Books Glorious books

I don't know if you will remember but in the middle of A week K came up with the idea of us reading a letter themed book each week to go along with the theme of the week. As it was K's idea I left it up to him to choose the stories he thought would go along with what we were learning - so long as it had the specific letter of the week in the title I wasn't too fussed what he choose as reading the same book everyday would be beneficial for them regardless. I really should have mentioned which stories we read in the round up days but forgot so heres the B, C and D week stories we read each day. I have to say I think K picked well, even Lil B with her wriggly legs and baby attention span sat through them most days... I don't know if any of you have come across this story but it really is delightful, lovely illustrations and easy for the younger kiddies to follow, we had initially borrowed this from the library but loved it so much we bought our own copy.

A classic even from my childhood I'd be very surprised if you haven't heard of this one! We had lots of fun trying to remember all the foods the caterpillar eats and talking about whether we liked them or not,we also played the very hungry caterpillar game which K got last Christmas - I don't think i mentioned that before :)

A nice relatively short story. Good for imagination building, it got my older 2 thinking about would happen if dinosaurs did live with us, (I'm sure K is convinced they still do live on an island somewhere far away, he's prob right!) and what they would do if they had a pet dinosaur.

I'm excited to see which book he picks for E week, as I'm sure are you!

Prehistoric Puppet Show

D week well and truly became Dinosaur week. Although we did discuss a few things unrelated to dinosaurs - they were the hot topic!

So day 3 was a day filled with firstly making a set of dinosaur puppets. We used a template from the DLTK site, basically just a printed sheet of dino body parts that we then attached to a toilet paper tube. The main characters for the show were Sara and Little Foot from 'The Land Before Time' movie - a huge like in this house!

After we made the puppets we went about writing a wee play for them to perform to Daddy when he got home from work. K & F came up with the story themselves and practised by doing a show for me and Lil B. It was all about how it was their friends birthday and they had to go on an adventure to find all the things they needed for the party, including ingredients for the cake, leaves, bugs and chocolate for dinosaur cake of course!

We then decided to learn some fun facts about 'Sara' and 'Little Foot' ie The Triceratops and The Apatosaurus. K & F also drew some pictures of them too - budding Dali & Picasso here you know! ;)

I also found some fun dino themed online quizzes and games, sites like 'kidsdinos'. Part of the 'kids know it network' was a particular favourite with games such as make your own dinosaur,dinosaur memory and dinosaur match.

I also took prehistoric times to the dinner table, I made them chicken on the bone with extra not so prehistoric bits like salad (although I'm sure cave mumas watched their weight and ate a bit of green now and again) and let them eat like caveboys n cavegirls - with their hands! shock!! lol

They really enjoyed that and were even pretending Bboy (the dog) was their pet dinosaur - forget the Flintstones when you've got us!

Dough Nutty

After the fun we had at Satrosphere we decided to make our own 'fossils'. We made up a batch of salt dough & found a few different tools (including tooth picks and dog biscuits!) and set to work.

If you don't know how to make salt dough its really easy -

2 cups of plain flour

1 cup of salt

1 cup of water

Once you are finished making whatever it is you are making you pop it in the oven at around 100c for 3-4 hours,but keep an eye on your makes as temp and time can depend on thickness of what you have made. You can then paint your makes if you so wish :)

K decided he wanted to make a dinosaur head, I have to say i was quite impressed with the end result. Because we made them out of salt dough I think it really did look like old crumbly bone!

F wanted to make hers like a skeleton, so she used a toothpick to make Bone shapes, bless her.

Mummy also had a clever idea to use the build a Dino skeleton which we put together the previous day to make indentations in the salt dough, so we had mini dinosaur imprints!

Lil B wanted in on the action too - so we let her make a salt dough imprint of her just turned 1 hand and foot, nice little keep sake :)

The winkles really enjoyed this activity,although they did get frustrated at the drying time. However this gave as plenty time to enjoy doing other activities including their workbooks and some fun worksheets i had printed off including a Dinosaur colour by numbers and dot-to-dot.

P.S You will see their creations at the top of the page, well one tray of them at least! You can see Lil B's imprints, K's Dino head and K and one of F's bones. The picture was taken before they were baked :)

Fossils & Funny Bones

D WEEK :D

Aren't we lucky, our local science centre - Satrosphere - has a 'travelling exhibit' on at the moment all about fossils - perfect for a fun and interactive introduction to a little bit of dinosaur magic!

