yay!! we saw some chateaux. we started with villandry, as chosen by sb. it was swelteringly hot! but beautiful. we had a mooch round the formal gardens, and were disappointed that you can no longer walk through all the little bits, just the main corridors. both girls had particularly wanted to visit so that you could run through all the bits, but we found enough fun things to do, including the maze, a play park and investigating the water. the girls loved the gardens, and some of them, indeed, you could run through, such that we saw the top of bb’s head racing about. i love villandry, and have been there before. both girls would like our veg beds to now be parterres! on the way out we stopped for an icecream. sb’s was the nicest – french gingerbread, with chris’ a close second – lemon and thyme. mine was too weird and sweet – hibiscus. a bit of a detour around the countryside as the road was shut, but we got back for a quick evening meal. we declared the day a success!
Sb has v carefully kept a journal of the holiday, with a few lines of writing, and some pictures drawn for each day. i was v impressed that she did it – though it did get shorter as the days went on! i had brought a few fact books that might pick up on things we could see, and we found out, entirely accidentally, that both girls can happily read in the car. since even map reading makes me feel sick, this is quite a surprise! so various books about henry 2 and 5, mediaeval times, castles etc was read. oh, and a book on henry ford – must remember to put the Time for Kids: Harriet Tubman: A Woman of Courage one in my basket, as sb wants to read it. Both girls also did lots of drawing and colouring on holiday, and loads of manic cycling around the campsite.
wednesday we walked to chenonceau. the campsite says it is 15 minutes. this is not the case! it was nearly and hour. both girls did walk it though! [i think it took chris 20 mins on his own back at a brisk pace]. it was a lovely walk along the banks of the cher, and then in the grounds. we found walnut trees who were dropping their fruit, so had a chat and collected some ripe green walnuts. i really didn’t like them, but sb did. as a congratulation for walking, we bought an icecream on arrival. oh, and bb got to buy a unicorn from the shop on the way in to save all the angst of whether she would buy on the way out!
chenonceau was truly fab. it was rated most highly by all of us. we pottered in and walked down a lovely shady carriageway, through the courtyard and into the chateau, where we picked up i-pods with the audio guide to chenonceau. sb had the children’s version and chris the adults. bb managed to be ok until the long gallery, where she shrieked and waggled about, and it was clear that there were no knickers under her frilly shorts :blush: so she *had* to behave! luckilly unicorn was happy to explore the chairs. i went round the kitchens with her, but then took her out to the gardens to romp, whilst chris and sb enjoyed the rest of the house [i have been there before too!] the i-pod idea is a smash hit though! we ate and then visited their waxwork display. slightly odd, and we think we might have been setting alarms off, but no-one investigated! the girls loved it, especially the costume swatches they got to feel. SB had obviously taken in a reasonable amount of history from the ipod too. a good walk around the gardens and a fab maze. bb flagging, so more ice cream and chris went back to campsite to bring the car back. they did get a dip in the pool too, so a resounding success of a day.
but i do see nearly 4000 animals – or so it says on the blurb! I am planning to add photos, but apparently we took 1300 – must get it down to 1/10 – aargh! anyway, we planned to get up bright and early, but didn’t. but decided we would go to the zoo anyway.
we went to zooparc de beauval. we would all recommend it over and over again. honestly, fabulous. most of the walking is shaded, most of the animals have plenty of room and an interesting environment, and it has all been thought out really well. the humbold penguins and the gorillas stole my heart a bit, and i have never seen a manatee before. we spent 7 very happy hours there, pretty much seeing everything. loved the bird display, though bb grumpy as wanted the sealions. the african savannah was impressive… fabulous day. the only negative is that picnics aren’t allowed, tho you prob could hide away somewhere! girls had crepes and we had galettes.
i plan to tack onto here a number of photos, so you can see why we were soooo happy…
we had an uneventful drive down to the campsite – le moulin fort, and tent went up easily just before the only rain of the holiday. and we chilled out and wondered what on earth we were actually going to do! luckilly we went armed with books
and
i liked the difference in the 2 books, and we gave the girls some choices, and they chose mushroom caves, zoo and villandry.
chris and i were a bit pooped with the travelling, so sat we wasted! we did crafts at the campsite, a big shop at carrefour and a mooch around a nearby village and along the cher.
