About 6 weeks ago there was the usual rash of Educational Visits being planned on the local lists to coincide with the Back To School rush. I have not been organising anything other than Camp and WOOFing so decided to join in with some of the other people’s clipboardiness instead this year. So along with a couple of film week bookings, some course during half term and the green woodworking Davies did I also booked a couple of animal-y workshops locally. One at Raystede animal shelter where we go fairly regularly was today.
Scarlett loves Raystede, it was on her very short shortlist of places she considered rehoming Sploosh and Lucky. We’ve been there many times but only ever as a family, independant wander round, never to an organised event. We’ve also chatted to the Educational Officer, Lucy, at the South of England Show the last two years running.
The event today was really good, held in their purpose built ‘education yurt’ and with a ‘science theme’ it was at a fairly basic level and I don’t know that Davies and Scarlett particularly learnt anything new but they enjoyed the day and the activities.
We started with some talking about what they do at Raystede, then what sort of wild animals we have in the UK and what the differences between wild and domesticated animals are. The children then ran around outside collecting pictures of wild animals from the UK. Next they talked about hibernation and had to match the pictures of animals they had found to some statements around the outside of the yurt regarding what they do over winter. They all hid an acorn outside in the garden area (like squirrels) and then went outside to do a walk around the geese and ducks area following a trail with an interactive story about a hedgehog.
Davies and Scarlett had already teamed up with 3 brothers so we were in a team with them reading the story and collecting worms (not real ones) as we went. Back to the yurt to count up worms and then outside to make some bird feeders using apples, bird seed and string, then it was lunchtime.
We ate in the picnic area and I was rather reminded of everything I hate about Home Ed group educational trips as the pack mentality kicked in and there was way too much rowdiness and silly behaviour in the group for my liking. I am always hyper aware of being so obvious to the rest of the world as a group of kids Not In School and I hate the way as a group we so often live up to the prejudices of untamed, feral children. I am always so proud to be with the group of children that come along to camps as they conduct themselves so well, respectfully listening to people, asking considered questions and just behaving like the nice kids they are rather than running amok, being wilfully violent and vandalistic like some Home ed kids can be. Nothing dreadful did happen today but there were enough examples of ‘unparenting’ to remind me just why we don’t attend that many of these types of excursions. I was further reminded when one of the other parents came to chat to me later and I found myself wanting to shout at her for being an idiot ‘that’s the trouble with Home Ed, it gives them minds of their own…’ she said having identified me as ‘Scarlett’s Mum’ (yes, among other things… ;)) and told me how Scarlett was ‘quite the little eco-warrior’ for telling her child off for damaging a tree 😆 There are many aspects of my parenting and deviations from the norm that I would happily be taken to task on and can explain rationally, articulately and with passion and reason as to why we have made conscious decisions to do things a certain way. Allowing my children to behave in an unsociable fashion and be gits would not be one because I would not countenance that and would be dealing with my children accordingly.
Ooh that was a rant from nowhere wasn’t it! 😆
The afternoon was a chat about food chains and food webs and some practical demonstrations with a ball of wool and children being various plants and animals and passing the energy between themselves folllowed by heading outside for some parachute games. Finally they all made a tiny habitat in the garden and had to identify shelter, food, water etc within in.
I enjoyed chatting to Cintha and Ali and Davies and Scarlett said they had had a fab day. I think it was really good value for money at £3 each and an unusual enough experience for D&S to make it enjoyable. I talked to Lucy the Ed.Officer about a Keeper for the Day type thing for Scarlett for her birthday and she is going to see if she can put something together and let me know.
We left there and headed straight to the swimming pool. Finally we arrived in time for me to have two full hours swimming. Davies and Scarlett spent the first hour playing in the pool, on the diving boards and slide and finding other children to play with. I decided to aim for 90 lengths in my 2 hours as I am worried about my knees getting properly injured so wanted to slow my pace slightly but up my actual lengths. I split it into 3 40 minute chunks and aimed for 30 lengths every 40 minutes which I know I can achieve at a steady pace. I could possibly have done a few more as Scarlett got in with me at the end and did a couple of lengths which slows me up and I was happy to achieve 90 so instead of a last minute burst I did the last few lengths slowly to warm down having read some advice online about the first and last couple of lengths being slow ones. My knees were nowhere near as painful as last week and while they are still slightly stiff now there is no pain this week.
I do think 100 lengths is achievable in one go but that still means I have about 7 trips to the pool to do so I definitely need to get one or two extra sessions in on top of the usual once a week. Maybe this weekend some time…
Back home Ady had already got home and started the kids tea so I had a cup of tea and soaked in the bath for a while – my poor fingers and toes had only just stopped being wrinkly from the pool! 😆 I cooked a very autumnal dinner of roasted roots and Tasha’s wedding sausages and now I am utterly worn out.
loved the rant 🙂