The kids got to dress up as different kinds of dinosaurs, dig for fossils, make fossil rubbings and listen to a story.

There was also magnetic jigsaws where you could make up your very own Dino chums and plenty of space to run around making scary Dino noises!

We also made sure to take a look at the exhibits that are always there, including a skeleton that can ride a bicycle and a sheep with visible insides!

The highlight for our troop though was the lecture we caught on homemade experiments, this was where one of the staff put on a lecture on a few experiments you can try at home with things you probably have laying around. K was the star of the show getting so my answers correct the woman hosting thought he had been before! lol

Needless to say both K & F are determined to make a mess of my kitchen recreating these experiments at home - cant wait! :)

The great thing about satrosphere was we spent a little over 2 hours there and the kids didnt

want to leave which is great as im hopefull they will have plenty more 'travelling exhibits' that will tie in with what we are into learning.

When we got home the winkles wanted to as much as they could to do with dinosaurs, so we read some books and drew some pictures with mummy plotting more dino fun for the next day!

K and his Camera...

...A walk along the beach

The Dolphin - they like to feed him stones...
A view of some of the town

A boat sculpture

The clock tower

The blue sky

K's Camera

Above you will see the results of K's first trip out with his brand new shiny red 7.1 mp camera, we looked at all those special kid tough type ones but the mp on them was rubbish. So for half the price we got alot more mp!

We only got a few pictures as even though it looked lovely and sunny there was an icy cold wind and the girls were upset at being so cold. Hopefully now that winter seems to be on its way out we will get out more and get some lovely pictures of different things around our town :)

Cheesy Crowns and Chameleons

I'm going to cheat on week C since we are still no closer to finding the missing cable...I think this calls for a new camera ;0

I did not 'loose it on purpose' Mr G before you ask!

So C week was lots of fun too - I'm just going to do a basic round up of each day all in the one post and hopefully will get something sorted in terms of posting all B and C week pics together and then getting back on track with D week...and my new camera ;) ???

Mon - We started off C week with an easy day of baking Cookies, which didn't last long at all and where finished before daddy could even try one when he got home from work! I have since been asked daily when we can make them again - I shall do a separate post with pictures and recipe. We then made Castles. Firstly we drew out what we would like our castles to look like then got out the blocks and tried to build it just like our picture. This proved hard for me in particular...how do you build cone shaped roofs with cubes?! lol The kids had fun with it though and this led to an afternoon of playing knights and princesses and dragons!

Tues - To carry on from the success in interest of castles and knights we decided we should make some Crowns! Nothing super fancy just card and lots of sparkles and glitter and furry bits! Once the crowns had been made all they wanted to do was play their game again, so they did that till lunchtime :D After lunch we took to learning all about the 'coolest creature ever' (or so K thinks) the Chameleon. We looked up different species and found out where they lived etc then we got onto the -interactive part. We coloured in around 10 chameleons and cut them out then went about sticking them to different things in the house that were the same colour as they were coloured. We took turns being the hiders and the seeker of the chameleons. Lots of fun!

Wed - I had plans for other things today however this ended up falling through as I'm sure this will happen many times. But the kids still had C fun and did get up to some mischief with my camera. This has resulted in me ordering K his very first proper camera and we will do something bigger and better along the camera lines once it arrives. He has taken a real shine to photography and i don't think it would b fair not to follow this through as he is actually very good! We also looked into comics, as just now they both are very much into superheros, this lead to K deciding he wanted to write his own comic, The adventures of Super Dude! K has also told us he plans to write enough comics to enable him to buy one of every toy in the world for his sister's 3rd birthday! Really could you get any cuter!....£2 a copy in case you were wondering ;)

Thurs - This was a very exciting day as it was the Cheese Challenge day. We went to the shops and picked up 6 different cheeses, mummy making sure they all had relatively different tastes and textures so we had something to talk about ;) So we basically did the same thing as we did for our Apple taste test - see previous post, an apple a day... - We scored each cheese out of 5 and drew a picture of the cheese. K also wrote out the name of the cheese on his score sheets. Unsurprisingly F like all the cheeses & K only disliked 1...I live in a house full of mice! lol

Fri - Our usual roundup day, going over what we had learned, writing practise and making up our C boards.