whilst we were travelling around i was mean enough to ensure that at least myself an sb listened to a cheap as chips audio cd course. this boosted my confidence, and also SB’s, enabling us to have a stab at speaking french out and about.
we mostly did cd’s one and two, and even BB was getting the hang of it through repetition. back for camp curry, chris and the girls going to the unheated pool while i made it. i don’t believe chris actually went in though…
oh, and i bought a few more french books at carrefour – 4 of this series, but *far* more cheaply!
but i love their simple french and we all agreed they were a nice story! [even though i wasn't going to buy any more]
that night we were treated to a french evening across the banks of the cher, including je ne regrette rien! [also accordions etc] and realised we were on the flight path of tourist ballons getting lower to pass chenonceau – sometimes v low!! beautiful.
A late start sunday meant that we went for the caves option. we had a picnic and then had a good look round the mushroom and then the tufa caves. we were the only non french in the first tour, so i translated obviously just the gist! in the second group were more english, so we got a translation. both tours were really interesting. i prefered the mushrooms, but bourre was where the best tufa for the chateau came from, so interesting to here how it was quarried, as well as see the ‘underground city’ which a local stonemason is gradually carving.
that evening i went in the pool with the girls – much splashing and laughing. it was freezing!
we have had another lovely holiday this year, and we are so glad of it, as it has been much a much needed counterpoint to all the worries that seem to surround us.
we decided to go to the loire rather than the originally planned dordogne, and we left 2 days later. these changes were determined by swine flu and maybe swine flu recoveries! chris has had swine flu, as far as i can tell, but was better first. i am not sure about myself, especially as i improved once i started taking antibiotics… [could be coincidence tho].
we took the channel tunnel which was a revelation of loveliness. no messing, across and the exit is directly onto the right road rather than faffing round a port! although the girls declared it more boring, we parents thought it was money well spent. my dad has p and o shares that gave him then a 50% ferry discount, i wonder if there is a channel tunnel equivalent? [hmm, looks like a no ??] i do know that my dad saved in the end far more that the shares cost, as he used the deal every year for 20+ years at least once!! and we drove to rouen where we stopped at a hotel B and B, which we would recommend as having a fab room for 4 nice and cheaply. we were planning a tent night stop, but i was really only just travelable, so this seemed a better bet. we had a lovely meal out, and then the children were absolute terrors going to bed, so chris had priority sleep as driver [i wasn/t up to it on the way out] and i had none!
well, its not happening, its 23:45 so i have bowed to the inevitable and am watching back eurekas whilst hoping she will fall asleep lying on me snuggled in a duvet. humph. we are more or less ready to go on hols, ok, a bit less, but hey! i can manage about 30 mins of something before requiring a rest, but at least i did do several 30 minute bursts, as though chris is better, he isn’t precisely well…
anyway, the girls have been playing a lovely babies game, slinging their babies around the place and generally getting on well, except when i ask them to pack… to tidy their bedroom… etc etc anyway, i am going to copy kirsty’s today motto and only blog the good!!
SB did some HE spontaneously today, she did some maths, some music theory and some of her mediaeval project book, and we watched the mesopotamian what the ancients did for you [v fab] and sb then watched some of shakespeares stories as bb and i had fallen asleep on the sofa [hence current awake bb prob - well, actually, shhh, but i think she is nearly asleep!]
ermmm, slight contretemps about the not at all tidied playroom, ermmmmm that’s it i think. exhausted, but we are holidaying – woohoo!! expect to hear of torrential rain and flash floods along the loire…
today i have had another sofa day. am feeling better, but has we should have gone on hols this eve and pushed it back to thurs, didn’t want to push my luck!!
the girls have mostly played with baby dolls today. bb devastated cos she can’t find her baby sling, so rustled up one with a fleece scarf. sb adapted my hugababy. would like to say this was accomplished with out wails,tears and gnashing of teeth… but compromises made, peace restored and game continued on and off for most of day. at some point the girls might realise we never interfere or interupt a good game…
in between this lovely sibling play were peppered some HE moments. BB did some real and unreal maths, SB did some galore park english and science [bitesize] and piano practice.
Both girls at swimming lesson now.
edited to add – found babysling in airing cupboard, so today v happy
This is the next mission statement for SB, to last jan 2010 to 2012 [oh my goodness!!] when she will be just short of 11th birthday. But an initial immediate disclaimer!
