Twenty-Ten

We went ice-skating this morning at the temporary rink. It was far busier than I expected and I almost backed out at the last minute, as did Master R but between us we bravely made it onto the ice. This year they are providing some handle type things in the form of a penguin for small people to hold onto and push around. Both the Rs wanted one and while I was skeptical they actually proved a godsend as they R’s held onto them and not me. After about half an hour Ms R wanted to hold my hand instead so we dispensed with one Penguin and they took turns having a go holding my hand. I really enjoyed it, I love ice-skating. Master R was a confident as he always is when it comes to anything physical and Ms R enjoyed the holding hands bit best. My Mum offered to take us back at the end of the week and photograph us and initially Ms R said she’d stay at the side to take photos too but then realised that would mean she wasn’t in any of them so at the moment is undecided.

We tried to visit the post office to post a parcel, as always the queue was long and half of the disinterested staff seemed to be milling around behind the glass rather than serving customers. The R’s made straight for the photo booth which they like to play in, they don’t do any harm and usually take turns at sitting on the seat and pretending it’s a time machine. The lady in front of me was watching them intently and then started saying to me how they (the post office) should have one of those coin-operated cars for children to play on. She tutted a bit and was clearly not happy to see children playing, she said something like "It’s probably not doing it much good". I managed to catch Ms Rs eye and beckon her over to ask her to keep their voices down and be very gentle. The lady started apologising over and over and said she didn’t realise they were my children and how much she likes to see them play. I wasn’t feeling very comfortable and when Master R went behind the booth and started knocking I made a rapid exit scooping them up along the way. They probably weren’t doing much wrong, I can’t help it if they don’t just stand there with that broken spirited look, but the queue wasn’t moving and I felt like I was being judged. We’ll have to try again tomorrow, maybe I’ll buy chocolate biscuits on the way in or something.

When it was time for me to go to work Master R got very upset. He didn’t want me to go without him and cuddled me while crying huge tears. It really isn’t like him to be like that and what made it harder was he was trying to be brave and not cry which meant tears poured down his face while sobs occasionally escaped. When I did leave he waved at me from his bedroom window still very clearly crying. It was terrible and way more emotion than I really want to spend on a mere three hour shift. He seemed fine when I got back although spent a good hour sat next to me chattering rubbish and showing me stuff on his ds.

We didn’t know it was going to snow otherwise we would have worn coats but when we left home it was very cold and raining. We discussed how and when rain becomes hail and snow and were quite surprised when the rain did just that. As we drove along huge snow flakes fell and settled for a while. Master R didn’t think we should need coats as our bodies produce heat so we talked about heat loss and the benefits of clothes/coats which led to talking about thermal conductivity, why duvets and flasks work so well and why we don’t own any saucepans or utensils with metal handles. Which led in turn to talking about the days before plastic (I remember my Nana commenting once that there wasn’t plastic in her day when I explained that my new curly-wurly plastic drinking straw wouldn’t shatter if I accidently dropped it). It was quite interesting to think about some of the different materials that were used instead, many I remember like our milk coming in glass bottles, our fresh fruit and veg coming in paper bags and our toy guns being made of metal and being fairly heavy. Ms R supposed that Baby Annabell would have been made of wax and we talked briefly about making own soft toys and burning rubbish on the fire.

The home ed group was good, mostly the R’s went off to play appearing every so often to grab something from their lunch boxes. Their was a stirfry and noodles meal prepared which the R’s had a go at eating with chopsticks. Ms R seemed to get the knack of it, Master R struggled a bit more but both have requested that we get some chopsticks for them to practice with. The snow fell thick and the flakes were large enough to see the individual patterns. There was talk of upcoming camping trips and I got to hold a baby. We gave friends a lift home and popped in briefly for a game of something, Ms R was feeling a bit sensitive having hurt her foot and leg but managed to keep it together with lots of help and understanding from everyone else.

Once home the R’s ate (again and again) and occupied themselves for the rest of the afternoon and early evening. I read another chapter of Matilda by Roald Dahl as promised and dispatched them for an early night which didn’t quite work out the way I planned but they played happily for ages and probably won’t be up too early tomorrow. I cleaned the fish out and made a start on Ms Rs room, which is terribly messy.

 I’ve just spent a couple of hours reading round a HE blogring which in some ways reassures me and in another leaves me feeling rather negligent. It seems that many home educators, even autonomous ones, put way more effort into planning than I do. I don’t really introduce topics or themes and neither of my children are really into anything that could be classed as a subject. That’s not to say we don’t discuss things and cover a great many different areas during our days, just that I don’t deliberately plan an interest in something that hasn’t otherwise come up. It is interesting to note that many of the bloggers have children younger than mine whereas three years ago I felt a bit of a fraud belonging to a home ed blog ring. At the time I wasn’t even sure that I’d have the courage to go through with it. It’s really nice to read blogs that I’ve looked at from time to time over the last three years and see how children and families have grown, developed and changed.

In all honestly I have no idea of where my children are academically in school terms but I like to think that if they had to go to school they’d slot in fairly easily. Ms R would be approaching the end of year 2 and would be all set to go up to the next school in September to start key stage 2. Last year I did a lot of research on what was covered and expected at key stage 1 and decided that she would be well on target in most areas so I didn’t need to do anything. I haven’t looked since but she constantly amazes me with being able to do new things. A couple of weeks ago we were given some books, one of them being Dr. Seuss The Cat In The Hat which she picked out and then sat quietly reading to herself. Afterwards she told me about it and said that she liked that it was rhyming. She doesn’t do reading out loud but does occasionally spell a work out to me that she doesn’t know (the last one was ‘chattering’). She hasn’t yet started and finished a whole chapter book by herself, I suspect that those ones are still too much like reading and not enough about enjoying a story.