I should really make a wee note here, we also do workbooks now and again and other sorts of games and activities that aren't really connected with our Letter of the week 'programme' which we are following just now. The more we get into the letter of the week the more i realise we really work better as we were, on the autonomous way of learning. However as the children are still enjoying the letter 'weeks' we will stick with it as long as they are happy, knowing that it might take us longer than a week to 'study a letter' as we go off on a tangent whenever something takes our fancy!

Please...

Guys I know it must seem like I'm getting awful lazy with the blog but this isn't the case I'm simply still trying to locate the blasted camera cable...my posts just don't look the same with our work on show! :(

So please bare with me I'm on the hunt still but i will find it - providing i haven't thrown it out by accident, tidying up isn't always productive! ;)

In the meantime just know we are getting up to our usual mischief and when i do find the cable you will get a post full of lovely pics :D

But for now I'm off and I WILL FIND IT!!!

Miss you Love...

Were you spoiled this Valentines?

Valentines Day in this 'crazy' house was lots of fun and gave us a wee break from the Letter days we have been doing of late. It also lands 3 days after Lil B's birthday so we were still excited from that!

To start of the day we spent some time discussing the stories/theories behind valentines day, summed up by K...

'So basically its just about giving people you love nice things?'

followed by giving me a big kiss for my valentines :D - much better than my present from his father, a big fat nothing! lol

After we finished talking about the day itself we went onto making cards for daddy, very cute as they wanted to sign them with question marks, so he wouldn't know they were from them! (writing practise and creativity)

We then moved onto some themed worksheets i had made up -

How many hearts - hearts on a tree instead of apples lol (basic math with the option to colour.)

All the things I love - big heart in middle of page where they drew the things they love the most (K drew his daddy coming home from work, himself feeding the ducks & me, bless him! and F drew a family of crocodiles?! gotta love her)

We also spent some time getting some love themed songs together to have a ' dance' too. This is something we do if we cant get out for exercise, crank up the volume and bug the neighbours!

Our songs for Valentines day included...

I got you babe - Sonny & Cher

Think about you - Guns n Roses

Roller coaster of Love - RHCP

All you need is love - The Beetles

...to name but a few!

I think the winkles enjoy our indoor exercise just as much,if not more,than their outdoor run abouts! I'm just glad they have good taste in music and it isn't all the wiggles or some other kiddie rubbish!

We also had some fun making up a love potion - a fruity smoothie with lots of strawberries which made mummy go all silly n start kissing everybody ;) I wish they had taught maths with stuff like this when i was at school, im sure i would have paid more attention!

Them bones, them bones...

Day 4 brings a wee look into the body much to K's delight!

Not a day goes by that I don't get at least 1 question about our body from the wee man, so I gave them free reign and we looked at everything and anything they wanted to find out about their bodies - and isn't it lucky Santa brought K a human body encyclopedia for Christmas!

Along with asking & answering questions we also drew around K lying down on a piece of lining paper and then labelled and drew different parts of the body, of course boys being boys K didn't want us to forget his boy bits! lol

They had allot of fun drawing round K so we decided to draw around hands and feet and colour them in, we also played around with the printer - it has a photocopy function - we photocopied their hands and made pictures out of them. It was interesting for them to look at the detail in their hands which came up really well in the black & white copies & also note the size difference between K and his sisters.

K was also very impressed that a day talking about the body meant we could discuss skeletons!
This is another obsession he has just now, so i think he mite get stuck on this human body book for a while. He wants us to make little skeletons, he wants to be a skeleton! I think this calls for skeleton day/week.

I want to ride my Bicycle...

Day 3 of B...

Bicycles and Butterflies :D

A fun day filled with painting lots of butterfly pictures both the old fashioned fold your page in half way and more creative K and F ways - wait till you see the pics (still cant find blasted cable!)

We looked out pictures of real butterflies,learned their names and did pictures of our favourites. Also we made up our own species - fun to hear the kids come up with names and fantastic colour combinations!

We have decided to decorate the living room with the pictures as we think they will look nice for lil B's 1st Birthday! This suggestion in turn lead to a Lil B inspired activity of birthday card making, with K showing off being able to write out his card himself!...

To B*

I Love you

You are one!

Love K*

We moved onto a more musical mechanical fun next. Listening to Queen ;) we learned all about what makes our bikes go, this type of activity really excited K as he is the type of boy who cant wait to take things apart and see how everything fits together and works, a typical Virgo if you ask me!