THIS IS NOT A YEARLY [OR 2 YEARLY PLAN] THAT WE WILL LOOK TO ACHIEVE, TO TICK OFF ACHIEVEMENTS AGAINST OR SUBMIT TO ANY LICENSING AUTHORITY! IT IS AN AIDE MEMOIRE TO ME ON WHAT WE MAY CHOOSE TO USE FOR THE THINGS SB WISHES TO COVER AT THE MOMENT, THINGS SHE CURRENTLY ENJOYS. I ANTICIPATE SHE WILL CHANGE HER MIND, AND WE WILL CHANGE OUR PLAN! I DO NOT *VALUE* ANY SPECIFIC NUGGET OF INFORMATION INPARTED OR ABSORBED MORE THAN ANY OTHER. I PLAN OUR EDUCATION TO BE SITUATIONAL AND RESPONSIBLE IN THE MOST.
I guess, this is going to be a slight change in pace for our mission statement. We are moving out of our first period of home ed, and into the second, consolidating and expanding phase. This is where we hopefully make sure she has a solid ground start, and then gradually work on accelerating the learning/doing pace vs the fiddle faddle space for when secondary school age. We absolutely reserve the right though to change this mission statement dependent on SB’s preferences as this 2 year period passes.
we have, I think, delivered more or less on our basic mission statement for SB. She has, i believe, gained a basic warp and weft tapestry of knowledge that now we should start to embroider with extension of the things that she loves. Not that we have tested her knowledge in anyway, and it is possible that she retains no knowledge of anything. She reads fluently, enjoys and progresses with maths, has a wide enjoyment of learning, including history, science and biographies. We have started out the path to music, with some hitches along the way, and SB is developing a clear idea of music styles she enjoys, including jazz. We have also started out with languages. We have had a lot of fun, done a lot of playing, visiting, messing about and forming bonds with other home educators who have become her friends and peers.
We need to encourage her to see the need to strengthen the areas of weakness, so that learning is not prone to unravel unexpectedly in the future. Since this is is something she doesn’t enjoy so much, we need to find and agree levels that will incrementally lead to improvement, but don’t make it an unbearable chore, scaffolding and encouraging. this is most noticeable in the area of english language, grammar and spelling. At present we don’t write or record many of the things we do, because of the dislike and difficulty writing. I think that we gradually should start to encourage a record, be it lap book, mostly drawings or photos and a few words of some of the experiments/trips out and about, and ‘topics’ should we do them. This isn’t something that will come naturally, so we will consider how this might work for us – perhaps a learning journal?
In progressing forward, we hope that SB will more and more choose what to concentrate on, and what are the resources she likes to use and how. We hope that she will now begin determine the shape that the fabric of her education will take. Certainly, when we find the right resource for her – like currently the dk project books – she is capable of prolonged focused study and discussion. This is a period of emotional growth and change as well, and our home ed will aim to support personal development too.
One of the problems of home educating and blogging is seeing the best of other peoples home ed, and contrasting it with your areas of weakness or vacillation. we have more structured friends, whose children appear to be romping ahead in all areas very happily, we have more autonomous friends whose children appear to be having more fun, creating a very individual identity, we have friends who extrovertly educate, going to lots of workshops, events and just knocking my socks off with the wow factor, and those that lapbook and project and those whose children are driven by special interests… We can’t be all these different people, but will try and use their expertise and influence to perhaps balance our home ed, being a check to whether we can do anything better than we are.
So we will remain child led rather than completely autonomous. I see it continuing that there are activities we try and accomplish on a regular basis, be this daily, weekly, fortnightly or what seems reasonable . The actual minutiae will not be programmed, and will be child interest led. Although I have rough idea of what we may get through as such in the next 2 years, it isn’t ‘must do or else’, and often I will stillskip bits : more a guide to where i see us being. SB has a wide ranging thirst at the moment, and so it seems unreasonable to fix her attention on something she truly deems boring when there are many other things to catch her spark. but i think we will gradually be encouraging some structure – for her to find her own best patterns within it, but that she develops a balance that suits between pure play, enjoyed, enriching learning and the targeted ‘hard slog’ learning.
I think the other key issue, which runs as a theme throughout, is that as parents we need to be tidier, keeping resources tidy and accessible – we can be helped and enabled by SB.
