Category Archives: General

I knew I should have blogged yesterday!

Posted on October 9, 2010 by | 4 comments

But I had got somewhat distracted by anger with the Royal Institution. yes, that place that i have raved about for their great science lectures for school aged children, and their welcome of HE-ers. Unfortunately no more! No, instead they are charging a slight increase to HE-ers compared with school educated children, as they are concentrating on ‘mainstream education’. Looking at the events, this turns out to be a factor of 400%. not so slight!

We welcome home educators to participate in the schools programme at the Royal Institution.

Our popular programme of demonstration events operate during school term times, and tickets are available through our events calendar. We charge a small ticket fee to minimise non-attendance and we invest ticket income into the events that we put on. Home educator fees are slightly higher than those for school parties, as our programme is primarily intended for those in mainstream education.

We charge a small ticket fee to minimise non-attendance and we invest ticket income into the events that we put on. Tickets for school groups are £1.50 per person (teachers and students). School groups are welcome to combine their visit with a tour of the museum. Call the schools dept on … for more information, or to book our limited space for your students to have lunch.
Home educators are welcome, priced at £8 for adults and £6 for young people. Home educators can buy Ri membership and get their tickets for £4.

if you find this to be as discriminating against home educated children as i do, feel free to contact them!

Hmm, lets get back to the task in hand – blogging! well, we are still moving things from the normal playroom/home ed room, as the windows are being stripped, fixed and painted, and messy, dusty and full of painters, so that took some time!

girls did some home ed in the conservatory with me – SB maths and handwriting, BB music theory and explode the code. SB also did some piano prac, oh, and had a golf lesson first thing! We finally parcelled and sent off chloe’s present.

We finished watching Prince Caspian, and then having made a spur of the moment date with lecielrouge family to geocache the following day, and having just received through the post our new travelbugs, we sat and made chunky fimo keyrings for them! well, i did and SB did, but BB made a v delicate one of me :) [which is lovely, tho not quite so representational] and chris already had a chrisbead made previously, so that they were all ready to go out. i did stay up somewhat late varnishing them…

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Posted in General

Chugging along

Posted on October 7, 2010 by | 5 comments

i have blog posts wrestling in my head to be first ones out! But it is going to be my account of the days! Yesterday we went to Merry’s and basically the girls played and we chatted [sobbed]. missed BB’s swimming lesson unfortunately :( SB still did judo tho. [editing to add, yes, it was a lovely day of chilling with a good friend x x we nattered, did a bit of grieving, a bit of gossiping, a bit of forward planning and the girls did playing, board games, imagination etc and BB and J were fab together and the rest got there after a shaky start :roll: which is why we were late home, as the girls voted with their feet, and I wasn't in a great hurry either]

Today I had a lazier start, with SB having slept in our bed last night, finally going to sleep at half past 1! Our book people order arrived :) I went to GP, and will now have to chat to occ health to see if can return without on call first. [appt arranged by work, should find out when 2moro], have some more time till can be organised, but starting to feel i could go back to the normal work bit, find my feet again, and then add the stressful out of hours bit. :) .

Girls and i decided to do some home ed in the conservatory, as nice and warm there. BB did some music theory and then some explode the code 1, and SB some galore park geography and recorder prac. We haven’t tried the galore park geography before, but talked about it, and SB thought she would give it a go. we did it quite a bit together to start with, as it begins with map reading, and we spent a while consolidating how to find the coordinates. once she got the hang of it it was fairly easy and fun, so she thinks she will do it again.

She also wants me to find nice italian workbook for her – argh. no hurry tho – phew! any suggestions? had a look on here, but so hard to tell! Made harder by the fact that I don’t speak Italian! SB recorder playing seems to have suddenly improved a lot as well :) enjoyed her playing today. BB had finished 10 ticks, so got to choose a book – a cartoon version of chaucers Canterbury tales – lol! Fab book!!

we played with rabbits and then [after washing hands!] had lunch in the conservatory as well. it is going to make a great HE space! After lunch we have got onto chapter 5 finally in Story of the World 1! [woohoo!!] for SB and BB, then started dismantling the playroom, as the painters need to go in there next :( BB off to gym, SB did piano prac and then we played landlock and rummy and then I took SB to gym [it is still quite an effort actually to leave the house tho]. BB returned with chris, and started to make a card for Uncle M [we forgot his birthday ::(: ] out of felt, needle felting it to make a pic, and it looks really good :) .

that pretty much finishes off the day. oh, dinner was watching the first half of Prince Caspian, so a change from David Attenborough!