I learned a few things myself here as I'm not very mechanical, I mean I know how you work a bike but not the inside out story - well no that's a lie cuz I do know now! ;)

K also made me promise a family bike ride at the weekend - don't you just hate winter, poor kids cant get out as much, my lot are chomping at the bit to be out everyday enjoying the fresh Scottish air! So anyways I said yes providing it doesn't snow,as we have been told there will be more - gulp!

F however was more interested in dancing to the music - she sure takes after her muma!

Burns Day

Well aren't we lucky to be Scottish and end up with Burn's Night in B week!

We had a day celebrating Robert Burns. We looked at two of his poems, tae a moose and the puddock. The first about a mouse, the second a frog (F loves frogs!). As the poems were hard for the kids to understand we took our time going over the words and figuring out which words meant what and then we took turns at making our own mouse and frog poems.

I had printed off a picture of the man himself and got them to draw him and K copied Robert Burns and his dates next to his picture. We often go on holiday near to where Burns lived so I think next time we are there we will visit all the Burns attractions.

At tea time we had the traditional Haggis, Neeps & Tatties. It was the first time they had tried Haggis and it went down well - I have to say although I eat it I have never actually looked to see what its really made of as it would probably put me off! However the kids thought the Haggis was great probably partly to do with me telling them a wee tall tale about the haggis actually being a wee animal you only get in Scotland and we all worked together coming up with how we thought a haggis mite look - we shall have to get to drawing him...maybe in H week?! ;)

The blueberry and the beach...

Hello B week :)

I'll say sorry now for my lack of pictures, Ive been holding off blogging as i cant find my camera cable to add our lovely pics to the posts but I fear if I don't blog about B week before next week Ill forget what we did!

So the first day of B week, what a fun day! We are lucky enough to live, at most, 2 minutes walk from a gorgeous harbour & beach, so we decided to take a field trip and had a walk along the prom and investigated our local beach. The kids loved the chance to get up close and personal with all the different objects that had been washed up as it had been a long time since they had been able to do this since its been winter and too cold to really enjoy seaside walks!

They collected stones and sticks to throw off the bridge near the end of the walk, being careful not to hit any of the local ducks waiting patiently for the bread we had brought them. Feeding the ducks is always fun as they are so tame they come right up surrounding you and eat right out of your hand.

Whilst at the beach I took a sample of some sand for a project we will do later in the week, although i think this is something you aren't supposed to do so i wouldn't recommend it! ;)

Once we got home it was lunch time so we dealt with that and as it started raining just as we got home - thank goodness no earlier - we decided this afternoon would be the perfect afternoon to try out baking some blueberry muffins,they were so easy to make and tasted delicious. Will have to get the photos up when i get that cable looked out.

Along with these activities we also started off the day with the whiteboards practising how to write B and b. We also made a picture list of all the things we could think of that began with B and decided we would look out for these things throughout the week, K's idea! :D

Wrap it up...

So day 5 of A week,

We pretty much just went over what we had learned through the rest of the days, how to write the letter big & small, words beginning with A, with a in the word etc. K and F made an A board each with pictures and words of the things we learned about and a large coloured in and cut out A & a. They really enjoyed the Letter Board activity as it involved allot of craftiness which they both really love.

We also went on to do a craft set which F got for her Christmas but it tied in nicely for A week - make your own paper aquarium! Lots of glitter,sequins etc made for a slightly stressful time for mummy with Lil B trying to munch on them! She is just in at everything just now and wants to be just like the elder 2 its hard for her bless her but we try to involve her as much as we can.

I also used the white boards i bought (in poundland no less) for the first time on day 5. K loved this idea, he really enjoyed practising his letter writing skills and even went on to write some words hes now knows without my even suggesting it which was great! F learned to write an F so did a few of them but was back to her drawings quick as a flash - the apple most def doesn't fall far from the tree there! ;) I have to say though if these whiteboards are going to be used as often as i think they will ill have to invest in some better ones as F's fell apart after one shot. I know I know that's what i get for being a scrooge but I wasn't going to splash out until I knew they liked that idea was I?!

I also came up with another idea to go along with the letter a week type learning, I'm going to incorporate a book each either about say an ant or whatever that would tie in with what we are doing, i think this will help K as if we read the book each day he will start to recognise the letters and words :D

Till Letter B week... x

Forget Zoo - We own a Farm!...

Did I mention that in our house we currently have 1 dog, 2 ferrets, 2 Guinea pigs and 3 rabbits? Well we now have about 50 more 'pets' - yes our latest project!...An Ant farm!