As before, i will do a nitty gritty consideration of curriculum , and am putting in links to some of the resources. Again, i reiterate that this is a rough draft planning of possible goals, but i do not tie myself or SB down to achieving them, and we may change our minds completely over course. it is a rough working for us to see what might be. It is unlikely to submitted to the LA
the Nitty Gritty
literacy:
to read herself a wide a varied amount of literature, encouraging her to try new genres and authors, and to stretch her imagination. to still read aloud to her a variety of stories, again across different genres and writing styles.
to start to discuss the mechanics of style and writing in the books, stories, poetry etc we come across. not much to start with -don’t want to impede the reading explosion! but to start thinking about why she liked bits, what the story is about, what interests are sparked from it, and perhaps the use of language. This might be aided by a book club or group?
SB is also doing a small amount regularly of the galore park english, being on book 1 at the moment, and we would perhaps like to have finished this and be nearing the end of book 2 perhaps if all goes well. this is one of her areas of struggle though, so just doing a tiny bit regularly is the aim. If we find something she prefers to do to this, we will swap!
writing:
SB has stated an interest in writing more legibly, and was gradually working through getty and dubay. this has stopped for a while, but we have discussed it and plan to carry on with this. i hope to add some story writing or copywork activitities if she fancies it.to start her on the path to writing her own stories – encouraging the use of grammer and spelling! Writing could perhaps also be encouraged in a learning journal for experiments and trips out and about.
drama:
we don’t do any drama at the moment, which i think is a bit of a shame. I am hopeful that we can look at some opportunities in the next 2 years. i would also like to start visiting the theatre more again, now BB is older.
maths:
singapore maths we are halfway through 3b at the moment, and hoping to move through a year of singapore with each calendar year, so perhaps starting 6a. it just depends really! SB loves this series, has no interest, she says, in trying anything else.
To add a bit of sparkle and interest, we will try and do some maths experimentation from our DK book.
we have quite a few maths story books that we all enjoy.
A friend is contemplating primary maths challenge, and maybe we will consider that next year.
History:
we haven’t completed the second story of the world as a reader, although we had planned too. We are still enjoying it, however, and will finish that and commence the third. We will hope to do more of the activities as well – perhaps a bit of parental pre-planning! alongside this we have lots of great usborne books, other good books and good piccies in DK eyewitness
I would like us to consider pulling out a few things to do larger topic work on, as we did the vikings, mixing crafts, history, visiting, dvd’s etc. SB is currently really enjoying a DK mediaeval project book, which suggests this might be a place to start. certainly we are near enough a few castles!
Also readers set in different time periods, and myths and legends seem to go down well. we can use this to spark interest and discuss as and when she fancies
we may start to introduce timelines, and see where this gets us .
Historical re-enactments and visits should add some external WOW to learning, and we will try and make the most of opportunities.
critical thinking:
We are working our way through the bond verbal and non verbal reasoning books, which SB enjoys – particularly the non verbal, where she is working on the 9-10 book, as opposed to the 8-9 for verbal. the problems with spelling and grammar hinder the verbal reasoning. ALthough this may sound dull and dry, she really enjoys them, like her mum there!
We play lots of board games as well.
science:
this is a multipronged pronged event. We read a fair number of easy access science books – such as those by jaquie bailey and meredith hooper. the magic school bus chapter books and programmes are a hit, and contain solid wodges of info in easily accessible formats. i think as she loves them, this is definitely something to encourage. Science is a no brainer subject for us, she loves it, we love it and great enjoyment had fiddling and learning! may have to kit out a lab one day!
SB is also doing a small amount regularly of the galore park science book, being on book 1 at the moment, and we would perhaps like to have finished this and be nearing the end of book 2 if not on book 3, depending on whether she continues to like this series. At the moment she is also racing through schofield and simms science workbooks for key stage 2 after picking one up casually!
We are aiming to do regular experiments at home, and have a number of kits and resources. i am hoping to encourage at least a small write up in a learning journal. We are also part of a fortnightly meeting where we do more science experiments with a bit of a theme.
We try to go to a number of RI events in the year, as well as the local science festival to add some external WOW to this area.
We have joined the astronomy group, but need to go more regularly and hopefully hiring one of their telescopes again, as we all learned a lot last time and really enjoyed it.
Geography:
will still be predominantly history and holiday based, but perhaps something such as geocaching may take SB’s interest if we do it more regularly, and also working out cycling routes? it also gets covered alot as part of other things.
