Learning by living

This is more of anouncment than a blog.....our family has had its own little rethink and we have decided to step into a whole new life style so we are now unschooling in the greatest sense.
The stuff we tried to do to tick the boxes would please any school minded person but if school was right for our children then they would be there.
They seem to know what they need to learn right now and we are willing to support their interests and help them access resources as they need.
This is not a method of education it is a tranfsormation in life style .
The children will learn thigs that interest them and will be learning alongside them.
We will need to resource ourselves not with school schedules but with,enough human and spiritual resources to respectfully hear their ideas about life and join the journey they are on.
This is not a passive thing it takes investment of time emotion and real presence in our parenting.
Dotty will love this journey becuase she gets to come along to and add to and enhance our lives together.
What sparked this was our children getting flu!
?Our daughter age 9 had a very high temperature but in her pyjamas she wroked on more craft art and started preparing an outline for her latest theatre project which will be called Home school Musical!!!
She has written a script andlyrics and has persauaded a local home educating mum who is a drama teacher to help her and they plan to do a two week workshop with performance in the summer.
She also discussed the science of how her body was fighting the infection.
She asked about reproduction in mammals and humans ...she totally led the questions and once she felt she had accessed enough info walked away as though it was all every day...she has age books and appropriate web sites where she can find out more but seems content for now!
Then she asked if we could go and see the film..How to train your dragon.
So as soon as she got better we took the family to see the film which we all loved.
Fred ordered the book at the childrens request when we came back and today it arrived at 9am and DS had rea dit by 12 noon! In the middle of the woodland trail where we had gone for a walk and picnic with two other home educating families.
DD loves the book but has read it a little more slowly, in the tranquility of her home . She has enjoyed sharing he rbook by reading it aloud to me and even asking me to read a page or two to her she loves showing me the illustrations and commenting on them.
DD's favourite thing to do at night is to snuggle up on the bed with me and read or chat until she is alomost or actually asleep then we helpher move to her room .
This is an imporatnt part of her day as she loves to share her ideas and feelings during this time.
I go to bed quite ealry as I get up really ealry to walk the dog with the pack of dogs she loves to socialise with!
Tommorow we travel to Bournemouth to visit our four week old puppy called Daisy we can't wait to see how much she has grown since we met her last!
Dotty will come with us and get to take a walk in the new Forest!

Confessions of a confirmed animalaholic!

We have been very very busy recently!
We have been doing lots of maths
,English science etc, but we have also
been visiting a sick family member in
hopsital,doing lots of lovely home
ed stuff with our group Popcorn!
Like our little singing and music group!
We also attend another group where
the children are doing art in the
fashion of artists through history!





Our son and daughter have been making yummy Flap jacks as well as learning lits about hand washing,and hygiene also safety in the kitchen even how to safely use the cooker and kettle with supervision of course!
Our youngest also entered the Potato councils growing competition !She is busy keeping a weather chart measuring rainfall,going to the allotment as much as possible.
We are growing broccoli,garlic,raspberries ,potatoes,parsnips,carrots,peas and beetroot so far!

We have also taken a trip to the new forest and Bournemouth.....but our best news is that we will soon have a new member of our family.....here she is...

She is a two week old springer spaniel puppy called daisy and in May we will be bringing her to live in our family!
Dotty was quite amused by such tiny ,little, wriggly , creatures!
Its a whole new chapter for all of us!!!

New Life!