She is quite quick with numbers and finds them fun. Today she asked Colin to set her some sums and he did a page of axb+c= type sums for her which she sailed through and then asked for more. She totally got that 9x9+9 was the same as 10x9 whereas I’d gone the long way round. It doesn’t happen very often that she asks for sums (but I always blog about it so to anyone reading this it probaby seems like a regular occurrence) and she always amazes me by getting them right. One thing I’ve realised though with this style of testing is that in school it is normal to get some wrong and then everyone moves on whereas at home we all (especially Ms R) pretty much expect 100%. She got one wrong and when she looked at it she groaned because she knew it was wrong, I expect at school she’d have been called careless or not concentrating. I’m guessing if she went to school her handwriting would be lacking, although she can write in lowercase some letters she just forgets and still uses uppercase. She writes some of her numbers back-to-front but none of her letters. I don’t think it is really problem unless/until she goes to school at some point. I’m guessing by the time she gets to secondary school age most work would be typed anyway.

Master R was eager to not be left out and wanted sums too. I forget that he is nearly five and as his pictures are still mostly scribble I didn’t really expect him to be able to do written sums. But he did. I just wrote down a few sums adding up to ten and he happily completed them surprising me that he knew and could write all the answers. He did write the ten as 01 and next time he had ten as the answer I pointed out that most people write the one first so he did, but then still put the zero on its left . He’s not writing yet although some of his pictures are starting to take shape as stick people. Often he assigns a meaning to his pictures afterwards rather than drawing something specific from the outset. He has got to the wonderful stage of realising that words are made up of sounds, he likes to ’spell’ words to me like je eh lee. Today he asked what the letters meant in the word ‘cheese’ so I sounded them out to him and with a little help he read the word which he was very proud of. I guess the next stage for him is realising that it always says ‘cheese’ whether it is on the tub, typed on the computer or written on paper. I’m not sure what else they learn about in reception. I think both of them have a good-enough-for-their-age understanding of things like bodies and reproduction, nutrition and fitness, recycling and energy effieciency and other stuff which I’m guessing would come under the controversial Personal, Social and Health Education.

Our lives really aren’t at all about the three Rs and mostly I don’t even consider them. I’m not sure why I need to blog about them, maybe it’s because I’ve heard the "But how will they learn?" wail or seen the look too many times. Since Christmas we have been playing a couple of board games. Master R loves them and never tires of them, Ms R gets bored after a while and starts fiddling around. It wouldn’t be my first choice of activity but I have quite enjoyed the time playing with them. It feels really grown-up, from play-doh to Monopoly. In the beginning we had upset when things didn’t go the right way and about winning but this seems to have calmed down now and we’ve all get better at saying "Well done!" when someone wins instead of "Ow, thats not fair!". With birthdays coming up I need to try and think of another couple of good board games we can get.

We’ve been seeing friends on a regular basis. Master R has a new friend which he gets all to himself (Ms R plays with the big sisters) and they are really sweet together running around playing superheroes. His new friend even said "I love you" to him which was lovely. We probably use that term to excess and Ms R often says that she loves her friends but it is not often that we hear it from someone else. Ms R has had a few more chances lately to play with her friend E now that the younger ones are more likely to get involved in a different sort of game rather than try to tag on. I’ve noticed a real slowing down of Ms R which I guess is to do with her getting older. She seems to spend less time being really physical and more time wanting to sit and chat, it’s like she just doesn’t need to run around so much. Master R still very much needs to run, jump and climb but often it is just him having a crazy ten minutes in the evening letting off steam. To think in another two years I might have two calm, quite children!

We now do packed lunches every day, even if we aren’t going out. I didn’t expect it to last more than a couple of days but actually I’m finding it quite convenient too. Usually at some point in the morning (often with prompting and sometimes with help) I make a packed lunch for each of them, they get a roll or wrap, some cheese, a yoghurt, some crisps, some fruit and a drink. They nearly always eat all of their lunch although they might go back for some later which saves me having to think about what they’ve had and what they can have etc. It means Ms R is eating properly mid-day as it is there and ready and doesn’t require any thinking or choosing on her part. It also means I feel quite justified saying no to things like crisps and yoghurts at other times of the day and that they last longer.

The snow has gone and now the year can start! I have a brand new, empty and ready to fill calendar.

We’ve been rather cooped up with the snow for the past few weeks what with being a car down, the Rs not being great fans of getting cold and wet in the snow and all of us suffering with sniffles and coughs. Master R is literally bouncing off the walls like an under-walked puppy. He has taken to playing practical jokes, they range from hiding things in peoples shoes to confessing to terrible things and then laughing when he sees my horror. He is an expert at winding Ms R up yet always comes out looking like an innocent victim. He makes up for it all by being extremely generous and mostly a very cheerful soul ending everyday by telling me that today was the best day ever. At the moment he is back to wearing a patch on his right eye. The wonderful Scott gave him a sticker chart and stickers to help motivate him. He did consider just sticking all the stickers on straight away but then decided that he should do it properly and so far (according to his sticker chart) he has been wearing it six days a week. My fingers are very tightly crossed that his eye will show improvement, at the moment we are looking at another four years of patching with very little to show for the year we have already done. Ms R has also been bored and missing her friends. She is not so good at entertaining herself, where Master R can retreat into his own world for a little game needing neither props nor playmates she struggles alone. She is very sociable and is at her best when she gets plenty of time to play with friends. She has developed a rash in the last couple of days which looks very much like the beginning of psoriasis back to haunt us. Apparently it is fairly common to follow a strepococcal throat infection and while Ms R wasn’t poorly enough to warrant a trip to the doctors both Master R and I have recently been on antibiotics. Thankfully we know what it is and have started the daily oily baths and cream smothering in the hope of keeping it at bay.