Actually, since writing that, we have started postcrossing, and all the excitement of writing and sending, then receiving postcards and plotting them on our map is proving quite thrilling at the mo.
languages:
we have good resources for french, and we are trying to regularly use french for a small conversation, and also to read some toddler french books and base words around this. we have enjoyed doing this, and some words are retained. I am not sure this is the most efficient or best way of learning french, but we are are least learning some and enjoying it.
I am trying to supplement this with dvd/video/cd’s and may, hopefully, have some french sessions with a friend on perhaps a fortnightly basis,
we have for the last 2 years had a short camping holiday in france, and plan to continue this. i am not sure about sending SB on an en famille camp, but may host.
We perhaps need to work a bit more regularly at latin. this is done on a fortnightly basis, but possibly a look in between times would be useful!
music :-
piano is probably SB’s favourite, and we will encourage regular practice recorder is also practiced, and am hoping SB can attend a local venue regularly enough for Gina to continue teaching
i have some first duet books to add a bit of a difference with our playing, and hope to regularly write group music for SB and friends to a level they are comfortable with.
we will also do lots of singing, and listen to a wide range of music – i don’t think we have enough background music on in the house, and since we have so much…
At some point, we may possibly add a bit of composer study, should SB show inclination or interest.
for the out and about WOW factor, SB has really enjoyed holiday orchestra, doing singing, musical games and recorder, and is v keen to do again. there are a number of events nearly locally that she can participate in.
i also want us to start going out to more concerts. BB is def not interested, and i think for sb too they would still have to be short, but she did enjoy the LSO
PE:
is covered well at the moment, and we will continue to encourage a core sports practice and trying out all sorts of new ideas.
current activities are ballet, gym, swimming and judo on a weekly basis
She also goes to a variety of HE group sports as and when they happen.
she still like to at least try horse riding, and see if she enjoys it.
more ad hoc are yoga and dance videos [which i should do too!!], and perhaps finding someone to get her started with in line skating. half term and holiday leisure centre taster events also popular
IT:
surprisingly, this is an area which we are not using much at the moment. SB prefers reading and playing to IT. our computers did break, which was prob v unhelpful, and we have not got back into using them. perhaps a few new and interesting cdroms will kickstart.
Arts and crafts:
we do a fair amount of art and crafting, using fimo and hama beads, kits and paints in a freestyle way
I would like to add in some art appreciation, look at different artists and styles, and ‘have a go’ now SB is getting more confident in painting
SB periodically is interested in tuesday sketch, so I might encourage this as well
Domestic Science!!:
slight rofl at title, but a fair bit of baking and cooking, gardening, some tidying and laying the table. SHe is interested in sewing and knitting too, so it is just about making sure the basics are available and accessible for her to do when the mood strikes, or re-introducing if there has been a gap.
personal development
we will think about supporting her through the hormones and body changes to come, taking advice from people that have been there before! getting good books, and hopefully building on the groundwork of loving family and good friends to give her confidence in who she is.
Socialising:
regular attendance at not quite local groups, local clubs [ie rainbows], national camps and making sure we have a steady stream of houseguests.
family is also very important, and maintaining close family ties and bonds.
trips and outings:
i think we should be a bit more proactive now BB more amenable to going out and about to places for experiential learning opportunities. this would add a bit of sparkle and pizazz to the whole thing, add external excitement for looking at some things, and generally be fun for all.
practicalities:
we have lots of resources and opportunities, i think in the next 2 years we parents have to hone our presentation skills, storage solutions etc, so that they are all readily accessible for SB to find . i think we need a ruthless look at groups that work or not for SB, and keep an eye on the opportunities to play and socialise.
