We’ll tell you what we want, what we really want…

to be including around this time next year in our Round Up of 2010.

In the closest we ever get to planning anything in advance here is what we want to do, see, learn, experience, visit and make happen.

I have mentioned to several people IRL that we do this rather vague list every year and I’ve already been asked 3 times if I’ve done it yet and if so what does it contain. I suspect they are clinging to the idea that we do have some sort of curriculum after all but it remains as random as we are despite me having fantasties that Scarlett will ask to learn calligraphy and Davies will want to know about converting fractions into percentages 😆

First up, regular stuff:

Wildlife ExplorersBoth Davies and Scarlett want to carry on with this. They get loads out of it and have both settled well into being in seperate groups now. I think Scarlett moves up when she is 8 so this whole year will be in different groups for them. We’ll also do at least the monthly Home Ed meet up at Pulborough Brooks, carry on with the Wildlife Action Awards (silver is complete and just needs printing off and posting, gold is probably already underway if I look at what they’ve already done for it). I’ve been looking at Pulborough Brooks events site and already earmarked several events coming up in the first quarter of the year to book.

Swimming Scarlett has specifically mentioned improving her swimming as something she wants to achieve this year. They are both making steady progress and I’d hope they had both reached the big pool by the end of 2010. I have also done well with swimming this year going from a gasping to reach double figures at the beginning to managing my goal of 50 lengths in an hour by the end of the year. My aim is to continue swimming for an hour most weeks and just see how many more lengths are achieveable for me in that time slot.

Badgers This will be Davies’ last year in Badgers, infact he could even finish in the Summer and become a cadet in September. He will have done the full five years in Badgers by the time he finishes, been awarded SuperBadger and has already achieved his gold paw and become a Follow Me Badger. He intends attending Badger camp again this summer.

Scarlett has her silver paw and will have achieved her gold by the end of the year. She will still have two full years ahead of her even by the end of this year but will certainly be well on track for completing all the badges and getting her Super Badger status.

I have also joined the ranks of SJA as an Assistant Badger Leader, which I hope the trade off of poking my nose into something that had previously been Davies and Scarlett’s domain and forgoing my hour alone or with Ady each Wednesday evening will pay off with securing the future of the Worthing Badger sett along with giving me something else interesting to add to my CV.

Brownies and Sea Scouts which I’ll lump together because they rather conveniently run at almost the same time on a Tuesday evening and mark the fact the children are in the middle set of the guiding and scouting movement now rather than the first one (Brownie and Cub rather than Rainbow and Beaver). Davies has enjoyed his first term at Sea Scouts despite facing some tension over his Home Ed status. I am both proud of him for choosing to stick with it and hopeful it will work out ok for him. This coming term and the Summer term should prove to be the more enjoyable ones with them getting out and about more and doing outdoor activities which I think Davies will love. Brownies for Scarlett will be very experimental and I reserve judgement on how she will find it – and indeed on how they will find her – until after she’s been a couple of times.

Young Archaeolgists Club Davies intends signing up for a second year of the local branch so should start attending their monthly meetings again in February when they restart.

Reading Groups Along with the Home Ed reading group Davies and Scarlett have started going to monthly I have also volunteered to run a six week long trial of Chatterbooks at the library. They are normally run as a monthly meeting book group but the powers that be have dictated we do it for six consecutive weeks to see how it works out. It’s on the condition that Davies and Scarlett attend as it’s in my own time and has a strict 7-9 year olds age range. I’m still at planning stage with regards to how it will actually work each week but anticipate it including illstrations, storytelling, talking about books and authors and sharing what we enjoy about reading and books.

Having asked everyone what they’d like to do, see, learn about in 2010 I got a fairly reticent response from all three of them but I suspect this was to do with timing (day after a very late night and long car journey) than general apathy about their lives ;).

Ady wants to learn about butchery. He thinks it might be something he’d like to do as a career one day but he’d like to learn more about it recreationally at first at least. We will look out for courses or other opportunities to learn for him. He’d like to visit the Isle of Wight – we’ve not been for years and he has a yen to go over on the hovercraft for the day.

Davies wants to learn to ride a bike. I’m hoping he will crack this at Centerparcs actually as we’re intending taking his bike, he’ll have nice flat roads with no cars to practise on and plenty of able friends to cheer him on / show him how it’s done. He wants to continue improving his reading. I think he’s cracked it this year but needs to practise now. He surprises both me and himself with how well he can read when he actually tries but still has a bit of a mental block about trying in the first place as he’s spent so long not being able to read he seems to forget he can. More bushcraft type activities would be good and he’s very keen to try out his own little tent for the first time. He wants to go to Badger camp again and would like to learn some more stuff about animation. He did ask if there was an animation museum and I’ve found various possibilities including The Cartoon Museum, The National Media Museum (which has the annual Bradford Animation Festival each November and we may consider visiting).

Scarlettwould still quite like to see a dolphin actually! She also wants to see an elephant although she is not being so particular as to demand to see one in the wild. She did say she’d quite like to ‘go to a jungle’ but she knows this might be one of her dreams she needs to make happen one day in the future rather than asking me to facilitate. Visiting either Port ympne or Chester Zoo will tick the elephant box for her at least. I’m hoping a planned visit to Scotland in the summer may prove successful for the dolphins.
She doesn’t want to read or write although does at least concede these days that she may have to learn if she really does want to work with animals. I overheard Davies putting forward a very convincing argument for literacy and numeracy based on her zoo vet DS game the other day :lol:. She wants to improve her swimming and would also quite like to learn to ride a bike now. She’d like to hatch ducklings which we have got planned for the spring as soon as the timing is right for them to be okay outside when they are fully downed.