Master R has taken an interest in seahorses and I think he’d really like the Sealife Centre. As we have a load of Tesco clubcard vouchers to spend we decided to use them on Merlin cards which will give us free entry into the Sealife Centre of which there is one not far from us as well as entry into theme parks and Madame Tussauds which is a place I’ve always wanted to go. We are all so excited about them that we’ve spent ages looking at all the websites and have even had dreams about it. We still have about three months left on our Drusillas memberships so are planning a couple of trips there over the next few weeks but probably won’t renew them this time around. If we go too frequently they lose interest in the animals and it’s a long way to go just for a play area. January is almost over now and I always think of it as a month to survive. We have survived so far by spending lots of time building marble runs, playing with lego, reading a book about dangerous creatures and watching lots of movies. In February we get a local ice-rink so that will be our main excitement for that month. March is the month of the birthdays and is probably the busiest of the year. My plan is to have our first theme park visit inbetween the special days as this will feel like a big treat. Ms R talks of having a party but I’m not so keen. The other thing she has asked for is a sleepover, not sure how I feel about that one either. Master R has requested that we go swimming and to a cafe. And I quite like the idea of going away for a few days, not sure yet if that will be possible due to Colins work though. Thats about as far as I have got for planning the year. I would like a trip to Tilgate Park, maybe in the Spring. At least two trips to London. Maybe we’ll do the Roman Villa days again as they went down quite well. I’m considering getting either RSPB or WWT memberships (can’t decide) and hoping for a camping trip in September. Master R will be old enough in March to start swimming lessons and he’s also keen to start some sort of Rainbows equivalent. Ms R also wants to restart swimming lessons, will continue with Rainbows and then move up to Brownies in March and has expressed a desire to do gymnastics. It’s a case of having to juggle the pennies though so not sure at the moment which of those they’ll get to do this year.

I work with some fairly well educated people and it’s always interesting to hear from people how they got to where they are today. Some started later in life and arrived at todays point by following a passion and working bloody hard. Others had their career path chosen for them by their parents (and it has surprised me just how many). I’ve heard stories about people being locked in a room and not being allowed out until they had completed a set number of sums, being set extra homework by the parents on top of school work, of being made to give up other passions (such as art) and of a real fear of failure. I wonder if they feel that their salary compensates them for the journey it took them to arrive. Sometimes I feel a slight tang of uneasiness that I’m not helping my children with something that they are struggling with, that I don’t spend half of Sunday going over and over the same thing to make sure they understand it before Monday starts but then I remind myself that Ms R is reading almost everything she feasts her eyes on and her mental arithmetic is quicker than mine, that while Master R wouldn’t stand out academically he certainly is very physically able for such a young boy and I relax a little. They are neither in front nor behind but following a different path entirely and while I confess to hoping they end up in high salary careers I wouldn’t want it to be at the detriment of their childhoods.

I think it really started on Christmas Eve for us. The morning was taken up with dashing around doing last minute bits. We visited Nana to exchange presents, went to Halfords to buy the gloves Colin requested and into Sainsburys for a last minute gift to my Grandparents who had told me quite strictly not to get them anything. I had been fine about this up until the moment I realised that the biscuits we made for them were all but inedible and the calendar was not going to arrive so some last minute ginger wine and chocolate truffles were rushed over to them and recieved with both thanks and a scolding. Once home I had just enough time to help the Rs wrap presents for Colin, decorate the cake and finish the last of our home made crackers before going to work. I only had to work three hours until 6pm and it was fairly quiet freeing me up to eat chocolates and chat to customers and staff. It was a bit odd watching the Christmas points of sale being taken down when my Christmas hadn’t started yet.

I got to my parents at about twenty past six for this years family Christmas dinner. Eleven people in total and all had nearly finished eating. I knew that they had originally planned on eating at half five but afterwards it did strike me a bit odd that they couldn’t either have rescheduled to eat at half six or excluded me completely (there was loads I could have been doing back home instead of sitting in my work uniform eating cold sprouts) but none the less it appeared very festive, the Rs were having great fun with their cousins and it was nice to see my sister-in-law-not although we only managed a brief wave across the table. As the children had finished eating and had started to become rowdy and the building seemed far too small to contain everyone we exchanged presents and bid farewell. We were on our way home by seven. Understandably the R’s were very over excited and bouncing around being silly. I promised them a surprise as soon as their faces and teeth were cleaned and presented them with a present of pyjamas to open. Master R was absolutely thrilled with his fleecy all-in-one Buzz Lightyear pyjamas and said he planned to wear it all night and all day. Ms R was initially cautious about her cotton all-in-ones but once they were on and she realised they weren’t going to itch or irritate her she was very happy. After watching last years video of them opening stockings I decided new pyjamas were the way to go. Master R went to sleep fairly quickly and Ms R promised to obey instructions not to come downstairs leaving me free to wrap the last of the presents and organise everything under the tree. She was asleep by nine, which is almost unheard of for her. It meant I got to do sneaking around without waiting up all night. Ms R woke shortly after I went to bed and came in with us, she was very wriggly though so I’m not sure how well she slept. Colin had to go into work so vacated the bed at about 5.30am and Master R joined us.

It was half past six when they woke properly and wanted to open their stockings. Probably due to having a drop of the good stuff before bed I wasn’t as enthusiastic but roused myself and watched them. They both got new toothbrushes, flannels, undies, bubbles, toiletry gift set, plastacine, chocolate coins and polystyrene airplanes. Master R also got a whistle that makes rude noises and some soldiers (like the ones from Toy Story), Ms R got some trick (snaps your finger) chewing gum and a tiny baby doll that leaks one end if you put water in the other. We weren’t expecting Colin home until nine but couldn’t wait upstairs all that time so ventured down to ooh and ahh at the presents under the tree. A kind lady from work (the sort who has her grandchildren stay overnight and looks forward to it) gave me gift bags for the Rs full of bits, she says it was as a thank-you for a couple of shift swaps I did but she’s so lovely I suspect she’d have got them something anyway (she’s the second person from work who barely know my children yet gave them a present). So they opened up the bags which were generously filled and we looked at a book together about dangerous animals. 