If we actually did achieve what i have listed above, i would be a very happy bunny! The devil is in the implementation! life gets in the way etc etc, but i think we really must try.
obviously we do a lot of ed by conversation and seeing where that goes – sometimes quite tricky, so the other thing is to make sure that we are available , enthusiastic partners in the educational process.
this is a boring bare bones thought. chris needs to look, add and ponder. it is harder to really look at this in any more detail, as SB really will become more and more the driving force for her education, depending on her interest. I think for me, it is enough to know that i think we have resources and information and enthusiasm to back her up, but also to at this stage continue to encourage and lead and offer where necessary. by 9, i would hope that for the most part she will be autonomous and enthused about continuing to learn and find out. That we will have facilitated her spending ages on minutiae, and whipping through huge subjects in nano seconds where less interesting to her.
various internet friends, and my DH, have suggested that overdoing it may have slowed down my recovery!! humph! so i have tried *really* hard to do nothing today and totally hated it.
i did nothing whilst the girls played a long, convoluted game of sylvanians mostly beautifully together [i heart sylvanians] , i did nothing whilst SB did her maths next to me on the sofa, and bb tried to make up the same maths to do in her little writing pad, ‘i have 2 bananas and 11 peaches so that will come to 15 pounds – rofl!’ – she didn’t want to do her real maths as she was too busy adding for 5 pages!!
i still did nothing whilst sb did her piano practice – v hard that! but she has finally finished bach’s air. i did nothing whilst they did more sylvanians, and i did nothing whilst sb did music theory.
finally i thought i was allowed to do something!! and watched with them the aztec and the egyptian what the ancients did for you. woohoo to doing something! the girls have really loved this. i followed it up with reading 2 chapters of the gladiator of capua and 1 of story of the world [joan of arc] to SB – and am being resolutely defiant!
TBH, that is a bit of a tricky one. it should be straightforward shouldn’t it, a long list of reasons that give us a cast iron case for home-educating. Hmmm. We have never sent our children to school, so surely we must be v philosophically sound on this issue. I guess the reason i haven’t done a post like this before is that actually, our home education has been more of a flow, a progression with time.
When SB, our eldest, was 3.5 we started contemplating the schooling options for her. She was blissfully happy in a wonderful nursery with a 1:8 ratio and fab staff for 2 days a week. i guess, initially, we wanted to consider something that would be as good as that environment, and both of us went off into our different search modes to consider. we both had fairly instantly not considered the state primaries as being far too big [in our area enormous] and with dreadful ratios. We felt SB, as a gentler child would possibly drown in that environment. i don’t know that we were right, just, well, protective.
Reading around, we felt that organised schooling started too young, she would be just a wee thing to be dumped into this learning machine. being me, i found what i still think is a totally fabulous private school near where we lived. v small ratios, seems great. Expensive though, and we now knew that we were going to have second child, and then that we were going to make a great upheaval and move areas. And chris – always the more off the beaten path one of us, and a great member of a number of parenting forums suggested that he would like to home educate. uh hummmm?? so i think about it, and read about it, and think, well, ok then, not so different to what we are doing now. i join the groups and muddlepuddle.
initially we thought perhaps just while we move and get settled, perhaps until 7, lets not make things definite. look here, and I have a list of resources we were happy with at the time. But I think the greatest commitment to home education from me [chris much more of a convert] was meeting other home educators, and for this i have to really thank merry and her creation, muddlepuddle. Seeing how the already established and comfortable with it home educators did things – and reading their blogs [thanks partic to sarah, parent 1, jax, jan and merry - and the babs at the time!] helped me find confidence in it as a choice. home educating at the age of 3-6 is not scary, it is just an extension of what went before, and is an easy time to do things, a testing of the water. After all, in scandinavia, formal education starts at 7, doesn’t it?
home educating beyond 6 is when you feel that you do have a belief that this will work for your child. i was a type A personality [i am on sabbatical!], achieving and continuing to achieve. i am the working mum here, and i still admit to struggling with the private school vs home ed, and the we can do it better than we are issues. But what i don’t struggle with is the idea that we are doing it better than the state schools. And if they are the standard that is ‘the bar’ then this is really no standard. education in this country is dysfunctional, even in the good schools, and this is driven by regulatory hoops rather than joy of teaching, or individual learning. Even when i went to primary and middle school, i sat in a corner doing self directed learning [and tbh i mostly cheated] because i was ahead of the class. i was bored, got sent to an educational psychologist and paediatrician who both, thankfully, declared that i was bored – such that i was allowed to self direct rather than go back to learning the alphabet. i was then different, so not a good social animal etc… this may have coloured my school perception, but…
So at 5, compulsory age to receive an education, i had a mission statement – i couldn’t bring myself to call it an educational philosophy, as it is really just some mindmapping. but this is the important bit of it
I think full formal education starts too soon. this first period is about learning learning skills, and getting the information – so reading is something we will build on! making the world an exciting and interesting place to live in and imparting the knowledge without being overly concerned to the most part on how long it is retained! Some skills are built on – namely literacy, language, numeracy and practical things such as art, music and sports. Others will come and go.The key thing is to view the tapestry, not count the stitches. The basic warp and weft will be forming.
