One word? When seven would do…

Blog below is long and of a planning nature just for me. I have been meaning to write an updated Ed Phil for ages and while this is not it by any means it is the closest I can give time and energy to at the moment! Not intended to spark any discussion (although don’t let that put you off commenting!) but as this blog does form part of a home education blog ring this is probably the right place for it 🙂

Following on from yesterday and further formulating my ‘plan’ for our approach I have been thinking about how we move forwards from here.

I am more than happy not to follow any sort of curriculum. In my ideal world (and I am very aware that it is *my* ideal world, which will not necessarily be the childrens’ ideal world and as such will need to remain flexible) I would like the children to spend their early years at home with me covering the following basics:
Learning to read and write. I am not able to relax into the whole ‘mine didn’t learn until they were 12 and now they are at the same level as their peers’ way that I have read other HEers talking about. Firstly because rightly or wrongly I consider those to be the utter basics of education and learning in the western world at least. I know that these will be the skills that outsiders will judge our success on, I know that if we are to get tangled up with LEAs and the like these will be the first things they ask about. Secondly I think that these are skills so fundamental to further learning, to articulating oneself in life and as necessary in becomming independant as to be the next logical stage on from walking and talking I would feel we had failed if they were not at least on a semi-par with schooled children of the same age in these skills (although quite how I will know this or measure it I am not sure 😉 ) and lastly I also feel that in learning these skills the whole of the rest of their education opens up to them and can really become far more child led and autonomous. If they can read then they can choose what to read, they can do it at their own speed and in their own time, they can be sent off with books to learn whatever it is they show interest in and in the same way that I got hours of pleasure as a child ( and infact still do) from opening the cover of a new book and settling into my own imagination wherever the book takes me I cannot wait to see that same joy on their faces. Writing I am perhaps less worried about – I guess it will follow on almost naturally from reading but I am keen for them to have the necessary skills to write well, by which I mean using grammar, punctuation, paragraphs (yes I know I may have to draft in help for that one 😉 ) and so on.

The 100 Easy lessons, coupled with workbooks (when he is ready for them and wants to do them) and the already groaning bookshelves should take care of this. The main thing to overcome has been Davies’ reluctance to start and my impatience with him once he does, but thanks to 100EL I think we are over the worst and to hear the excitement in his voice when he actually reads those first few words has been worth it all. Scarlett will as ever follow along wherever he leads so I see no issue with that one sorting itself out in the next couple of years if not before!

Maths is an area I am less confident about. I know from looking at the various bits of curriculums I’ve seen that this would not be the way forward and TBH I think I am lacking confidence in my own mathematical knowledge more than anything else. My plan is to read for myself some of the many books I have on the subject and start to build my own confidence in the subject back up until I feel able to introduce mathematics and concepts of it in a more matter of fact way.

Science – is another area I am less knowledgable on myself, but similarly an area which is very rich in resources. We have books to give us ideas for fun experiments to prove scientific theoriesand chemistry, we have loads of books about the human body (including the Usborne skeleton model book) to kick start biology along with stuff like our life cycle bugs and frogs and animals toys, and hopefully a lot of the physics will be covered alongside maths as we go along. Science although something I am mindful of is not something which scares me as there is just endless information to be read / viewed readily available as and when we need it.

History, Geography, Religion (as a concept not as an actual learning of as a way of life) are things which although I may not be rich in knowledge of I am confident and interested in enough to be happy to learn along with the children wherever our interests lead us. I think I would like to do a series of projects – along the lines of dinosaurs, kings and queens, the romans, artists, focus on Europe / China / America etc, type headings which we will work at together finding informaion out by reading books, using the internet, watching TV shows, looking at resorces like the globe, jigsaw puzzles, field trips to places like museums, roman villas, churches and synagogues, art galleries and so on. Bearing in mind the children’s ages (2 & 4) this is something which although I am itching to get started will work when they are both a bit older (and have those basics of reading and writing I was talking about already in place!)

I do have a couple of ideas in mind for stuff we could start now, which is very general and would take in plenty of the above in basic, early years ways. I will talk more about them in a bit.

Music – I would love the kids to enjoy and appreciate music. It will be my goal to teach them as many lyrics as I can 🙂 Seriously though I do want them to have some level of musical ability but again they are far too young to get into anything more than we are already doing. This includes – a big box of kiddy instruments which they regularly use to annoy me and make me once again thankful we live in a detached house otherwise we would be featured on a ‘Neighbours from hell’ type reality tv show. We listen to a variety of music in the house and in the car and Davies is encouraged to think behind the music about stuff like if it is happy or sad, how it makes him feel, what instruments might be playing it and so on. We also have the soundtrack cds to several of his favourite films (Toy Story and Monsters Inc) with a lot of instrumental music which we listen to in the car and he talks about what would be happening in the movie, what the characters are feeling etc. In time I would like them both to learn to read music and play one or more instruments of their choice, but as I had piano lessons and viewed them as a chore I want this to be something they really want to do and not a further cause of nagging and cajoling on my part so that may have to wait.