Colin arrived home and the present opening commenced. It was then I realised that I didn’t have any new cassettes for the video camera so although I’ve got fifteen minutes of stocking banter I only have a few snatched minutes of present opening. Coupled with not having a proper camera this won’t be the best recorded Christmas. Master R was thrilled with his Spiderman outfit and put it on straight away. Ms R found her toddler doll, having known she was getting it (still Grrrring at Colin over that one) she wanted to open it first. She said it didn’t seem right that he’d been stuck in that box all night and she wanted to get him out as soon as possible. All the presents were well recieved and once they were open we set about assembling the ones that needed it. I love assembling things, whether it be geomag creations, flatpack furniture or toys I get real pleasure and satisfaction out of it. Colin hates it, for some reason before he’s even found the instructions his stress levels are raised so I let him carry on to the point where his swearing was becoming audible (didn’t catch it on camera this year though), teased him a little about his Christmas spirit and then relieved him of his duties so he could drink coffee and calm down. We all played with the Hotwheels V-drop, watching the cars go shooting off the end of the track at great speeds. Ms R organised her doll and comforted Baby Annabell who apparently looked very shocked at suddenly having a big brother. Colin stickered the now assembled garage while Master R played with cars and Ms R and I made soap with her Science Laboratory soap set. I was really impressed with it, the instructions were clear and simple (Ms R read them out to me) and everything happened exactly the way it was supposed to with plenty of materials left over to make loads more.

We went to my parents for lunch. The cousins were there and they were all happy to see each other again. Nana was there and Master R made a point about saying a big thank-you to her for the money that was in his card. Originally I told my parents that we didn’t want presents and that we wouldn’t be buying presents. When this brought protests I then said that if they really had to spend money then we would really appreciate some vouchers (could seriously do with a chest of drawers). Over the last couple of weeks noises have been made about the presents and deciding we couldn’t go totally empty handed for two Christmas meals we made everyone a cracker. Ms R decorated them and we put small carefully thought out personal gifts into each one. I was really pleased with them and had visions of them opening them together with their other presents and thinking how wonderful they were and how clever I was. That was rather naive of me though and I think it was only when Ms R asked someone if they liked their cracker that they were quickly found, pulled and left on the table amongst the other cracker debris. I’m not sure what I’m more disappointed about, the fact that my efforts went un-noticed or that my parents probably now think I really did go empty handed. What makes it worse is that they think it is a money thing, that we can’t afford to do presents but it isn’t. It is more about me not wanting to spend money on something that will probably end up unused in a landfill. Ah well, I’ll know better next year and get myself down to Boots for the 3 for 2s. An hour was long enough and the children were eager to get back to their new toys.

At home we started on the Marble Runs. They are something we’ve played with at other peoples houses and when Nana asked me to choose a present from her they fitted the bill. The Rs got a set each which I’m expecting fairly quickly to become one large set. At the moment though they want to keep them separate which had me helping to build two at once. I like that they can be made so many different ways and that the first way isn’t always the best way so we get to do lots of tweaking and experimenting. Despite this, for some reason unknown even to me I colour coded and laminated the instruction sheet. Next we played Junior Monopoly which is a game that Master R asked for weeks ago and I got for less than two quid (with a voucher) at Argos. I love that I have children old enough to play proper board games now, it took longer than I expected and I did suggest at one point that maybe we’d had enough but then I quickly lost all my money and the game was over anyway. Ms R moved on to making a bed for her new doll out of the box it came in and Master R returned to his beloved cars. Master R requested baked potatoe so we all had some and then I had to make him another one because he was still hungry. After that we started on some Lego but I was the only one with enough patience and staying power, tiredness was already starting to set in. The Rs set up a puzzle race track which Master R got from Grandma and Great Grandad and played with that for quite a while but their moods were starting to turn sour so I took them up to bed one at a time for a cuddle and chat. Master R was still very animated, chatting away about all sorts of things but clearly very tired. Ms R protested that she wasn’t ready to sleep but her eyes started drooping as I sat on her bed stroking her hair. I love those end of day good-night chats.

January

The year started with practice on the skates they got for Christmas. Master R wearing his new favourite outfit but refusing a helmet because it made his head itch.

We had a winter meet up with friends at a place whose name I’ve forgotton.

.

And a visit to Drusillas. Master R was wearing the patch for four hours a day and his glasses as much as I could persuade him. 

We celebrated my Mums birthday:

Ms R tried her hand at knitting:

And Master R perfected his balance on the scooter:

February.

The second month brought us snow. It was too cold for Ms R but Master R enjoyed it.

Master R learnt to ride his bike, at the grand age of three years and eleven months.

Fun with cousins:

We went ice-skating at the temporary rink set up near by.

Ms Rs first permanent tooth popped through

March.

We visited Amberley Working Museum and learnt about trams

and phones.

We visited our favourite gardens.

We had our first bbq of the year under blue skies, with cousins.

We celebrated Master Rs fourth birthday. We got him a nintendo DS which he is still plays nearly every day.

Ms R got to cradle a little baby and declared it the best day of her life.

We went away for the weekend with cousins

And celebrated Ms Rs sixth birthday

We got her a new bike which was way too big.

April.

In this month we made Easter treats in our pyjamas.

Visited our favourite gardens again.

Master R made his first attempts at writing

Spent time with friends.

Enjoyed the sun and wildlife

And best of all, shared secrets.

May.

We spent time on the beach. Ms R became a Tracy Beaker fan complete with wavy hair.

We believed a table was necessary in order to educate at home. Ms R tries it out first.

Master R gets a big bed as he’s outgrown his little toddler bed. It was the last babyish thing to go so for me it a monumental event marking the transition from having toddlers to having children.

We watched the park fill up with teenagers coming together to celebrate the end of their compulsory education. Free to go home with the option of never returning they lingered, as though not quite ready to let go forever of the institution they had been part of for so long.

This month felt like summer. We had trips to Drusillas, the beach, fruit picking, the park and the paddling pool and spent lots of time with friends.

We met up with cousins at the fire station open day

And again at the blessing of the boats

June.

I’ve thought about sending mine to school a couple of times but there’s always the same few points that keep coming up. Could a school offer my children the same quality of social interaction with such a vast and diverse range of people as they are currently used to or would they be restricted to children in their year group and adults with singsong voices and boxes to tick? Would a teacher be able to teach them at the right level for them, taking into account their interests, ability and special needs or would they be restricted by the constraints of the National Curriculum? Would they have the freedom to study a subject in as much depth as they want for as long as they want or would their learning constantly be interrupted by bells and breaks? Would school really be the best place to prepare them for adult life in the real world or would they learn more about the real world and the adults in it if it was the base for their learning?