In this, we are likely to be child led rather than completely autonomous. I see it panning out that there are activities we try and accomplish on a regular basis, be this daily, weekly, fortnightly or what seems reasonable . The actual minutiae will not be programmed, and will be child interest led. Although I have rough idea of what we may get through as such in the next 2 years, it isn’t ‘must do or else’, and often I skip bits : more a guide to where i see us being. SB has a wide ranging thirst at the moment, and so it seems unreasonable to fix her attention on something she truly deems boring when there are many other things to catch her spark.
Play activities are equally vital if not more so at this stage – as when else in the future are you given the chance to have free play without some pangs of guilt? Lets get rid of the guilt, so that is something that is part of the balance. many of the toys can be seen to have all sorts of possible educational benefits, as I think there is very little ‘play’ that doesn’t have some learning potential – from rehearsing life scenarios, honing imagination, fine motor control, etc etc.
And that is where we have continued to work from. Our next mission statement, at 7, also started with this statement. i am slightly nervous about approaching our next one at 9 though!!
So that is why we home educate. Why do we continue to home educate? i guess because though i might sometimes waver about home vs private education, i never am worried about the state version, and also, because I have never heard Chris worry about it. He is the SAHD and main educator, so i have to have some faith!
home education has brought with it some distinct advantages, that knock the socks off all else really.
1. we have a large age gap [4 years] and home education has given them a huge opportunity to love, care for and support each other, which would have been unlikely if SB had been attending school from before BB was 1.
2. we have been able to mix and match resources to find the things that SB has been really happy using, and then enjoyed learning from – such as the singapore maths, which really works her way, and then explode the code, where she learnt to read without trying in synthetic phonics.
3. we can do what she finds interesting at the level she finds interesting for the time she is interested in it. such a simple thing really, but what a huge difference it makes for educating.
4. the things she doesn’t like, but there is need to learn – writing and spelling – we make also no effort to be age referenced. we do tiny amounts, so that there is incremental improvement, but not being peer referenced means that she isn’t ‘bad at it’ – must make a difference to confidence.
5. it is fun for the whole family.
there are lots of other pros, but they are often more of the same.
what are the cons?
1. financial – this is a biggie, we lose an income. even if both girls went to a private school, if chris was working we would be better off financially.
2. emotional support – actually i feel this isn’t a problem for us, we have local friends, imaginary internet friends, and blogging and trying to meet up provides an outlet for angst and worry. But it could be an issue. The only answer is to get out there and meet people. Home ed is pretty rainbow, and there will be a mixture of people at all groups, someone will be able to help. for us, probably emotional support is more of a pro.
3. government interference with the freedom to home educate. the Badman report is a con [in both ways!] stigmatising us as probable abusers of our children, failing to take their education and futures seriously, and needing the state to watch us closely. i don’t think so Badman and Balls. i take full responsibility, with my husband, for helping to give our children the tools to achieve whatever their goals turn out to be.
what are the not-cons
1. socialisation not an issue. local HE groups, local after school groups, playdates etc etc. prob area dependent, but we live in a sparsely populated area, and yes, we have to get in a car, but not a problem.
2. national curriculum – particularly not a con, because we ignore it and the sats totally
3. knowing where your child is in relation to peers. a particular not con, and more of a pro. i really am not interested, they are 4 and 8. i will find out as and when they do real exams!
SO, there it is, my quick precis on home educating for us. i might not have done quite what jax intended, it sort of splurged out of my fingers! I reserve the right to edit later!!
jax is hoping we all write why we came to home ed, and what that means for us. tall order and short timeframe!
will perhaps try, but it seems such a long time ago, and i don’t think we were particularly political about it!! but i might do some cutting and pasting from mission statements
must get it down to 1/10 – aargh! anyway, we planned to get up bright and early, but didn’t. 
obviously just the gist! in the second group were more english, so we got a translation. both tours were really interesting. i prefered the mushrooms, but bourre was where the best tufa for the chateau came from, so interesting to here how it was quarried, as well as see the ‘underground city’ which a local stonemason is gradually carving.