ok, the title to be said in a horrified tone!
After a couple of queries, i am popping our current form of ticksheet on the blog. These were my guilty secret that i fessed up to over a year ago! Home ed is a crazy thing, in that there are pretty much as many ways of doing it as there are home educators, and the way you do it may well change over time. Reading our mission statements you can see that we claim to be child led, not autonomous. it works here that instead of actually strewing the house with interesting stuff – cos it is enough of a mess anyway without hiding interesting stuff in piles – we write down what some of the possibilities are on a sheet. I am sure we could have come up with an interesting name for it, but ticksheet seemed to suffice! And just noticed it still says timetable on the file from the days when it used to try and be a timetable – some v long time ago, as timetables didn’t work for us!
What we did was to incorporate things that have been called ‘normals’ elsewhere, and that we thought should be ongoing with things that SB particularly wanted to learn/do. Actually, the ticklist is a far more collaborative work that you could be fooled into thinking, and all the elements of it have gone up or down in number or changed entirely as time has gone on. Also, you may notice, that apart from a few, there isn’t a timed or amount value placed by the elements. so for things like the english section, which Sb agreed she was ready to work on, having prev not been so keen on writing, these activities are not hugely long or onerous, because the aim is to encourage and improve, not wrote learn into hatred.
You may also notice there are loads of items! This is mostly to encourage variety, there will always be something there that will grab attention. SB is aiming for 25 things on the whole, and if does 30, gets a book – fab! SB gets to choose what she fancies doing, and if it isn’t on there, she can add it in a free box or on the bottom. It isn’t an exhaustive list, just a tidier version of strewing! You may notice the bolding and grin – I like bold! yes, this isn’t exactly a fair fight list, in that the bold things are things that SB and I agreed were important, and she should try and do enough of to get a fair balance. if a few weeks go by and say no maths was done, i would point it out, and ask her to do some. On the whole, tho, i haven’t had to do a great deal of nudging.
You may also notice that mathletics is the only computer thing on there. There have been more, loads of different kinds of ones, but they just never happened, and so they came off. periodically we have tried again – education city, cd-roms etc, but she isn’t so computer fixed.
Can she tick the same box more than once? yes definately if bolded box, with discussion for some of the others. yes, I do value arts and crafts, but actually we do a lot of those, so don’t need this strewing tool to encourage!
Can she change things – yes, have planned to add board game as one of the boxes, as she would like that put in. Is it in the national curriculum – well, it could be, strategy etc etc! but our education is about broad, fun, warp and weft still so yes, in it goes.
The holiday timetable – I don’t honestly expect them to do this do i? well, once i had a bribe of a book, then SB wanted the possibility of getting the book at holiday weeks, and so if you look, a lot of this easy to do in car travelling from place to place, inclusive of museum info etc etc.
BB’s ticksheet. DO you honestly think once SB could win a book that bB wouldn’t want to too?? hers is far simpler, but she does do it!
The underlined bit. i wanted to show committment in these to doing things together. actually alot of it happens together anyway, but somethings are easier to organise. the fact book with daddy is to perhaps look through a more complicated book that SB wouldn’t choose. The one with BB is to get used to reading aloud and discussing with sib – and actually this is new, and working v well.
Would i recommend this – well, it has been working for us for over a year. but it isn’t perfect, and not good for everyone. SB hasn’t yet displayed an overwhelming passion to just do loads of x. If she did, then this wouldn’t work! Having linked to them on the blog, has encouraged me to have a bit of a fiddle again, and will tweak and turn them a bit more to add things and subtract things!
SO, if you have ideas how to improve, want to share your method, or just comment that you are plain horrified, please do!
so picked up a geocache that had been a failed to find before 
today started, as always, with BB hurling hersel on me, squiggling, squirming, and thoroughly waking me up! SB came in with book to snuggle and continue to read – horrible histories Barmy British Empire, which she has now nearly finished. Downstairs to have breakfast, and then to check on rabbits. snuggling, holding bigger babies and the adults – snowy much happier to be held, Skittles not so, but had to be checked as ok – so far so good! little babies still there, and the pink ones looking like they might be spotty. I don’t think this new litter can beat the old for diversity and adorableness tho!!
so BB! she wore her leaving present to C whilst she made it – another present she couldn’t part with. there is a theme here! this took quite some time, with a break in the middle to eat pizza crumpets for lunch – yummy!!