Master R has had two eye appointments since I last blogged. The first was at the opticians where the optometrist was not very positive about his improvement (or lack of) and the assistant tried to charge me for the new spectacles. The second was with Scott, the wonderful orthoptist (I think) who reassured us that there was improvement and even though only just being able to see the fourth line on the chart with a thick lens on might not seem great to me it was indeed much better than it was. Although Master R was still struggling to pick out the 3d images apparently his eyes were drawn to them and he could see that something was different. So we are sticking with the patching. I’m aiming for a minimum of four hours a day and Master R is trying for as little time as possible. He seems to be quite happy watching television with his patch on and has had a couple of ‘tv days’ lately. It feels a bit negligent just leaving him sat in front of the box but improving his sight is my main priority for now so I’ve been using the time to do stuff with Ms R. He’s also enjoying playing Lego Starwars and Lego Indianna Jones on his DS.

We have a book that Ms R and I have been looking at together. It drew me in, not because of the words (words like Maths and Study) but because of its cover which is red and shiny (oh I do love red!). I read it one night to refresh my basic maths and to give me an idea of what might be expected of Ms R had she been in school. Oddly it seems to start with some very basic stuff like counting to twenty and then jump to some fairly complicated stuff like adding up huge numbers in your head. I found some of it reassuring knowing that it was things that had cropped up in our normal everyday lives like counting money, halving and doubling and sharing. Some of it seems a bit bizarre, like needing to know about pentagons, hexagons and octagons but not about heptagons. But anyway, Ms R was also drawn to the shiny red cover and we have been reading through it together and then sprouting off in other directions. I missed out page one that stated "Whatever subject you’re doing it’s the same old story - there are lots of facts and you’ve just got to learn them. KS1 Maths is no different" because Ms R would have asked why and I couldn’t have explained it without making the book sound like it should be uninteresting. We went off on a different path altogether and started doing sums the way I learnt years ago, Ms R enjoyed swapping units for tens and tens for hundreds and we went through several bits of paper doing sums together. Afterwards she wrote her name on them and got in a muddle as she was trying to do joined up writing but still using a capital in the middle so I showed her how it was done and she spent a while practicing. Once bored with that she took herself upstairs and started playing the recorder leaving me somewhat surprised that a child would ask for sums, then handwriting practice and then willingly do music practice.

Everyday that I go to work Ms R and Master R wave at me from the bedroom window, they wave until I’m out of sight and then apparently either start a game upstairs or finish what they were doing downstairs. Whatever they are doing they always stop to say good-bye and wave. Recently Master R has been telling me that he’s going to try not to wave me off but rather carry on doing something else when I leave. Usually though his head pops up at the window just as I’m pulling away and I make sure he sees me wave back before going round the corner. I asked him why he was trying not to wave me good-bye anymore and he explained that sometimes it made him feel like crying and that he had to hold his breath for a few minutes after I’d gone so as not to. Colin did reassure me that he doesn’t ever cry though.

We have been going to our home ed group weekly since it started back in September. The Rs are both very confident and happily play with the other children and chat to the adults. Recently all the children have been playing some sort of playground type game together in the hall where someone is ‘it’ and when giving a word everyone runs from one side to the other and the person who is ‘it’ catches someone who becomes the next ‘it’. Really nice to see the ‘group’ thing going on; not initiated or supervised by an adult, every child getting a turn and the bigger ones helping the smaller ones. Not so great seeing Ms R standing in front of all the other children lifting the bottom of her dress up to wipe her nose on and revealing everything from her belly button downwards. I think the kids have benefitted from a weekly meet up with the same people and I hope that it will be one of the things they have fond memories of. There are members who are small enough to be considered babies but big enough to sit up and be played with by Ms R so that keeps her happy. Lately she’s been more keen to join in with whatever activity an adult has put on (they include making and sharing soup for the Harvest Festival  and making paper clocks). Very kindly Jem bought in one of his guitars to show her, she’s had a thing about guitars since she was three and although I suspected that it was the sound of the word rather than the actual instrument she was interested in she proved me wrong by spending half an hour playing with it and letting him show her some basic things. He was quite impressed by her interest and liked that she looked so excited just to be holding one. We’ve given a lift home to our friends who were three but now two since one of them started at school. It’s interesting to hear how thats going, the impact that it has on the whole family and the correspondance from the school on various issues. I know I would be the parent from hell if my child was in school but hope that if oneday either of my children want to try school I’ll have the same strength of character that this Mum shows and be able to offer mine the same level of support and encouragement that she offers to her daughter.

Visits and trips with individual friends have been taking place as usual. Master R seems to get lots out of playing with his friend A who is just a couple of months younger than him, has a lovely gentle character and enjoyes the same sort of thing. Their games usually involve Bowser and Buzz Lightyear with a sprinkling of Sportacus. Ms R enjoys playing with his baby sister which gives us adults a chance to chat. Although my angle is ’child led’ and hers is ’star chart’ dominated I’ve known them since A was just a few weeks old and it is interesting watching how the family has grown, developed and been influenced by home education. I like to think I played a part in their decision as the first time I mentioned home education to her three years ago she reacted with the same horror that most people do when they first hear of it. Ms R enjoys time with her friends but seems to also enjoy doing her own thing too. It’s balanced out from at first not being able to join-in and make friends, to finding it easy and seeming to ‘need’ friends everywhere to being able to play with friends when she wants but also choosing to do something on her own if she wants.

We popped into the library today for me to swap my book and Ms R grabbed a few books that she thought she’d be able to read herself. The first couple were very basic, a sentence a page nursery rhymes which she was a bit disappointed with. The third one she’s looked at is called ‘Stranger Danger’ and actually has chapters. She told me before I went to work that there were too many words and she wouldn’t be able to read it so I told her to put it to one side and we’d take it back tomorrow. When I came home from work she’d already read two chapters and told me that not only is it an interesting story but it is educational too. Master R informs me he’s also done some education today and now knows how big a snooker table is.