We got our ant farm from a British company - Interplay UK. They have a large variety of different science/nature sets which are sure to inspire you and your kids :)

The kit was easy to assemble and the instructions weren't hard to follow, even for someone like me who hates instructions. The kit does say you can search for your own ants to put in the farm, but because of the adverse weather we have had recently I thought we mite as well just order some from the Interplayuk website. The winkles and I had a wee giggle to ourselves when the ant package arrived as it came with a 'Warning Live Animals enclosed' sticker! I dread to think what the postie thought we were adding to our already bulging zoo!



Above you will see the farm and attached to it a clear piece of tubing which in turn is attache to a magnifying tub which the ants came in,this will be where we put the food in for the ants. We have kept this attached for now as they seem to like going back in,I think they must be taking bits of the soil they came with into their new home :)

Apparently they like fruit, apples & bananas best. We have yet to feed them, we thought we would let them settle in first but i cant wait to see them carry their lunch away - i think K imagines these little guys walking away with a whole banana! Bless him.

What we have found interesting is that over the past few days in the morning when we check on them they have made great progress with their tunnels,they definitely work best in the dark,so we keep the shades on all day,unless we are having a sneaky peek!

I've tried to take pictures of the tunnels but they dont come up very well,so once they have been set up a week or so I'm going to get the winkles to draw them! :)

Another home ed success :D

An Apple a day - What about 5?!...

Day 3 of A week brings an exciting Taste test.

On our trip to the supermarket to pick up fruit and veg for our Arcimboldo art we found a lovely range of many different varieties of apple, this gave us the idea to try them all!
We chose 5 different types British & American, and cut them in half and then in 4 (geography and math) We then set them out on the table like this...



As you can see we stuck the stickers on the sheets so we knew which was which ;)

I then gave the winkles the worksheets I made up to accompany the task...



I found a clip art apple so the winkles could colour in the apple the same as the apple they were studying, next to it i left a space so they could write the name of the apple, for F who is 2 I wrote the name out and K copied from her sheet. Then you will see there is a funny wee apple character, I used this so they could either tick or cross the star depending if they liked it or not.

So after colouring in the apple we would then take a 1/4 and try it. We talked about taste and texture, because believe it or not apples do taste different! After we tasted we wrote down the name and graded the apple with either tick for like and cross for dislike. We did this for all 5 apples :D



It was nice to see which ones we liked and disliked as we all liked different ones! Its definitely something i would do again with other foods & it was good incorporating it in with lunch - we just added cheese and crackers after!

You say potato, I say Arcimboldo...

Any of you ever heard of this guy? His name, Guiseppe Arcimboldo. He was an Italian Artist born 1527 & died 1593. He is probably best known for his imaginative work, creating portraits out of objects such as fruit, veg, books even! That HE painted the objects in such a way they resembled the person - see example below...



This painting is called Vertumnus and is a portrait of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor.

I couldn't stress more that you should search google images or wherever for his paintings, they are just fab in my opinion! So imaginative and different from other stuff going around at that time :)

Anyway So the winkles and I Had a look at many different portraits and they agreed that vertumnus was their favourite and they would take their inspiration from this, so it was off to the shops for us to buy some fruit and veg!

I decided early on that as the kids were young it would be more interesting for them to make their portraits out of real object rather than try to draw them...after all quite often I can be caught out saying oh what a lovely *enter object here* only to be told they have drawn something else oops!

The shopping was good fun, I turned that into a learning exercise to, can you name things you see beginning with A etc We picked up the apples for our apple taste test (see next post) and also picked up so Avocado to try for snack (something i keep trying them with but aren't super keen on).




Here follows our Arcimboldo inspired art :)



Self Portrait by Mummy



John By K (I don't know who John is but this is him in fruit n veg!)



Mummy by F



Daddy by Mummy

There is a heap more but you get the idea :D

The winkles really enjoyed this exercise and have since asked to do it again & don't be worrying about the fruit n veg being wasted, i made most of they left over veg into a very yummy green curry - the rest went to the animals! they love their leafy greens :D

Apple Pie & Ants...

Sorry for not posting sooner, this weekend was rather hectic but I'm here now :D

Apple Pie & Ants, the start of our letter A week and a success if we do say so ourselves!

We started with a colouring sheet Aa is for Ant very cute! and as you can see they were engrossed while doing it!