Today we recieved news that Dotty our Puppy's Mummy had safely delivered 8 brand new Puppies!
We received pictures of the tiny little ones who looked a little like Guinea pigs!
You can probably predict that we have been given forst refusal on one of these!
We are totally delighted to see thier sweet little faces but turned this experience into a little project!The children need to research the costing for care for a week a month and annually for Dotty then allow for any new equipment!
Then research psychogical needs etc.
They will then present the case including pros and cons to the family,including possible fund raising ideas!
Today Dotty enjoyed bouncing ,circling and pouncing in the sunlight and especially delighted in stalking every shadow she saw.
She also took reat pleasure in eating and rolling on every possible piece of frosty grass!
Once she spotted some of the wonderful pack we walk with from 630-8ish, she made a beeline for the ball they were playing with !In a flash she stole it ,and lavished in the attention she recieved, as the entire pack tried to keep up with her exhuberant celebratory springs,leaps and dashes accross the cricket and fottball pitches!
We ended our antics in the park with a short training session just helping our precious puppy to remeber a few manners,and patterns of behaviour for her and public safety,
Clearly all her enthusiasm had paid off beuase unusually she was completely composed on our return journe and actually walked to heel !
Next while we were doing some maths together,a parcel arrived at our door and to our delight our mini green house ,seed trays and propogators arrived!
The children spent time reading the instructions then constructing the framework and shelves for the greenhouse problem solving to a point then thay enlisted the help of their Dad who was working from home today!
Next they sowed some seeds and enjoyed choosing a space for their new greenhouse!
Tommorow as part of our learning we will also visit our allotment with another family who home educate and also have an allotment to do some weeding,bed preperation and sow parsnips and carrots inside toilet rolls!
We were informed that this is a way to ensure a longer less split shape of root veggies!
after all this excitement we had a science lesson discussing life cycles,reproduction in plants and Dogs too!
I wonder what could have inspired us?
Later we went to the park for our homee education social gathering!
Ds played with a lovely lad who has autism,he has incredibly structured schooling he ven wears unidorm even though he is being educated at home !
He has a team of therapists and trained voluntary helpers to assist his education.
His Mum is an inspiration she is doing every possible thing to help him get the best out of life and his education,she spends every moment she can helping him .
Ds and YD are very confident with paralell play and did this so well with him today this made amazing connections and his mum saw some touching moments as we quietly observed his amazing progress!
We also met a new friend for YD who is a similar age and has a great sense of fun and excellent social skills!
We finnished the day with a long walk arund the various trees that line our beautiful park to select a Tree for our group to photgraph each time we meet we hope to obeserve the changes and progress through the year with each two weeks that pass by!
By th time we returned home it was time to prepare tea and get some rest after a very full day..........New life can be so inspiring!

Happy Days!

We have had a holiday to remeber in Longleat forest!
So much fresh air and exercise with a lot of swimming too!
The children really enjoyed having accomodation next to a pond ,surrounded by trees ,which meant we saw rabbits birds of many types and best of all a 1 year old Buck .This deer had such velvet covered antlers and we loved watching as he sunned himself and stood still so tha we could admire him.

The children said the view from our patio doors was like natures tv !We spent hours observing squirrels,birds ,ducks,moor hens,rabbits and deer.
In the whole time we had no whining or moaning ,there was such peace and contentment with the exception of Jonathon who simply wanted to return home after Tuesday as he finds any change of routine incredibly tiring and challenging ,this is why things like holidays and field trips are such a vital part of his home education journey.
Jonathon needed alot of time and calm explanations as well as activities to calm his senses but he overcame his overwhleming need to return to home before we were due to and told me how proud he felt that he had been able to last it out ,when we got home!
Sarah-Jane rated the holiday 10 out of 10.Susanna gave it a 9 Jonathon a 9 not bad really!
We were able to hire bikes and loved transporting ourselves around the forest in this manner!
SJ improved her swimming so much she was able to swim and even tread water out of her depth !
JDN remains an underwater lover,
SAN has invented a new swimsuit appraisal game involving appraising peoples swim wear for practicality ,coverage, choice of colour design etc and how well it fits/suits each person.
We ate simply,enjoyed each others comapny and played UNO (card game) into the small hours,we had to return aday early as SAN had a GCSE science module on the Friday, it was very eerie crossing the Salisbury plain late on Thursday noght it was pitch black and very icy indeed!
The stars were very clear on the other hand so we coud really appreciate what an amazing palce Salisbury Plain and Stonehenge must have been ever sicnce they existed!
There was so much peace and so much life in everythingw e did on Holiday and we were sad to leave the Forest behind!
The highlight of the week was when the children completed an awesome high ropes type activity in the trees!this ended in a descent using a vertical zip wire.
All three children completed this course and I felt so proud of the way they moved with such composure and encourage one another as they progressed along the course!
We were ery thankful to DH who stayed at home to care for Dotty and the hens!
He really hates holidays with us and prefers to be at home in his own comfort zone!

Back to basics

We are back after such a wonderful time together in Longleat Forest in Whiltshire!
The children really enjoyed the experience of doing high tree activities!
We have had a wonderful time together and were even able to invite another home educating family to join us as guests in the pool for a day it was fabulous ! It all ended up with making smores on the fire in our accomodation!
We had a very late journey home with very sleppy children in the car the whole holiday was the best we have ever had!

We are off to the woods!

Dotty has really enjoyed the walks in the rain and has especially enjoyed our local park being flooded!
I gave her a bath the other day to help get her ready to meet my Mother for the first time.
Dotty barked for a few moments then decided my Mother wasn't too much of a threat and decided to sidle up between us on the sofa and eventually rested her head on My mum's lap!
The spaniel eyes won her over straight away!
The hens are still laying well but we have had to restrcit their acces to some areas of the garden as there is absolutely no lawn left!!!
We are supplementing thier pellets and corn with some fresh greens like cabbage.
Today we secured our allotment for another year so we have been very busy making big plans!