It’s a funny thing that I remember learning formulas at school. I don’t remember them now and I’d get flustered if I had to do a complicated sum and show my working out because I doubt I’d remember the right formula but at some point after I left school and began to live in the real world, numbers (or money to be more specific) suddenly started to make perfect sense. So now I could do that sum in my head and maybe with a little help from my fingers and I’d know exactly what the numbers depicted. For my children I wanted to bypass the complicated bit and get right onto the logical bit so most of our maths is talking and demonstrating. Sometimes we use money, sometimes edible items (these work best), sometimes Geomags, anything that we can add to, subtract from, share out, or change in some way. This means that Ms R (and possible Master R too) would be ‘behind’ in this subject if they were at school. Ms R might know what an equals sign looks like but she wouldn’t know many others and 12 / 3= would be to her what chinese is to me. She very quickly told me what ninety-nine plus eleven was today but has no idea what I’m talking about if I say "Imagine they are in columns, you’ve added the units up now carry the one over and add it to your tens". She can count in twos, threes, fives and tens and today we talked about counting in elevens. She got the pattern straight away and suddenly had an idea of what it would look like written down. Interestingly but rather logically I suppose, her imaginary written numbers started at the bottom as she said "You’d have a one and a one and on top of that you’d have a two and a two and on top of that…" I suppose it was years of looking at times tables trying to memorising them that had me briefly horrified that her numbers went up and not down. Master R said he wanted to learn to count up in tens so we did a bit of doing that. Often the most educational part of our day is the journey to some place promising educational opportunities.

Other recent gems:

Finding lots of sticky notes that read ‘OOT Of ORDRE - SORRY’ stuck on chairs and other places.

Ms R making a tiny book at our home ed group and starting to write a story in it about Master R and his cat Buzz.

Rainbows beginning again and me being able to drop her off and pick her up (as I wasn’t working). She’s still hoping there’ll be a sleepover soon and I’m hoping there won’t.

Master R piping up "If you cut an eight in half you get two threes!" when I was randomly giving Ms R numbers for her to halve. After a bit more of what seemed like daydreaming he said "And if you cut it the other way you get two zeros!". This very predictably led to talk of symmetry and asymmetry and which other numbers you could cut in half.

Ms R having one of her paintings displayed in an art exhibition. Unfortunately I didn’t realise it was a weekend only thing so we missed seeing it.

We went camping for five nights, returning to the site of our maiden camping trip. We had a chuckle remembering how small our first tent was and how naive we were in the blanket department. Our big tent makes camping easier. The weather was mostly glorious although a little breezy at night, which didn’t bother anybody else but did effect my already over keen imagination and kept me awake enough to learn that the little boy opposite hated his parents and the woman in the tent to our right had smelly wind. The entertainment as always was patronising to children and slightly inapropriate (do three year olds really need to worry about dating?) as well as deafening. During the week nights most of the other children were three and under and Ms R didn’t want to be dancing with toddlers but at the weekend there were plenty of older children for her to blend in with. Both of them managed to get themselves on stage and win medals/certificates. Master R was very proud of himself, having sat listening very solemnly when the teamstar was introducing a talent act and explaining how difficult it is to get up on stage in front of a huge audience. He said "It’s difficult getting up on the stage you know, Mummy" in a very wise been-there-done-it voice. "The man said so", he looked thoughtful for a moment and then added "You have to sort of climb up, I guess thats why there’s steps".  We managed to swim everyday, Ms R made lots of big splashes jumping in and then swam about lots. Master R swam around with his floaty jacket on and his face in the water so on the second day I suggested he try without the jacket and so he did. He realised he could swim under water unaided, we realised that he can hold his breath for about three minutes but then it’s best to drag him up a bit quick for air. One day we went to the local theme park. Master R seems to be a bit of a thrill seeker, loving rollercoasters and being big enough for most of them…if accompanied by an adult. Colin and I took it in turns and have made a mental note not to return in two years when he will be big enough for the most terrifying ones. There was a circus show on which we all enjoyed and some more tranquil rides to bring our heart rates down and settle our stomachs. We are all grateful to be back in proper beds and using proper non-communal toilets.

Our home ed group started up again the week we were away but we were back in time for the second week. It was busy and noisy with the addition of new families and the Rs took a little while to settle in. Another child into the equation rocked the boat a bit by suggesting that some of the smaller members were too young (or the wrong gender) to be involved in private conversations. I don’t really get the need for girls to lock themselves in a toilet cubicle for secrets at the age of six and seven and am keen to discourage Ms R from getting dragged into that sort of thing. Eventually, after many interruptions the group disbanded and the Rs fell into a game with their usual friends which the other child didn’t want to join in with. I did briefly wonder why I had been so looking forward to going back. Master R found some "black chalk" left over from someones bbq and was delighted to discover that it could be used for writing. He really was excited by it and drew an ‘H’ with a piece which he remembered as being a letter from his name. He went on for ages about how useful it could be and was clearly very pleased with this newfound information going on to think of many situations in which he could apply it (if all the pens in the whole world got lost, for example). Ms R lost her first top tooth in the evening leaving a huge gap. She made quite a thing about putting it under her pillow and showing me exactly where it was so that the tooth fairly could leave her a pound for it. The following morning as she was waving her gold coin around excitedly Master R looked at it suspiciously and asked me "Are you sure there’s a tooth fairy Mummy or do you just put the pound there when she’s asleep?" rather loudly and insistently. Something happened then (I can’t remember what) which got me out of answering that question. Of couse I’m quite sure Ms R doesn’t really believe in the tooth fairy but she’s not going to risk admitting that in case she loses out on a quid. One of those little games we play like when Colin does magic for them and they look all wide eyed and believing but as soon as he goes up for his bath they explain matter of factly to me exactly how he does it.

On Tuesday we had our usual visit to my grandparents to consume biscuits and the Rs both came away with a pack of cards and a small packet of animal shaped biscuits. We went on to visit our friends in Lewes, arriving early we decided to stop at a shop. After that we got totally lost, went the wrong way down a one way street which was closed due to road works (made a pretty bad dent in one of the wheel hubs) and then followed a road for miles ending up in another village at which point the petrol light came on. We did eventually make it to our friends house, only an hour late, and it made the time we visited them in the rain by train seem less traumatic. I think next time we are early we’ll just wait in our car in the next street as opposed to being clever. The children had a great time though, lots of mess was made but no fallings out and I got to drink some well needed coffee and cuddle a rapidly growing baby.