We then moved onto making egg carton ants :) We used a green egg carton and learned some facts about green ants, nice link huh!? We looked up a picture of a real green ant found out how many legs, body parts etc they had and tried to make our ants as anatomically correct as you can when using pipe cleaners & cardboard!

I think they turned out pretty cute...



This is K's Ant and his colour sheet :D

So after all that writing, colouring, construction, biology, math and geography we decided it was time for a bit of 'home economics' - enter the Apple Pie...



the pastry, maths comes into measuring out all the ingredients (and counting how many times mummy says 'for goodness sake how long will i need to kneed this for! lol) - I wish maths had been this much fun when i was young!



The Apples covered in all sorts of spices and magical ingredients, we went over fractions here cutting the apples in half and quarters etc - its amazing how quick you catch on when food is involved! ;)



And then we put it altogether! Ready for the oven, this is where I added in the learning to tell the time element as we had to watch the clock to know when it would be ready ;)



The finished product, photo taken by K :D I have to admit i did leave it in a bit longer than suggested as i like a bit of well done crusts! lol It was SO yummy!

So there you go, art, biology, geography, math, home ec, writing practise...did i leave anything out? And all in one day! Few exhausted! ;) x

I don't agree with it...

So Ive been thinking allot about the decision we made, you know the one to home school our kids?...

I think this has come about from the fact that someone told me they don't agree with it...well I don't turn around and say I don't agree with you sending your kids to school, I also don't turn around and tell you everything that i 'don't agree' with in respects with your lifestyle choices so why is it when it comes to Home Ed even your nearest and dearest think they have the right to voice their, somewhat hurt full, opinions.

Yes yes everyone is entitled to their opinion & I respect that but I also respect that everyone has the way to live their life as they choose and that the beauty of the world - each to their own and all that. What works for some wont work for others.

I don't mind answering questions about our choices I guess but its not like i go around saying 'so why is *enter name here* going to school?' is it!?

I think I'm just ranting like this because of word choice here - don't agree with it?...not i wouldn't choose it or its not for me but I don't agree with it.

I don't know its like to me saying you don't agree with something makes it seem like a bad thing, something terrible, something inhumane - not a basic human right, the right to educate your child how you so please.

And really I think the thing that bugs me most is that people say these kinds of things without even knowing the first thing about home education, so how can you not agree with something you don't have a clue about. Your judgement is based on pre conceived ideas and notions that have been stirred up by the media and what not.

In short before you tell me that what I am doing is wrong, not natural, a preposterous idea etc etc, why not try asking about our reasons first or better yet DO YOUR RESEARCH!

For the next wee while...

So Ive decided for the time being we are going to try follow a way of learning I came across while researching different types of home ed. Up until now we have been a purely autonomous learning household, well aside from teaching them how to count and the abcs.

Autonomous learning means basically leaving the learning up to the child, letting them decide what they want to study and not stick to any set curriculum. So you could be studying Camels for a months then suddenly switch to studying Monet :D If you want to learn more about this type of learning research American Author & Educator John Holt.

But like i say we are going to try something a little different for the next wee while as I think it will work well with the age my children, I am setting aside one week per letter of the alphabet, we will learn how to write the letters and also study perhaps an animal that begins with letter or an occupation or a famous figure. I say perhaps because I will still leave that up to them, however Ive covered the bases and have info on a huge selection of all the things i could think of beginning with the letters ABC...Ill do the next 3 at weekend.

I shall post about how we have got on this week with the letter A at the weekend...but so far so good :D

I've been a reading...

So I've been doing my research and reading as many texts and articles about Home Ed as I can lay my hands on and I've come across a wee bit in my most recent source which I thought was quite though provoking...

taken from 'Elective home education in the UK' - simon webb

"Home educating parents avoid the anxiety of packing their 2 years olds off to nursery. Not for them the groans of dismay at the prospect of having their child on their hands during the summer holidays. They like their children and enjoy their company, The more they see of them the better. This definitely marks home educators out as being unusual. Perhaps it is this pleasure of parents in the company of their own children which makes people uneasy about home education. It may seem unnatural to many that a parent would want to have a toddler or teenager around the house for twenty four hours a day."

( NOTE - Now by no means am I insinuating that all you out there dont like your children, of course im not - my friends among my followers I know you like & love your kiddies!!)


Just something to ponder...

More questions with more answers...

Ok so since my last post on questions I've had a few more thrown at me so heres your answers folks...