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Posted in General

ticksheets what are we doing??

Posted on October 7, 2010 by | 10 comments

SB timetable

SB Holiday Timetable

BB timetable

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!

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Posted in Butterbean's HE, General, Ponderings, Stringbean's HE

drumming

Posted on October 5, 2010 by | 3 comments

well, today def woke up feeling bluergy and grieving, and strove to get going! girls did a library visit, and miracle of miracles all books bar one found! SB did some smelly spellings and gruesome grammar – we have agreed on trying to get her english up to scratch, as she now does like writing more! [wonders will never cease], some mathletics and read a bit of a horrible science.

somehow time had shuffled on quickly with BB reading library books, and chris and I making a presumptive sexing of the baby rabs. we decided all but fudge a girl, as fudge distinctively different! [tho with all that fluff, hard to actually access the area required!] and we had a quick lunch before racing out for a home ed group Djembe drumming. i have to say that i needed to leave the house like a hole in the head, and had v stern words with myself to get into the car! but was so glad to have done, as it was a really excellent session led by ‘ian’ who was really good at getting it going and working, with various children fluxing in and out – in fact had been really well organised with a separate room for children to go into to break! BB was absolutely thrilled with it, having had to be a bit coaxed by me due to shyness. SB also really enjoyed it. BB had a break in the middle, playing with my rather lovely charm bracelet but staying with me, and after about 3/4 of the session [1 1/2 hours in total i think] SB said her hands hurt, and took herself off to do some galore park history, whilst i took over. so, really good!

when i got home, was rung by vivien’s iain rennie nurse to see how i was getting on, and wept all over the place. sigh! SB went swimming. BB and i did a bit of dig a dinosaur, a bit of snuggling and reading, and then SB and i played nordic ticket to ride whilst BB watched loony tunes, and we finished off the eve with david attenborough telling us about insects. BB going through a clingy and temperamental phase. have to imagine it is something related to my mood!

oh, and we were right in the sexing of the first 4, and feel reasonably empowered to sex the second litter when the time comes!

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Posted in General

art instead day!

Posted on October 4, 2010 by | Leave a comment

blog will be short today, as not really feeling much like blogging, but i forget if don’t get it down! went to lecielrouge to mix with them and the puddles for their fortnightly art sessions! very lovely, even if BB on her more challenging side… they did do a great tree and leaf pic, and their take on merry’s fimo trees, and lots of playing :)

we then rushed SB to golf, but it was cancelled :( so picked up a geocache that had been a failed to find before :) and then SB had ballet whilst BB and i baked a v nice carrot cake. SB has done some maths on fractions this eve and a great piano prac – her pieces for grade 1 suddenly moving on well.

chris has bought shelving stuff for the girls room to try and make it work, so that should help on the tidying front :)

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visitors!

Posted on October 4, 2010 by | 1 comment

fri my BIL and E and M arrived!! woohoo!!! previously on friday, there was a significant amount of time spent tidying the girls room [AKA heavy duty parental shrieking~!] – and it looked way better for it! and sorting out books. SOme piano prac and rabbit care too, but mostly tidying and hoovering – including the latest influx of dead bees! We have a wild honeybee colony living at the top of our chimney in a disused pipe. they have been here for 5 years now – longer than anticipated as untreated for varroa, and about this time, all the ones not required for surviving over the winter die off, usually in our conservatory! haven’t seen them swarm the last 2 years, but loads of bee activity this year, so next year they might be strong enough as a colony.

