BOOKS: Currently reading

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1  A dog called Rod by Tim Hopgood. 2.Little Friend by Colleen McKeown. 3.Monkey and Me by Emily Gravett. 4.Hop on Pop by Dr Seuss.

Monkey and me is a firm favourite in this house as it has a rhythm than most children seem to be able to memorise and simple, mischievous drawings. Just took 'Hop on Pop' out from the library, it has rhyming word sets at the top of each page and a short sentence including them underneath, perfect for children just beginning to sound out words phonetically. As for the adult reading in the house... who gets time?? But am trying to find my way through the 'Well-trained mind' book.

"..she's small and very funny"

Playing 'Run, run, as fast as you can"

Cakes!

Trip to the library

Time to defrost from the wintery walk home

All too often, the important parts of life pass us by whilst we're busy 'doing'. And all too often my child reminds me of this.

We moved to Brighton a few moons ago, leaving behind the only family I'd really spent time with. My friends. Watching the girls today reminded me that true friendships last a lifetime, and that I'm thankful for those wonderful people around us. (Barf!)

EDUCATION: Trivium

It's been a long week... well, since the last post anyhoo. But do think we've made some headway, decisions made, fog now clearing..

I was fortunate enough to spend Saturday morning doing some further home ed research whilst S did reading eggs!! Yes, reading eggs! This child of mine had flatly refused to do them as she 'don't like them' about a month ago, then out of the blue requested to 'do some'. Holy smoke!! So, in line with the autonomous/child led approach we duly signed her up. She's done one lesson every day thus far.. slightly flabbergasted. 

And so, with all my looking around online I stumbled across many a suggestion to read "The well-trained mind". Initially I thought it would be one of those pushy American make-your-child-a-genius types of approaches, I mean 'Baby Einstein'... seriously?? However, whilst it does have a slight undertone of this, it's basically trivium (what a great word) teaching. It promotes that through laying the foundations of reading that the child can then study anything! In my eyes, thus aiding autonomous learning. Huzzah! I'm still working my way through the book, but regardless of whether it unfolds like a Quarantino movie, I think that in these early years our focus will be reading, handwriting and basic math. The remainder of topics should be offshoots from this, hopefully giving birth to a wonderful, wholesome home education. I should add that the backbone of the book seems to be history and repetition, studying the same historical period every four years but each time in further depth.

Hence, the planning has commenced!

EDUCATION: What to do, what to do

Once a week, S has an At-Home childminder to give me a small break and some time to bond with baby T... or drink tea and eat chocolate unhindered! We've enjoyed having the childminder so far, she socialises S, has activities based on the time of year and is EYFS registered (hope I got that acronym right. It's not a real thing unless you can make an acronym out of it!) It fits in with our original home-ed idea, but now I'm wondering as to whether S's homeschool life should have a tad more structure... 

The idea was that S would be educated autonomously (love that word) at home until around 7 years, unless she decided otherwise. Because we're secretly massive hippies! So at some point in the future she will enter the state school system as, and here's the immediate exclusion from all home-ed groups, we genuinely believe that the system we have in the UK ain't that bad. 

Yes, schools do seem to focus on targets for funding rather than the individual needs of the child. And yes, being in one place 8 hours a day for a minimum of 11 years is too much for a child. But seriously, creating a supportive home life is surely more important than making a political statement through children? And is holding off 'formal' education a better idea than starting them on targets from age 3? Shouldn't children enter the system once they're articulate enough to discuss their educational interests/problems and are already aware that their parents are passionate about their education. That's one of the main reasons we'd like to home-ed until 7, S can find her own interests and begin to see how they fit together for day-to-day life. So I'm questioning whether adding some loose structure will help her adjust to school when she starts, or to simply lay off the structure and concentrate on facilitating a desire to learn. A bug bear of mine is that children are 'taught' rather than they 'learn', I think there's a big difference between the two. Being taught something doesn't mean that a child will have an interest or be able to apply it to life (think calculus..) but if they learn they surely you are truly empowering a child to want to know more, to expand and challenge. We don't seem to like challenges in society today, it always comes across as too much effort! One size fits all teaching... doesn't fit. And so I'll end my quandary blog post, albeit rather abruptly, with a talk by Ken Robinson...

And of course I'll update on our direction within our home-ed journey.

WWW: A week without words

Well, just a few words from last week!

S becoming ridiculously good
with a camera! Very arty

Oh the joy of stencils

Pudsey Bear biscuits

Trying to get both to sleep...

S practising her "m's"

To begin..?

I decided to start blogging because it seems everyone's at it, I tease! I've started this profile as a means to track our home educating journey (thanks for the suggestion Hannah!), my personal development & also in the vain hope my Mother-in-law will become internet savvy & read what her grandchildren are up to. Some days it feels like my head is all of a buzz with ideas, part finished conversations, recipes, housework... oh the never-ending housework. So I'll hopefully, delicately, regularly take notes to add here. But let's see what happens...