Physical stuff – currently not an issue at all given the amount of running round the house, leaping off sofas and dancing around pretending to be Bert from Mary Poppins stepping in time over the rooftops of London or Jack climbing up his beanstalk! Davies does his Tumble Tots which I intend for Scarlett to try again in a few weeks time, they are both starting a music and movemet type class for a trial run next week and in time I would be happy for them to have some sort of dance or sport lessons – again all in the future for now.

Crafty and arty stuff – my artistic side was very squashed as a child, and I still would rather they didn’t run loose with glue and glitter as I end up tidying it up! They do play with playdough fairly regularly as well as stuff like drawing (aquamat), magic maize and so on so I don’t feel they are neglecting this area too much 🙂

Drama / imagination / play – the one area I have absolutely no concerns about. The two of them play all day long creating imaginary worlds, situations, role playing of characters they know from TV / film / plays, dressing up, pretending and making believe. They are both able to play alone with their own company, mix well with each other and given time (like a few days into Melrose!) are able to make friends and play with other children.

Socialising – another area which I don’t give so much head space to these days. I have my moments of worrying that all their friends are manufactured blind dates by me, but then I guess school is too to a degree, as is work. You meet people through some sort of connection or coincidence whether it is a shared age and location, a shared profession or a shared friend or acquaintance so why not your parents, their friends’ children or other kids who live locally and are Home Educated? On a normal (non pox quarantined) week we see their cousins, our home ed group friends, two lots of schooled friends and the other children at Tumble Tots – enough for us not to be too worried about whether they are mixing enough or not I would say! 🙂

General life skills – stuff which I would consider very important is probably what we are working on most at the moment. I believe that (despite getting yelled at a fair bit!) being home with the kids and them being part of a family which is happy, affectionate and loves to spend time together over and above everything else will give them the best start in life to growing into secure, self confident, happy, healthy adults. I am keen to teach them good manners and other social skills, deference and respect where due and necessary, while retaining the ability to question and challenge. I watch them learn how to construct an argument, deal with negotiation and tolerance and understanding, empathising and grapsing the concept of their place within the family, society and the world on a daily basis. I want them to feel nurtured, supported, loved, able to achieve whatever they want in life and to reach for the stars and beyond. I don’t know if this is the right route to getting them there but I do know it is the very best I can offer and at this time for these children this is the right environment for them to learn and grow.

Business sense and self discipline / motivation etc – at the moment both the children are of the age where they soak up anything and everything with a greedy lust for more. I am of the opinion that not only does formalised schooling hamper that natural urge but it can also squash it for ever. I do however feel that as they get older they also need to learn the skills to fit into our society and that does, sadly involve sometimes doing stuff you would really rather not, trading in your time and knowledge for money/food/shelter and having the ability to apply yourself to a task. At this stage in our life I am not working, however it does not come easily to me not to and as such I do tend to find other ways to continue that discipline of growing and bettering myself such as my online learning course, doing household stuff and even blogging 😉 As the children get older it is my aim (and financially probably a necessity) for me to earn money in some way. I am still working out what that will be and I hope for it to eventually be something which I love, am passionate about and may even involve Ady too – all of which will be good example setting and role modelsf for the children who I aim to teach the cold hard side of real life to with stuff like managing finances, shopping, household bills, budgeting and so on in the future. Once the children are of an age where they have shown an aptitude or interest or possible career path towards a certain area I will encourage them to study for qualifications in that area as well as getting them to aim for some sort of paid employment in it by either seeking work experience, starting to train for a profession or even just talking to people who work in that line of industry.

So that’s it really. I think there are skills which get taught in school and probably won’t get covered here at home, but TBH I am more inclined to feel they won’t be missed anyway 😉

So back to my plan for now – I have several project type tasks in mind which will span over weeks or even months and hopefully spider web into more things. The first is some sort of project on time. This will initially involve talking about telling the time, then break down into the different parts of a day, week, month, year, decade etc. I want to create a timeline within their lifetimes going back to this morning, yesterday, last week, last year, before Scarlett was born, before Davies was born, before Mummy and Daddy were born etc. The basis of this will create both a family tree using photos and so on and stuff like looking at video footage of them as babies, us before we had them, our wedding day, my own baby photos, my parents wedding pictures, pictures of them as children, talking to my parents and grandmother etc. This should then spin off into what life was like for previous generations and can include stuff like the wars, British history including kings and queens, fashion and other pop culture like music, tv shows and adverts, field trips to grave yards, museums, looking at BDM records etc, taking them to old houses where me and Ady lived as children, our old schools etc etc etc

This then opens into an ‘our world’ type project which using the globe and the world map will give us a starting point for all sorts of geography and history projects. I have several books on different countries, their culture, dress, cuisine etc, there are stacks of TV shows to watch on this one and it opens out to lots of other craft, history, geography etc spin off too. Once we have covered our world with all its people, weather, disasters, history and so on we can also branch out into space and the earth’s place within the solar system.

So that takes care of the next 5 years or so anyway 😉