Both Davies and Scarlett still want to learn to do backflips. After toying with gymnastics for a term and concluding it wasn’t for them I have put feelers out for circus skills and tumbling / acrobatics coaching instead. They have their names down for Whippersnapper Circus and we’ll keep an eye out for one off courses with them. I also have a fire juggling friend with contacts in the right places seeing what she can find out for me too.

I have had an initial chat with a friend and fellow HomeEdder about art classes for them both as I think they’d benefit from someone giving them advice and training on how to use various materials and some ideas. I’ve also got their names down at a local art gallery for art classes there too if the tentatively planned skills swap (I do something with my friends’ daughters while she gives Davies and Scarlett some art lessons) doesn’t pan out.

A woman I met on my WPA course has offered music lessons and has a folk harp, piano and various percussion instruments. We agreed to get Christmas out of the way first and then come back to it but that could become a regular thing if she and they get on and enjoy working together.

Julie is keen to progress with the pony riding this year too although Honey is getting very old and tired and she doesn’t expect to still have her by the end of the year. Jack and Maisie are not interested but Julie thinks Lorna might be and wants to carry on with Davies and Scarlett who she feels show potential and enjoy it.

I am looking forward to doing some real live shepherding, finishing my WPA training (I have an interview, assignment, H&S training course and CRB checking to undergo still yet along with more training along the way) and actually doing some volunteering. I am reserved about the Badger thing but know I will learn new skills from it and be doing something community spirited. I’m looking forward to the various things I have proposed at work and the further training I have been put forward for too.

I want the allotment to be even more successful this year. I want to increase our ‘livestock’ to include ducks and maybe even make some money from breeding chickens.

I want to shop seasonally and locally and try and avoid supermarkets wherever possible. I am planning on batch cooking, using our own produce, PYO and doing lots of freezing, preserving and other such muffiny pursuits.

I want to carry on with my swimming weekly, cycling as soon as the evenings are light again (which tidily brings me to 30 minutes three times a week during the summer months) and think about something feasible for the winter months but at least include a couple of daytime walks a week to get the blood pumping. I want to spend more time on the beach.

I’d like to learn to crochet and try and make one thing every month craft-wise that I am proud of enough to sell / give away as a gift or just keep and hug to myself every time I see it (a bit like my blanket 🙂 ).
Places to go
Which also includes planned or half planned holidays.

January
Centerparcs from 18th -22nd with a visit to friends on the way up and a visit to more friends on the way back again.

February
There has been a request from the kids to visit Cadburyworld. We have been before but Davies only just remembers it and Scarlett doesn’t at all. As it’s indoors February would seem a sensible time to take a visit there. Having checked prices I don’t think the group discount price is worth the headache of trying to organise a group visit there, but if sufficient people are interested then I might be persuaded to think again…

March Planning the Isle of Wight day trip on a hovercraft for March.

April
I want to visit the Thames Barrier and as part of the trip would include a riverside walk we stand more chance of decent weather in April than any earlier in the year. Again, would consider organising a group trip if enough people are interested, but equally happy to visit alone. The minimum group size is only ten so possibly worth trying to drum up numbers.
Am also keen to visit Wildwood at some point in the Spring and again would like to try and get enough people in for a group visit so we can take advantage of prices and an educational talk. Another place probably better visited late March / April for hopefully warmer weather.
Groombridge Place opens at the end of March – end of November and is somewhere else I definitely want to visit in 2010.

May
We’ll definitely do the Green Fair at Sustainability Centre, although I notice they are doing a Skills Fayre for the whole week with all sorts of interesting looking things happening which I will wait to hear more about and maybe considering doing. I think we’d love it.

Also up for the Victorian Farm camping trip if that happens although it would likely be just me and the kids.

Hoping for a repeat of fabulous time at Jan and Jonathan’s.

If we’re not already booked up there is the Food and Farming Fair at Weald and Downland on 2nd and 3rd May,

June
Nothing specific planned yet, but there’ll be heavy horse show at Weald and Downland on 5th and 6th, Open Farm Sunday
on June 13th, the South of England Show on 10th, 11th or 12th June depending on my work rota
July
A camping trip to Scotland is in the planning stages with Marcus, Michelle and Chloe. The quest for spotting dolphins continues…

Dates already released for the Festival of History as 17th and 18th of July so will be doing that again, along with Wicksteed Park for coastertastic fun.

August
Davies tells me he’s going to Badger camp, no idea on dates for that yet.
It’s the Steam Festival at Weald and Downland on 14th and 15th

September
We’ll be doing our traditional camping at Sustainability Centre with day trip to Butser again. I’m hoping to pre-arrange something a bit different at Butser and see if we can get one of their regular workshop tutors to run something for us like flint knapping or Roman or Celtic cooking. DATE SET for Sunday 5th – Saturday 11th September.

October
Just noting a few events if we are free at the time: Autumn Fair and Game Show at Ardingly 2nd and 3rd October.
Autumn Countryside show at Weald and Downland on 9th and 10th.
If we’ve not already managed it earlier in the year I want to visit Port Lympne.

November

December
Already planned Christmas camp for Okehampton along with provsionally booking Pennywell for the nativity. Come and join the celebration! 🙂

The year already looks pretty full when I see it like that!