This morning we went off to Bognor for a new Home Ed Book Club. There are two groups being run together in someone’s house. A 6+ group in the kitchen and a 12+ group in the conservatory. I signed us up when it was first mentioned as I thought it would be a good way of meeting some new, same aged Home Educators locally, I already know the woman running the 6+ group, like her lots but never manage to meet up with her. She has a same age as Davies son and a same age as Scarlett daughter too so it’s potentially all nice and tidy :). I also thought it was worth seeing if something structured like this would appeal to Davies and Scarlett moving forward. I know we’re never going to go down the me teaching them stuff route and I don’t think structure generally is something any of us are hankering for or in need of but I was curious as to whether the time is right for activities like this. I know they both get elements of group learning, circle discussions and stuff at Badgers / Rainbows / Sea Scouts / Wildlife Explorers etc but I thought something Home Ed specific might be a nice occassional addition. This is monthly, coincidentally the same day each month that my library reading group is (3rd Tuesday of the month) and on the basis of today was a very promising addition to our calendar.
I used to work in Bognor managing the Clinton Cards there and Ady used to live there. Infact it’s where I first met Ady as I was going out with someone else who lived in the same house as him and his then girlfriend. Spookily that house is now owned by some of Ady’s friends so we’ve been there since with the kids which feels very odd. I don’t like Bognor though, I think it’s a crappy seaside town with a really seedy feel to it. I was telling Davies and Scarlett I used to do the drive we were doing this morning every day on my way to work and promised I’d take them into town afterwards to show them where I worked. However I only ever used to drive to and from work and so the rest of my knowledge of Bognor is rubbish and I don’t know where anything is. I’d looked at a googlemap and written down some directions but got fairly lost and only fluked seeing a road which happened to lead from where we should have been to where we’d ended up it was so long. We were then able to find our way.
The group was for 2 hours and went really well. There was so talk about judging books by their cover, illustrations, fonts and how they told stories, some examples of books with interesting illustrations and then a load of different fonts were shown and the children decided what sort of stories they might be used for. There was some talk of genres and the children all talked about books they liked.
Then they all wrote their name in a font they thought reflected them and wrote some words to describe themselves. Scarlett was pretty resistant to the very idea of coming up with words to describe herself but Davies threw himself into it and came up with loads. He spelt them out letter by letter and I agreed he was right; loud, fun, adventurous, creative, imaginative, clever, artist,animator. Scarlett did concede to doing her name and made each letter into an animal as she thought that was what she was all about. She did the E in a zebra print, the L in leopard print and made the R have a horn like a rhino before realising L was for leopard and R was for rhino. She then regretted the E being zebra but I told her that was the second letter of zebra and then she wanted to make all the rest animals beginning with that letter. She had Snake, Camel, Ants, Rhino, Leopard, zEbra, Tiger, Tortoise and either coloured them accordingly or added ears, humps, forked tongues etc to the letters. It was really good and the first time she’s every shown interest in letters and sounds really.
All the kids then got given a folder to keep all their Book Club stuff in and Katy had a big stash of collage-y bits to stick on them to decorate them. Scarlett very comprehensively decorated hers with stuff, Davies was more measured and wrote ‘My Folder’ on it turning a couple of the letters into pencils writing the rest. He then decided to do some drawing and did a fab picture of Littlenose and Two Eyes from the book we are reading for next time (that we’ve already read), which was good enough to have several of the other parents commenting on it :). He also did some stuff with shadows and shading which was very good effects.
The group finished and both Davies and Scarlett were really enthusiastic about it and keen to do it monthly so it was well worth it :).
We then parked in the town for an hour, went and saw Clinton Cards, I bought a new pair of jeans as I seem to only have 2 pairs that fit me but don’t have holes and rips in them. I’m in the process of patching the ones of those in least tatty condition with the ones in worst condition but as I wear jeans 6 days out of 7 (even to work on a Saturday) and only ever buy very cheap ones when I tried on a pair in a cheap shop and they fitted really well I bought them.
On the way home we called in to see Chris and Julie’s mechanic to see what his take on my non-opening bonnet was. He managed to open it straight away! He thinks it needs a new handle though so I’m taking it over to him tomorrow afternoon to have that done.
We called into the library to collect a few items I’d had emails to say were in as I’m working in a different library tomorrow. Back home for all of about 20 minutes and the kids disappeared straight upstairs to Davies’ room to listen to the Star Wars OST which was one of the things we collected from the library.
Then back out again to swimming. Both the kids’ lessons went fine, they both played with friends while the other had a lesson – D made a friend and S played with her regular chum. We managed to be slightly late so I only had 50 minutes swimming. I was in a reflective mood rather than an agressive one so only managed 46 lengths but found that reassuring as I was 10 minutes down and not putting in massive efforts. I spent most of the time thinking about a friend who had just shared some very sad news :(.
We got back to the car to find Ady had been ringing me (I leave my phone in the car) to say he wouldn’t make it home in time for me to leave for my course. So we rang my Dad and arranged to drop Davies and Scarlett off there for Ady to collect them on his way through. Davies and I talked about Sea Scouts as his enthusiasm has been waning. I’ve not been able to ascertain whether it is genuine lack of interest, worry over the whole Home Ed teasing thing, or just being wiped out after an hours swimming and not being up for turning out again at what is usually pretty close to bedtime in the cold and dark evenings. I suggested he went today, stopped at a halfway point and thought about whether he was glad he’d made the effort to go or not. If he felt he was pleased he’d rallied and was enjoying it then he should remember that next week when he is feeling tired and not up for it. If he still felt like it wasn’t where he wanted to be then he should remember that and decide not to go and maybe think about trying again next year.
I dropped them off at my parents, nipped home to put the chickens away and collect my course notes and then headed off to my course. I had to double back to collect a teddy as we were doing real nappies this week and had been asked to bring one to practise nappies on. In the end it was only me and one other woman who remembered to bring teddies anyway. The course was good; we talked about Smart Shopping which we’d started to cover last week but run out of time on, learnt about what the supermarkets are doing on waste prevention and looked at various statistics and initiatives, then talked about nappies, handed round samples of disposables and resuables, learnt about more stats relating to both and the various initiatives locally for real nappies. Next week is the last session.
Back home I presented Scarlett with her teddy now all nappied up and caught up with Davies on the whole Sea Scout thing. Ady had (finally!) gone and chatted to the leaders and Davies is being invested next week. They were keen to check he was happy and to assure him that is he was feeling unhappy with anything he could tell them. Ady said the Home Ed thing didn’t come up but I’m guessing it has been noted anyway. Davies said he talked to the boys and said ‘look I really don’t go to school but let’s all stop talking about that anyway and just get on with being friends’. He seems pretty happy with the whole thing now so we’ll go ahead with investing him and take it from there. After next Tuesday I’ll be able to take him anyway and can do my customary wading in heavy handedly if necessary ;).
Very late dinner (stew I put on this morning before we left the house) and another early start and long day ahead tomorrow. Oh and Thursday. And actually on Friday too…