Got lost there didn’t we! anyway, after a great deal of excited waiting, they arrived – cue screaming, racing around like loons etc etc!! unfortunately i had to go out to a leaving do of a v much loved and respected colleague – so much so that i did actually go. felt odd going out, as really not in the mood. and well, i felt a bit unsettled all the following day too. such is life!

so the next day, we set about having fun. lots of running about playing games, cuddling baby rabbits [a lot of that as E adores rabbits!], i had a craft, which will become available on playmerrily! but i couldn’t wait and bought from amazon, and it is really, really fab! we all had a great time doing them. i would recommend! hoping merry might stock birds of paradise one at some point [couldn't split the girly ones!] anyway, SB did the chinese one, BB the mexican, M the alaskan and E the australian.

they didn’t do it quite all in one sitting tho, we also had E and BB watch high school musical for a bit, playing sardines, doctor who, vets, more rabbit cuddling, collecting seeds and looking at them under the microscope – that was a huge hit actually, and various kids came back again and again to look at different things. M wanted to do the yeast experiment that we hadn’t done last time, so we did that, collected the carbon dioxide into balloons, and then proved was CO2. all v home ed! nice easy bed time for the kids. we adults played Alhambra, v much enjoyed. I had a single limoncello, and must have gone directly to my head, so we were never that sure of final scoring, so declared a draw, with much hilarity! [it seems to be v cheap on amazon at the mo!]

i tried a sleeping tab, not sure how it worked, tho did sleep thro, but left funny taste in mouth and then have had migraine today, not sure if related. uncertain whether to try again tonight. trying to get out of a month of sleeplessness into a better position, as that might help me move on a bit.

SO today we decide to do a bit of cobweb blowing and go for a walk. not entirely the best decision as BB suffering from 2 minimal sleeps and on a knife edge for self control… BIL was interested in the idea of geocaches – and gadgets! Anyway, we were aided by finding all 3 of the caches we looked for, and they all had swaps too. made the kids find it v fun. we placed SB’s travelbug in there, and hope it travels well. There was a really, really muddy bit tho, so wellies def required wear!
We nearly went for a 4th, M and SB v keen, but BB had a major wobble cos E had chosen the thing she wanted… and then E getting a bit tired walking, so turned back. good thing too, as started to rain as we got to cars, so this way did it as a fun highpoint rather than a chore!!

we got home, they left and i collapsed with the migraine that had been worsening. Chris and SB played a fab game of alhambra,which she v enjoyed, and BB fell asleep infront of tv and i slept for 5 hours! when woke up, realised the pain in my soul was worse, that i had enjoyed the weekend, but that there was no Vivien in it. no sister ever again. And it hit me anew, that i was bereft. so i struggled this eve. lots of snuggles from girls whilst watching a birds dvd. And SB wrote me such a beautiful letter that i cried and nearly made her sad, but i told her it was because it was so precious and i loved her lots. love my girls x x

vivien, i miss you, and nothing will ever change that, but you would be proud of how well your kids and stewart are doing, and we had a fun weekend of laughter and camaraderie, and hopefully there will v many more to come.

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Posted in General, vivien

Secondary Education Wobbles!

Posted on October 1, 2010 by | 38 comments

As all home educators know, you have good days, you have bad days, and you have wibbly wobbly days!! I was thrown into a wibbly wobbly panic by the combination of texts, brightkites and other communications of people looking into schools for their children of SB age or a year older. My nephew preparing to sit his 11+ doesn’t help either.

So, Key Questions:

1. Do I think we can home ed to GCSE standard. yes I do, but whether we know the ‘tricks’ that would turn a B to an A or an A to an A* I don’t know. i guess we could get tutors near the end for that…

2. Do we WANT to do GCSE rather than IGCSE or IB? ermmm

3. If her friends school, would SB want to school anyway?

4. What are our schooling options then?

well, need to ponder 1 and 2, 3 is currently unknowable, so lets look at 4

State Schools:
a)our catchment area comp is dire, there is no other word for it, and offers single science only. This is a no
b)The next comp does a bit better, but not sure whether it offers double science and def not triple [SB fav thing is science, she wants to do something science and sea like at uni she thinks... so we are currently thinking 3 sciences and geog required to give her whatever] It also has currently a bit of a reputation for bullying…
c) the third comp better still, but 10 miles away, we are out of catchment does do separate science for top stream. If we chose anywhere this would have to be it. But it isn’t an enthusiastic proactive choice. Rather an, well, ok…

Alternative state schools
a)there aren’t any selective schools in our area. If we had, then I guess we would consider working towards the 11+ ‘to see’ Argh, why can’t we have a school interested in science in our area!
b)There is a sciencey one near a friend of ours, so can see why she is considering it for her son! But we are looking at a 40+ min drive each way, and also way out of catchment!! No transport, and really, taking 2 1/2 hours a day to commute not really an option.

