Today we’ve had another perfect Home Ed day. One where all of us realise just why we’ve made an active choice to live our lives the way we do. One that makes the sacrifices and the compromises worthwhile and reminds us that this is precisely where we want to be, who we want to be with and what we want to be doing :).
It was the penultimate Forest School today. I actually think, despite having frustrations with it over the course of the 10 weeks we will end on a high and look back at it as worth having done. Davies particularly would like to take the whole bushcraft stuff further and it’s definitely something we’ll look into more for him.
They had a good session and thanks to Liza and I giving some (possibly rather overdue) feedback it was fairly fast paced and structured which was good. They have been inclined to allow way too much free play and running wild in the forest which is great for their schoolchildren sessions where being outside and having freedom is a novelty but less worth-the-money for our kids who get to do that whenever they want.
First they lit the fire communally and then were given a small branch / leaves from a tree which they had to go off into the woods and match to a living tree. When they’d all done so they then walked the group to their tree and Millie told them all about the trees they’d identified. I didn’t overhear all of them but I heard her talking about the elder and giving lots of information about it.
Next they stopped for hot chocolate after a melting kettle handle drama and Steve told a story while they drank. Then they all drew a letter from Millie’s ‘magic bag’ and set about becomming a tree as a group. There was one person (H) being the heartwood and standing tall and strong, then a couple of sapwoods (which included both Davies and Scarlett) surrounding the heartwood which draw water up at 100mph, there was bark, roots and leaves all doing different tasks and the group was working together to create a model of a tree.
Finally they made some beads from elder to create bracelets. Elder has a very big pith which means it is easily hollowed out so there was some cutting small lengths from twigs and then using tent pegs to hollow them out and threading them onto string. They decorated them either with artful peeling off of the bark or crayons. I wasn’t required to help much at all with either of my children so I invested my time in making my own bracelet instead :).
We walked down the hill doing a good PR job on Millie to HE her own daughter, Davies and Scarlett passed on our phone number to the mother of a friend they have made at Forest School to try and arrange to meet up again as they’ve got on well and then we headed for home.
We had a short time to eat lunch before heading off again as I had an appointment to give blood booked. We parked up and walked to the church hall where we passed the time waiting by playing rock, paper, scissors. Unfortunately my finger prick test showed low hb levels which meant I needed another test with blood from my arm. The levels need to be 125 or above and I was 124 so I was ruled out of donating today :(. Not the first time it’s happened and as Ady reminded me earlier it seems to be the case at a certain time of the month so maybe I should try and coordinate not donating then in future. The doctor who did the arm blood collection managed to ping a vein though so I have a nasty bruise for me efforts nonetheless.
Davies and Scarlett were wearing their new Home Ed tshirts by Liza so Scarlett was proclaiming ‘The world is my classroom and life is my curriculum’ while Davies was telling the world ‘I can’t go to school, I’m autodidactic’ which the doctor immediately picked up on and having ascertained what autodidactic meant asked if I was home schooling them then? On a bit of a roll from talking about HE at Forest School I answered some of his questions too before the kids enjoyed some crisps and we left.
Next stop the library, *my* library this time for a music session with Theseus Gerard, the creator of Stomp. It was incredibly cool and Davies loved every minute of it. Sadly it was under attended and a few fairly small kids who were not being parented impacted negatively on the overall experience, as did a couple of older kids who just wanted to make as much noise as possible. Both kids got to play on his drumkit set up but he took a real shine to Davies and reckoned he had real talent for rhythm telling me if he could play like that at 8 just off the cuff then he could be amazing with some practise.
Davies made a couple of his own instruments with empty plastic bottles and Thesues spent some time coaching him on playing some beats, said he was a really cool kid and commended me on being an ‘excellent parent’ for so clearly fostering and encouraging his creativity – he loved the idea of Home Ed :). He made sure to learn Davies’ name and said he’d love to see him again so maybe we’ll try and get to one of his workshops or other events. He said he loved the way Davies listened and paid attention, like he could see his ears and eyes getting bigger to take everything in and how he was open to everything. He claimed to also be autodicdatic 😉
Scarlett enjoyed it but lost interest in trying to create beats so took herself off to look at some books instead.
We left the library really buzzed up and came home for dinner. Ady arrived home as they were finishing eating so we nipped to Halfords to look at roof boxes to visualise the sizes better before looking online. They dropped me at the allotment to do some watering and I walked home again.
We’ve borrowed the second Mr Gum book again so we read some of that and Davies took it to bed to carry on trying to read himself.
Thanks to a phonecall earlier tomorrow is looking to be equally out of the ordinary but completely normal for us so I really should go to bed and get some sleep in preparation for it.
From our local HE list – todays digest. I know Theresa so would be comfortable knowing these are in good condition.
“Please reply to misteri2511@… don’t hit the reply button, it will
go on the list and I might not see it!
We are selling some old drums, (they are not a set).
There is a double snare drum, 14″ across x 10″ deep.
A single snare, 14″ across x 6″ deep.
Also a 12″ cymbal.
They all have stands, some of the skins have been dimpled, but not ripped/torn.
£25 for the lot, or would consider splitting.
Theresa”
Happy to pass Theresa’s email if you are interested
Comment by Michelle — 24 June 2009 @ 7:30 pm
drumming thing sounded totally cool. There are some fab drumming clubs here, I’m sure your area will have the same sorts of things available – everything from taiko to djembe, junk drum workshops,etc. I love proper kit playing too – go for it!
Comment by Sarah — 25 June 2009 @ 5:31 am