1 'Do you not have to be qualified'

- Nope, in fact many teachers who end up home schooling thier own kids feel that thier teacher training gets in the way. Teachers are taught how to teach the national curriculum to 30 pupils all at varied levels of ability and to have work completed within a set shedual - Home Ed is not like this therefore no need to be a qualified teacher. In fact I'm sure lots of things we have and will learn together as a family :D

2. 'Do you do set work and have exams'

- Well for now as my eldest is 4 we have very much stuck to teaching him the basic abc maths n all that jazz that you would usually learn before you go to school. We have no set amount of work to do in a day, just like us adults kids can have off days too so theres no point in trying to fight a losing battle. 9 times out of 10 K will ask me if we can learn about *enter subject here* today, and so we do! I'm very much going to stick to that way of learning, I feel that you are at your best when you are learning about something you are interested in. Of course we will teach them how to read and write but why waste time on subject they have no interest in & don't need when they could study thing of interest and enjoy learning!?

So yes you can go by the National curriculum and you could take exams later on like GCSE or similar, but the beauty of home ed is you do what suits your family, so long as your children are receiving an education suitable to thier age and needs that is all that matters.

3.'What if they want to go to college/uni'

- Then they can. Most colleges and universities will accept a portfolio of a Home Educated child's best work along with an interview, just like a public schooled child. In many cases Home Educated children have been far advanced and able to complete college/university courses well before they could have if they had gone to public school.


4.'You obviously enjoy teaching, why not just train as a teacher'

- That would go against what i believe in. Plus I am already, I'm a Home Educator!

Heard of any of these folk?...

So heres the start of the list of so folk you may have heard of that have been Home Educated...

Frank Lloyd Wright - Genius Architect

Noel Coward - Famously Eccentric Playwright, Composer & Actor

Alexander Graham Bell - Scientist and Inventor


Thomas Edison - Prolific Inventor and Businessman


Wright Brothers - Publishers turned aeroplane inventors


Hans Christian Andersen - Author of The Little Mermaid & Other Fairy Stories


Agatha Christie - Writer


Charles Dickens - Writer


Mark Twain - Writer


Beatrix Potter - Writer and Illustrator


Irving Berlin - Composer


Louis Armstrong - Jazz Musician

Abraham Lincoln - 16th U.S President


Elizabeth II - Er, ... the Queen


Erwin Shroedinger - Nobel Prize Winning Physicist


George Washington - 1st U.S President


Mozart - Composer


Claude Monet - Artist


Leonardo - Artist, Architect, Mathematician, Inventor, Writer & Turtle?


William Blake - Artist & Poet


Ansel Adams - Photographer


Joseph Pulitzer - Publisher


Florence Nightingale - Nurse & Statistician


Margaret Mead - Anthropologist

C.S. Lewis - Author

Charlie Chaplin - Actor & Film-maker

Bertrand Russell - Mathematician, Historian & Philosopher


Patrick Moore - Astronomer & Broadcaster

Yehudi Menuhin - Violinist & Conductor

Jack Kirby - Self-Taught Artist, Comic Writer (X-Men, The Hulk, Fantastic Four, Captain America)


Thomas Jefferson - 3rd U.S President

Theodore Roosevelt - 26th U.S President

(So that's all the presidents carved into Mount Rushmore! Incidentally, 17 of the 44 U.S presidents were home-educated, but obviously not Gump or his dad).


Feel free to add anymore you know of...

Questions Asked...

Its that time of year when all the mums of 4yr olds get excited about which school they are going to put their little darling to - well not me and this in turn leads to a waterfall of questions as soon as i proudly state we still intend to home school K,many people just assume we weren't ready to let go of our first born and choose home ed as a nursery/pre school alternative. So to save you from asking and to save me from answering the same questions over and over I'm going to answer the most frequently asked questions here and if you do have any others don't be afraid to ask ;)

1. "Is that legal?"

- Why yes it is the law in Scotland states that...

Education (Scotland) Act 1980 - Section 30

(1) It shall be the duty of the parent of every child of school age to provide efficient education for him suitable to his age, ability and aptitude either by causing him to attend a public school regularly or by other means.


2. "How can you afford to do it?"

- Well for a start there is no school uniform, gym kits,bags,lunch boxes etc to begin with.
Although there is no funding - which means we do everything out of our own pockets, but it can cost as little or as much as you want/need it to. We are very lucky to live in an area where there are many resources available to us at very little cost if nothing, woodland, seaside, etc all free yet a vast starting off point for a vast learning adventure!