Private
well, there are a number of really good private schools in the area, each costing approx £15,000 per year! and all prob about 30 mins drive away, tho those south east rather than east have transport links. but think money! and entrance exam! [spelling!!! maths and NVR no probs i don't think]

SO, having looked at the above, and wibbled greatly, and discussed [a bit] with DH!

PLAN!
1. AIm to go down the home educated to the bitter end route! research 1 and 2!! ie what exams are there, where can they be sat, can we resource them, how best to do it.
2. look at working so that if we need/want to consider not HE cos not satisfactory for SB’s needs we can consider entrance to private at 13 [less years to fund, and if really feel that is best option, BB may be suitable for school and Chris work to fund - does this sound ideal?? i think not!]
3. when we know what we can do, talk to SB about how this all works, how it affects her future, and then see what she thinks.
4. move!

arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!! [please comment!]

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Posted in General

so a bit of crafting!

Posted on September 30, 2010 by | 1 comment

for my occupational therapy :lol: 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!!

Having done that, SB and I did a piano prac, we have decided to be brave and enter grade 1 piano, and now – a few collywobbles later! we had better do it. She did well, and concentrated nicely, so think that the 2 pieces we are currently learning should be ok! She then wanted to make something for friend chloe, currently in france! so we got our made by me sewing book out and the felt and embroidery thread – hooray to having had forethought to buy stuff to go with book!! SB made a lovely bag which she embroidered sequins onto, and BB a cute easter design cushion. she fell in love with that so much that she has decided to keep it after all :roll: 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!!

so we then enjoyed the sun outside, fed rabbits, cuddled babies, played on swing [well I didn't do that!] SB did some galore park science, but as getting close to gym, she is going to collect seeds and look at them under the microscope tomorrow. she has taken with her to gym her journal – as it is months since she has written in it, and she is going to start from now and write about baby bunnies [aargh! think she forgot to take pen :roll: !!!! ] as she has an hour whilst BB does her class, and she also took a french workbook, so we will see if she did any of that! and another box book – on prehistoric people, which looks like the thing she will be doing! :smile:

edited to add – daddy had a pen, so wrote about the baby rabbits in the journal book, and did some of l’art de lire workbook and a schofield and simms science workbook i had forgotten! but not the prehistoric book! now reading me a story in french – emilie n’a pas sommeil which we bought in france last year.

they will get home after 7, and we have macaroni cheese for tea, prob with some more david attenborough! so the day goes!! Had a lovely phone call from dad :) have been having lots more calls than texts than the otherway round, and he was really supportive of me being off work, whereas i thought he would be disappointed in me. I should have remembered he loves me and has best interests at heart <3

Books of today are:

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Posted in Books, General

piano prac!

Posted on September 30, 2010 by | Leave a comment

the first 5! i do wonder whether the girls will associate this with me as much as I associate this with mum

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Posted in General

steps forward and back

Posted on September 30, 2010 by | 1 comment

SB didn’t sleep well last night, so snuggled in our bed, and was most reluctant to get up in the morning! But get up we did! unfortunately raining so my plan for science scuppered, so we made cornflour gloop and played with that instead. the deependers away, but the rest all met up at ours, and the kids had a fab time, we adults drank lots of cups of tea and mutual support was given. Z brought a really great easy craft of colour collages, and the big kids did some fab ones whilst the littlies did science and then played sylvanians. General play went on, SB had a clarinet lesson – must get her clarinet fixed! bigger ones did science, and then all had the chance of autumnal fimo in the conservatory – tho not all did! BB did a fab tiger. i loved the leaf ideas tho.

have felt all unsettled and wishy washy today tho, don’t like that! SB had brownies and judo, and BB swimming. the brownies are doing a bob-a-job equiv, and SB done nearly £7 worth of jobs, but was saying some brownies got £10! for tidying a room!! we must be really mean. torn between not actually wanting to go down that route, and also not making her feel embarrassed. don’t really think they should be encouraging the girls to show and tell tho. ah well! SB gorgeous as always, i really love that girl [obviously!] for the sparkle in her eyes and her whole heart in her hands approach <3 and I had a lovely snuggle from BB, who spent most of today being a dog :lol: oh, and we had a break from david attenborough, and watched walking with monsters instead!

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Posted in General