School and autonomy side by side

Thought it was about time I got back to talking about home education a bit as that is what this blog is theoretically about. Might as well try to sucker in some of the passing breastfeeding traffic anyway 😉

To recap, atm, the children attend a small montessori school two days a week. They seem to enjoy this very much – I get glowing reports from the staff each evening, and from the children later on. Actually, the best evidence I can present for how much they enjoy it is how difficult it is to get them to leave! Usually takes me at least 20 minutes to drag them out of the door, hugely less than amusing when I know I’m facing an hours drive home, and it’s already 6pm. Doesn’t bother them, they sleep in the car 😀

Then the rest of the week they’re home, with a mix of childcare arrangements. Used to be that they spent Thursday evening at Big’s ballet lesson with Grandma, but that has fallen by the wayside since the school started practising for their show. Big didn’t want to be in the show, which appears to mean that they aren’t particularly interested in her being in the lessons – she was relegated to one side of the room and pretty much ignored. I’m thoroughly unimpressed with this, and will be writing to the proprietor to make my feelings clear. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with them having a show, but if appearing in it is really optional, there ought to be arrangements that mean that children not appearing aren’t discouraged as Big has been. 🙁 Anyway, Grandma has taken to coming over anyway and doing tea with them, which is good.

And then one day a week I work from home. I try to get a head start on my hours by doing more at work, and sneaking in some prep in the evenings. It works reasonably well, and gives us a quiet day. Apart from the screaming 😉

Big spent this morning trying to count her money. A week or so back she came home from school counting confidently in tens, well, that skill seemed to desert her this morning. She also doesn’t get the shortcuts of starting with the biggest coins and going down, but she isn’t particularly receptive to advice of this type, she just wants the answer – now!

Small drew.

Then Big started plotting a buildyourownbear thing. A leaflet came with the free paper or some such, and she is desperate to buy a bear. She can’t quite get her head around how it works, despite me showing her how to find the website for herself, and then showing her how to navigate through the buildabear workshop session. I’m not prepared to fund the purchase of another stuffed toy, we have an excellent sufficiency already if you ask me. But she got money for her birthday from her Grandfather, with the injunction she should spend it, and while a large portion is earmarked for a bike, she wants to spend the rest of it – now! (Are you spotting today’s theme yet?) So we argued a little about that, because apparently me not taking her to buy a bear right this second meant there was nothing else she could do with her day.

Small fell over, wept for a moment, had a (very) quick cuddle then sneaked onto the computer while she wasn’t looking. I loaded up Thomas and left him to it.

Big got over the whole bear thing and I got the duplo out. They spent a lot of time on it, although Big did drift off to the computer again for a while. Small watched tv, and joined in with Dora. The child who couldn’t speak a month ago is now working on being bilingual. Oh, and I discovered at lunchtime that when he fell over he split his lip quite badly, although he’d shoved away from me so rapidly I didn’t see it at the time. He was covered in blood! Eugh.

Big worked her way through the pictures in several early reader books I’d put together in a box for her, things like Little Bear and Franklin. She refused to try to read them though, and I had a bit of a strop at her, pointing out that if she wants to read, she needs to try, and that practise is the only thing that’s going to sort out her difficulties with it. (The commonest complaint is that she’s too slow, and I don’t know another way to get over that.)

Tea, bath and bed, and Big took one of her chapter book ballet stories with her. Obviously the second I’m trying to insert her into bed is the right moment to decide to start decoding a chapter book. Anyway, while I’m trying to insert Small into his pjs, she’s reading out loud and spelling words for me to explain to her. I’ll grant that Weezer isn’t very common, but how can a child who can read ‘excellent’ struggle with ‘never’? 🙄 Although I suppose that could be psychological. 😀 Then Tim got back with our tea, so I left her to it, and she wrote out the ones she couldn’t read for when I next went up. I think she must have lost interest quite rapidly, as there were only three words for me to help with, but at least it was a start.

Overall, I’m happiest that them going to school hasn’t stopped the sponge affect at home. I do know that one of her friends who’s been at school for well over a year now still can’t read, and won’t try, because ‘it’s not a schoolbook’ 😕 I don’t ever want them to develop that distinction of life and education, because I don’t think it helps anyone. And so far, they haven’t.