3. "What about socialization?"

- To which I always answer 'What the kids or mine?!' lol

But really there is nothing to suggest that Home Schooling hinders a child's socialization, if anything it broadens it. Home Schooled kids socialise with a wealth of people from all different backgrounds and of all different age groups, not just their peers of the same age. There is nothing to stop a home educated child from joining the scouts/gymnastics etc or having friends who go to public school...although i know of home ed kids who have lost friends because the friends parents didn't want the home ed kid to 'infect thier kids brain with the idea that you didn't have to go to school'!! :/

4. "Do you ever get time to yourself?"

- This one I find the most amusing if only because i wouldn't see why i would base my child's education on the fact that it gave me a few hours peace each day if i sent them to public school, i didn't have my children to have someone else look after them never mind someone else teach them what they will carry around for life. But i am lucky to b fortunate enough to be in the situation that i can stay at home with the children while poor G goes off to work each day! i marvel at those who shout yippee when the holidays are over then 5 mins later moan they don't see thier kids enough, it just baffles me that it all.

But Yes of course I get time to myself, I go to the bathroom don't I?! :P

5."WHY?"

- I left this one till last because its always the first, after the intial 'oh'.
We are not religious, nor are we mad. This is just something that works for us and our kids. They get to be who they want to be and not feel pressured about being something else, they get to study what they want to study thus being alot futher ahead in many aspects of learning than many kids thier age. There is no pressure, no timetables, no rules - Just a 'different' way of learning, to go along with a 'differnt' way of life.


catch you later x

And so it begins...

Well lets just start with the fact that this is the beggining of the blog and not the Home Ed journey :D and also you will realise through reading this blog that I am a terrible typist and make mistakes but as a busy mumma i dont usually bother correcting as I know you will know what I mean! lol

I believe that every child begins on a Home Ed journey, its just a case of wether or not thier parents choose to stick with it or not, I mean who teaches a child to walk, talk, dress themselves? As parents we are so choosy when it comes to who we trust to look after our children if we ever need a sitter/childminder etc but very rarely does one give a second thought to thrusting thier little ones into the hands of a complete stranger just because its seen as the 'norm'.

I would just like to point out here that I am not some Hippy Dippy Mummy trying to quash the public school systems etc, I just want to put my point across as everyone seems to have thier opinion about Home Ed, but rarely have they been educated about it well enough to give a fair opinion, and yet are very vocal about how my children will not be socialized, will not be able to gain entry to college/uni (should they want to) etc etc. This Blog therefore is starting out as a voice, not because I HAVE to defend my choosing Home Ed for our children but more a NEED to have a voice, to have my opinion and also after Ive had a rant keep a track of what we get up too :D

People are so quick to judge when you say you homeschool your kids, but why?
I think its because not many people know enough about Home Ed OR the public school systems. I think if they did they wouldnt be so quick to judge.

I feel so passionate about our choices, our way of living our life & bringing up our children, I used to feel very much like I couldnt talk about things, because the things we do and the way we do them are not seen as 'normal' - really though what is normal?

But now with the new year just in and a bright future ahead I thought You know what I dont care anymore, We are a happy family this way of life suits us & whoever cant accept that arent worth worrying about, dont get me wrong I'll still get annoyed with people and still feel the need to have to justify our choices but thats life - wether i choose to answer thier questions nice or nasty is another thing! lol

So right now i have my son, K 4yrs, daughter, F 2yrs, and youngest daughter, B 11months, we have activly been Home Educating for 4yrs ;) However with K coming up to what is classed as 'school age' things are starting to get a little more exciting as its all so what school is he going to etc etc and we have to come out the 'weirdo' closet! What I love most though is my Son is far from shy about his Home Ed & will proudly tell anyone who asks "My teacher is called Mummy, thats because Im homeschooled"
He is also not shy to say "Im a Boy!" to anyone who mistakes him for a girl - really who said girls had to have long hair and boys short? HE just wouldnt be my boy with short hair & he wouldnt want it any other way either so :P

As you can see Ive not given much thought to where this first post was going it was more about getting something down on the blank page. I promise I'll think about what I'm writing next time, obviously the posts about what we do each week will be fun & easy to write up :D

But right now I guess I better get going - I will be back for more, will you?...