For the last few weeks we have been very busy with home education projects .
Maths and english continue in both structured and child led activities.
DD has really enjoyed exploring multiplication tables using a floor game I made for her!
DS has been mastering HCF and LCF and factor tree on conquest maths!
DD has also been using mathletics education city and singapore maths along with a little Kumon maths too!
We are very busy with our egyptians project as we continue our journey through world history courtesy of story of the world, the children are doing a computer thing together producing a slide show to accompany a song they like right now.
The children have also done alot of cooking!
DD has made some excellent banana bread loaf, and DS made flapjacks!
They are also learning alot about nutrition after we purchased excellent nutrition charts from
a nurtion company on line one is a very colourful chart explaining essential vitamins and minerals and which food supply them best. It was so wonderful to see our children choosing meals becuase of two health charts!
We also had lots of home education group events the first was a pancake race and pancake banquet with our small,friendly home education group which especially includes all familie who hav children who might be classified in schools as having special educational needs.
Tis group asctually has many so called typical families but the attraction is the small informal and very friendly group atmosphere.
We have also started a music movement and singing group last Monday.
This involved simple music theory precussion work,music appreciation,interpretation, and some simple singing we used a song back available free from sing up a national charity trying to promote singing to promote singing to enhance eductaion and community too!
This was such fun on a rainy morning we danced around the room sining ALice the camle as a warm up !
Later we made Marracas (from www.enchantedlearning.com) using papaer plates tissue paper ribbons seqiun glitter glue and paint!
We also made a trebble clef using glitter and glue!
We read lots and started to make plans for our holidays as we are due to go to centre parcs in Longleat tommorow!
The children love the forest,meeting the owls etc and they adore swimming too!
We are really lloking forward to a very short break made shorter by the fact that our oldest child has a gcse exam on Friday so we need to return one day early and leave on Monday afternoon.
I will try to get as many photos as possible and psot when we return.
Dotty is staying at home with DH as he hates holidays and hates swimming and loves being at home,and centre parcs are so restrictive about where dogs can go and what they can do that we felt she would enjoy home more!

Getting our bearings!

Today I got up extra early to give Dotty an extra long walk!
She was so surprised to meet up with her friend ,who is a large, English Boxer called Tilly. They ran through the park together .The two puppy pals rolled through puddles,tried to dig holes all over the park, then, finally, they found small stick, and shared it.There they were, inseperable! It was such a comical scene as they were merrily trotting along together with this old twig in their mouths!
I am so proud of Dotty who is now just turning nine months!She is doing so well with recall even when she is interested in chasing birds or playing with dogs she keenly returns if I call and signal to her! Her ears fly out behind her as she sppeds back to me!
Her little tail looks like a propeller when she is running along!!!!
This evenig our walk was made more thrilling by the presence of a family walking their dog int he park with a torch on permanently .Dotty is obsessed with shiny lights and adores chasing the shadows that shiny lights produce we needed to seriously distract her so that she didn't harass the innocent people trying to have a quiet eveing stroll with their dog!

Well back to our daily learning adventures!
DS was very perplexed by a maths lesson involving bearings.
He actually had to use a protractor ,ruler, and set square on paper with absolute acuracy
This is very difficult for a child who struggles with cordination and sensory integration, but with lots of patience and encouragement he completed his assignment with 96% as a mark.It only took him about an hour and a half with lots of moral support and calming shoulder rubs to help him overcome his abject fear of having to coordinate so many things at once.

DD also didn't understand the point of leanring how to multiply at all so I simply spent time showing her how labourious it is to add up 12 twos or 11 4s and how long it takes to write out the sums! Eureka she has decided that its really helpful to use multiplication!

We spent time reading together about ancient Egyptians today and both children spent time creating stencil designs of some Egyptian symbols!

We read together and we shared a delicious lunch full of fresh veggies and cheesy wholemeal toast. This feast was in honour of our play date with another home educating family when DD spent time making clay pots,drawing and painting.
Later she spent time building a fairy tale castle out of lego!
Then after tea she continued some work on her Egyptian Symbols and asked to do some more work on multiplaication!
This afternoon after taking part in all of his learning adventures at home,
DS went to play with another friend who is home educated, and has Aspergers syndrome.
He was so excited all day waiting to go.

This week has been hectic so far with Home ed group at our house on Monday,Tuesday with a visit from our malysian friends who also home educate,Wednesday joining forces with another home edding family to do history projects,
Today playdates afte a busy day of leanring activities I am ready to rebbot the wasshing machine wipe down every surface above the florr sweep hoover and clean all of the washable floors and hoover every carpet before bed!

Right housework frenzy, pack swimming things into a bag then collapse into a lovely bath followed by bed , beeed , beeed , it feels like years since I last spent ime in my lovely cozy bed!