Wednesday deserves a mention as it was the Not Back To School Picnic. First though the Rs had a dentist appointment. Master R went first and got a lecture about not eating sweets every day but having them only once a week. Ms R got the same lecture and I’m quite pleased really. They ask for sweets nearly everyday and I keep explaining to them why I don’t like them having sweets so I’m glad they’ve heard it from someone else too. They didn’t realise though that biscuits, cakes and squash also counted as sweets. I think the message must be sinking in though as Master R asked me (on the train, no less) if the Salt & Vinegar sticks he was eating contained sugar. A quick glance at the ingredients revealed they did which has given us more to think about. The Not Back To School Picnic was held at our local park-with-lake. The weather looked threatening but held off although it was a bit windy. I met lots of local home educators whom I haven’t met before and saw some bigger, older home educated children which is always reassuring. Ms R is fairly tall and it was nice to see her in a group where she was one of the smaller ones for a change. Master R ran off and played with the main group of children which seemed to involve carrying sticks, hiding behind bushes, sometimes crawling along on stomachs and lots of running around. Ms R hung around a bit, played with a couple of very small people and eventually played with a couple of other girls. My first nephew spent some of the day in hospital having an EEG, this may or may not reveal whether he is having epileptic fits during the night. I’m not sure if it will give any indication as to why he has developed mild cerebral palsy over the past year.

Today we went to London. It was a very last minute thing, decided between breakfast and getting dressed. The ticket man tried to charge me £7 more for a ticket than I wanted to pay (I simply didn’t believe it would cost me that much to travel two stops on the tube), this delay of about ninety seconds caused us to miss the direct train, it literally pulled away as I reached out to open the door. [Edit: Deleted the long rant about the ticket man who, after all was only doing his job] Thankfully another train came within five minutes and the one change was quick and easy and at a station we are familiar with. We found our way to the Science Museum where we spent about three hours. We discovered all sorts of things and probably walked up and down every set of stairs at least once. For some reason nothing was where it was meant to be the first time we tried to go there but was the second time. I found it quite hard with two children both having questions and needing help with different things at the same time, there were things I’d have liked to have explained in greater detail to Ms R but Master R was commanding my attention most of the time. Maybe that was fine, Ms R could have found the answers or a way to get more of my attention if she’d needed it I guess. Before we left we sat in on a show about explosions. The message was very basic; that you need heat, fuel and oxygen to make fire and that fire causes heat, light, sound and movement. Some of the experiements weren’t successful and some seemed unrelated but the children enjoyed it and Master R was chosen as a volunteer to make a bang. We then raced back to the station as I couldn’t remember who said what about train ticket restriction times and had sudden visions of us not getting home and sleeping in the Underground. The tube was packed on the way back but Master R exclaiming very angrily "Mummy! Why didn’t you choose one with seats?" resulted in not one but three people leaping up to offer us their seats. It was slightly embarrasing and doesn’t really enforce what I’ve been saying about how getting what you want can be dependant on how you ask for things. We really enjoyed our trip to London and are eager to go back.

Master R is back to wearing his patch on his right eye again. He had an appointment last week at the eye hospital and not wearing it at all in the six weeks since the previous visit has resulted in his left eye getting worse. He tried lying to Scott (the opthalmist) about having not worn it but as the words were about to escape his hands flew up to his mouth as if to try and stop them. In our family telling lies results in having bad dreams, as confirmed by both children who have indeed had bad dreams after having told a lie  so we talked a bit more that. I think Master R would prefer the threat of prison to that of nightmares but in the end he confessed all and his conscience was eased. We are struggling a bit to get four hours of consecutive wear with the patch as he tends to take it off for various things but we are probably clocking up nearly four hours over the course of the whole day. He is happy to wear his glasses most of the time now and just takes them off in the evening, I don’t know if they get uncomfortable after a whole day or if his eyes get tired from all that seeing and need a rest.

We have been swimming a couple of times recently. Ms R did a weeks intensive swimming course which she really enjoys but didn’t seem to improve much. She can swim across the pool in her own style and the lessons are now at the stage of just going back and forth across the pool with floats in various positions practicing different strokes. With enough practice she’d be able to perfect them but she has no interest in practicing strokes during her swim time, she’d rather go down the slide, jump in and swim about on the bottom. I haven’t got round to enquiring about weekly lessons and I think if she had the choice between them and a weekly free swim she’d choose the free swim so we’ll try and go weekly together. Now that she is going down the big slide she is pretty independant of me which gives me time just with Master R although she does look small queuing up with all those big children. Master R is very confident to swim around wearing his float jacket which gives me some exercise too. He can stand up in the shallow end of the learning pool and likes to take his jacket off sometimes so that he can launch himself away from the side to try and swim to me. He has also got the hang of putting his face under so does that lots too.

We’ve seen various different friends in small doses and the usual family members. Master R is becoming a friend in his own right now rather than the little brother that tags along behind Ms R. We met up with an internet group, most of whom I hadn’t met before. They seem to be a group with very young children which was disappointing as I was hoping that Ms R would find find some six year olds to play with. She didn’t mind though as there were plenty of babies to touch, stroke and coo over. Master R found his friend A to play with, I think it is his only same aged, same gender friend and they get on great together. A is a fairly gentle character and while they might chase away imaginary monsters they never play rough with each other. Now that Master R is four and would be about to start reception I guess I have to start thinking about home educating him in his own right rather than just letting him tag along as a younger sibling. His needs are different to Ms Rs, at the moment he is spending lots of time explaining things to me and wanting to have sensible conversations. He seems to especially enjoy the little lectures I dole out every so often about how other people might feel and what we could do to put things right, he seems to take them as a responsibility rather than as a telling off.

We visited the last of the Roman Days held at the Roman Palace. The activities were much the same as the last one we attended, the highlight was very much seeing our friends there. At the end we discovered the dressing up area so both the Rs dressed up (twice) to be photographed, so we have two nice pictures which need scanning into the computer at some point.

