think about it from ppl just thinking about it now, particularly inspired perhaps by other stories, especially those that have come to light during the battles against the Badman review. For me I’ll do an update on how it particularly suits us at this point and what we’ve learnt from it along the way, and I’ll dig out the old posts and cross link them.

I’d also love to link to other ppl’s posts on the topic, so please feel free to leave links in comments here or send them to me via twitter, facebook or email so that I can gather them together in a carnival style post in a few days time. Send the links to me by Tues evening and I’ll publish a roundup on Weds?

Looking forward to reading all about you all.

If you all put the words home education in your blogpost title and in any tag fields you’ve got, that will help them to be more findable via search engines. This is the time of year when some ppl may be having second thoughts about a new school year, so a great time to get some extra publicity and information out there to the rest of the world too.