Our own personal brand of Home Education is very much based on time spent together, talking, just being and living really. I rarely fret about educational provision just because it’s hard to stop Davies and Scarlett asking an almost constant flow of questions, or making observations, or using stuff they see to illustrate a point made before. I never really worry about socialising as I think that is one of the bases we’ve got pretty well covered here with a good mix of socialising in different environments and two very socially-able children. I think we are good at the out and about exposing them to different things with a healthy mix of real life stuff like household running things and stuff just for fun or entertainment or to follow up an interest. I think we have a great load of resources and would pride myself on providing lots of stimulating stuff to incite new passions, learn new skills and introduce new ideas while leaving plenty of scope for play, imagination and creativity. I don’t blog a lot about any tweaks I might make to our lifestyle here and there, or even dwell on it too heavily but I am pretty reactive to the children and their needs.
What I do think I am guilty of however is not spending enough time doing not a lot. All 3 of us love being out and about, or with friends, but Davies especially does request at least once a week that we stay home and don’t see anybody. Some of our best chats take place while driving along in the car and as we very often have company in the car that seems to have been in lesser supply too lately. The children rarely, if ever, actually ask to spend time with friends or say ‘can we see X today’ and often actually are pleased on days when it is ‘just us?’, so I’m going to try really hard to keep at least one day a week free from time with other people and ‘just for us’. I doubt we’ll stay in all day because that doesn’t really suit me unless I’m actually actively doing something at home but it will give us that time in the car to have the music up really loud or to chat and to walk at our own pace looking at what interests them. This all sounds very ungrateful at us having friends at all and I don’t mean it to at all, I’m just aware that when other people are around I am less available for Davies and Scarlett and I think it curtails the whole autonomous following interests, asking quetsions type stuff which I strongly believe in.
So today I promised we wouldn’t see anyone else and they both asked to go to Drusillas for the day. Except I’d forgotten that my Mum was coming home from a week away and was desperate to see us so I’d said she could join us. They were both slightly disappointed although pleased to see Granny and actually she arrived 20 minutes late and then was keen to get going long before we were so actually it was a bad idea to bring her with us anyway. Well aside from her buying us lunch when we’d have brought a picnic instead :lol:. We were members at Drusillas for a couple of years after we moved home but gave it a miss last year and only really rejoined this year as Ady’s bonus came at the same time as Wallace and Gromit appearing there so we joined back up again. So today it was dead – there was one smallish school trip who were in the play area when we arrived there but left shortly afterwards and a few parents with toddlers and that was about it. So for the first time ever we gathered up the two different booklets you can get and walked round with them. The first is a Zoolympics one where you do various tasks around the zoo and see where you compare to animals for weight, jumping, running, hanging on, standing on one leg, shouting, holding your breath etc. The second is just an animal spotter book where you stamp to show you have spotted various creatures. Davies did the writing and filling in in his and Tarly did some of it in hers so it was all very educational. We spent a while in the farm area with them feeding the animals, petting them and ‘milking’ the cow and cooing over the bantams. They would soo love to live on a farm those two children :). Photos over on flickr.
We had lunch in the soft play area bit with them having a good whizz round that too and then a brief play in the play area enjoying the new spider mountain bit – which was a trampoline base tower with about 10 layers of crisscrossed elastic straps which you had to part to scramble through and get up without falling through. Excellent fun, I was desperate to have a go myself 😆 Tarly did well after an initial hissy fit about not being able to do it. Davies took his time but got to the top in the end. Scarlett then bounced on the trampoline while Davies went on the zip wire and then because my Mum was getting twitchy about going we had a ride round on the train before heading for home. It was really nice though, out and about, I’m always happy to listen to the children over a conversation with my Mum so they got more attention than if I’d been there with a friend and they got loads more out of the animals and activities there than we ever have before. :).
Once home Mum headed off and as we had just about an hour and a half before we had to leave for swimming I suggested we stick a film on. We’ve had A Series of Unfortunate Events here for weeks from work, which I’d picked up for a long car journey somewhere and hadn’t been taken in the end (not sure where we were going now :?:) so we stuck that on and watched it together. We all enjoyed it although there were lots of bits which needed explaining (terms like orphan, how and uncle could be a baddy, what a will is, who they’d want to look after them if me and Ady both died, that sort of thing :lol:) but we all thought Violet was fab. We also watched about 10 lots of people walk past our garden and double take looking at the chickens and the two or three mums on the school run who walk past every day and even call out ‘hello chickens’ as they go past :lol:. So nice to be a local curiosity!
Ady was having a bad day at work with his very own series of unfortunate events (see what I did there? ;)) which meant he wasn’t going to be home in time for me to leave Scarlett with him and take Davies swimming so he met us at the pool instead and we all watched Davies swim. Another good lesson although he was hampered by having lost his new good goggles when they were ‘playing a game with the goggles’ yesterday in Scarlett’s room (all now very clear that goggles are not toys and are not to be taken out of the swimming bag and placed in random locations around the house only to be realised they are not in the swimming bag ten minutes before leaving for swimming :roll:). We did find the previously lost crap pair so he had those on instead. As we were all there and Ady wasn’t at home getting the kids dinner ready we got them chip shop chips for their tea and I introduced them to the culinary delight that is the chip butty :). That still counts as being more adventurous with their dinners right?
Work in the morning and I’ve cleared a big pile of books, films and cds to take back having realised we’d got up to about 70 items in the house again :oops:.
Much as we have had a great time lately, I’m getting rather desperate for next Monday morning – nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to see …. ahhhh ….
Comment by Alison — 02 October 2007 @ 11:20 pm
No Mondays are fine, we have Magical Mondays 😉 😆
Comment by Nic — 02 October 2007 @ 11:29 pm
We seem to have made some good chunks of ‘just us’ time at the moment. In fact, we’re in the middle of one right now! It really does give scope for things, I know what you mean. I just spent half an hour on the internet with L, looking up info about rats and talking about the various issues involved in keeping pet rats.
Comment by Allie — 03 October 2007 @ 10:31 am
That’s why I’m feeling stressed atm we’re totally ‘over scheduled’ 😉 I can’t stand it. Since we’ve been back from Cornwall we’ve just been doing stuff constantly … it probably isn’t going to get better any time soon but after Christams I’m not booking anything extra for a few months.
(doesn’t help that house is still chaotic from most recent plastering)
Comment by layla — 03 October 2007 @ 11:18 am
I have mornings, I try to have every morning of the week at home just for us. Also the whole of Monday as they don’t have clubs atm. It’s vital for us as we are so busy the rest of the time. I also find that we also need time on our own within that. Today for example Pea is out with friends, Buzz is playing knights in his room and Boo is drawing and I’m on here. None of us are dressed and we haven’t spoken for well over an hour. Recharging all batteries is one of my main mantras in life.
Goggles drive me nuts as do sun glasses. I now have a basket that they all get out in and don’t get touched! The bath toy box has it’s own sets of goggles for playtime.
Comment by Roslyn — 03 October 2007 @ 11:37 am
I wonder if its the time of year, but I’ve been moaning today about the fact we have had something on every single day except once since we got back from America. Its just too much. E loves it and hates staying in, but R is desperate for time to just be at home, not bothering to get dressed, mooching about doing whatever happens to come up.
Comment by Em — 03 October 2007 @ 3:56 pm