On a visit to my Mum today she presented them both with an activity book and crayons. Ms R had a Times Table one which promised to take us on a magical journey. We looked at the first page together and she wrote the answers to the two times tables mostly in little boxes, stuck a couple of stickers in and started to colour the page. Master R had a First Alphabet book. We looked at the first page which was a bathroom scene with various pictures and words round the outside. We had to find certain stickers (things like a towel and shower cap) and a couple of words. I found the word ‘taps’ for him to stick in over the top of the same word and asked him to check it and he very carefully checked it letter by letter to make sure each one matched.

On the way home Ms R asked what ‘Times Tables’ meant so I explained that. She understands the concepts when I talk about ‘lots of’ (as in four lots of two) and ’shared between’ (as in six shared between three) but gets totally lost and goes quiet if I talk about times or divided by. I’m sure the terminology is far less important than the concept. Later in the evening she asked again and as we were at home I told her to grab a load of Geomags and put them into groups of three. She was happy to tell me she had four groups of three but that she could also divide them up into two groups of six or three groups of four and she knew that whatever way she did it she still had twelve. I told her to grab some more so that she had eighteen and divide them up into threes and before she had finished she told me that it would make six groups. She wouldn’t have any idea what the written sums would look like and if presented with such sums it would mean nothing to her but she has a good grasp of what numbers feel like and I’m sure that will give her the foundations she needs to build upon. I remember not really getting maths at all and was probably a teenager before I finally grasped that divided by wasn’t scary at all and just meant x number of sweets shared between x number of children. I wonder how I got away with being mostly middle of the class with maths when it made so little sense to me. She has also asked what ‘percent’ meant so I explained briefly that it meant per one hundred. She translated it into money but quickly understood that one percent of two hundred would be £2 and one percent of five hundred would be £5. Somehow she already knew that fifty percent was another way of saying ‘half’ but didn’t at all get that twenty-five percent was a quarter.

Today Ms R completed the summer reading challenge. We hadn’t actually got round to reading the books she had planned to talk about as they are both too long to be read in one sitting (Magic Kittens) so before we left she grabbed the two books that I’d chosen from the rocket section and read them to herself. She didn’t seem to think it was any great achievement and was almost embarrased at my verbal praise and pride although she did ask if I’d show her where that section in the library was. She recieved a medal and a certificate and a dvd voucher which she used to borrow Shrek 3 on the basis that it has a baby on the front of it. Master R got his second set of stickers and a bookmark although neither seemed to talk about their books and both got a bit confused about their surnames. Ms R told him her middle name as he apparently asked for her second name and Master R forgot completely what his other name was, leading to the reading scheme person to not be able to find their cards and to think that we were somehow not related to each other despite them both calling me Mummy. We joined in with a nursery rhyme sing-song with our good friend Nic. I am so thankful that we have passed that stage of our lives and will never have to revisit it. The toddlers present didn’t seem to get much out of it at all and probably thought all the adults were bonkers for sitting around singing senseless, repetitive songs but I expect it’s good preparation for when they go to nursery and have to sit around listening to adults. I do imagine though that the library story times and nursery rhyme sessions are an almost life saver to some Mums who mightn’t otherwise have a reason for leaving the house or the chance to meet other Mums. I remember life with my first baby being very lonely.

As a baby Ms R never met her milestones slow and steady, a graph of her progress wouldn’t have shown a smooth upward incline. No. She’d do nothing of any interest for weeks at a time and then suddenly, three new things all on the same day. Her graph of progress would have shown big chunky uneven steps. She is still like that now and it still surprises me when so many new things happen at once. We discovered the first new thing this morning when I brushed her teeth. I don’t brush her teeth every time but try to do it most days. Today in the back of her mouth she had great big white shiny new teeth. Two at the bottom still partially covered in gum and one at the top, it was quite a shock for both of us as there had been no warning signs and I didn’t even realise six year olds grew new ones. So now she has five of her permanent adult teeth .

Later we visited my Mum and took advantage of her having a Wii Fit. I played first and at one point Ms R said I had a personal best. I asked her how she knew that and she pointed to those words on the screen next to my name which did indeed say ‘Personal Best’. Given that my part in her learning to read seemed to involve little more than me sounding out cvc words like ‘cat’ and ‘Dad’ and more recently, randomly telling her that the letters P and H make a ph sound as in photo (I get these wobbles you see) it is pretty amazing that she should be telling me what words like ‘personal’ say. The whole reading things seem to be happening in a rather snowball effect way, I guess each new word shows a bigger part of the puzzle and eventually you can see enough of the puzzle to know what every word says. But as if that wasn’t enough later she knew that she had scored one hundred and four. She must have read my look of disbelief as me not believing her so she explained how fifty two and fifty two make a hundred and four in a way that was almost challenging me to try and prove her wrong. And there was me worrying whether she could add two numbers up to make twenty or not, maybe I underestimate her . I’d really like to stop now but I can’t because there really is more. This evening she was riding her scooter with Master R up and down the pavement outside when she decided she wanted to put her skates on. I didn’t like to remind her that last time she wore them she needed to cling to me for balance but I did explain that I wasn’t planning on walking up and down with her right now. So she did it herself, just skated off.

Master R has also been coming on in leaps and bounds. He can all of a sudden pronounce the letter ’s’ at the beginning of words. Sometimes he gives a very slight pause before saying particular words so I’m thinking that it is a fairly conscious thing. He has also very recently started to recognise that words are made up of different sounds and can tell me the first sound of any word. It doesn’t sound like a big step because it is something that is so obvious to most of us but it wasn’t to him. Just a few weeks ago I was getting quite frustrated because while playing eye-spy his choice always started with ‘err’ and he just didn’t get that ‘car’ or ‘grass’ or ’sky’ doesn’t start with ‘err’. He has also taken to being completely independant in the bathroom. I don’t know if it’s because I wasn’t available one time and he realised he could do it himself or if he just decided but I’m very happy and quite relieved that he didn’t need constant coaching and support like Ms R. He even flushes when he’s finished.

I’ve talked to Ms R about possibly going to school next September, it’s a nice long way away and I like having a boundary, the idea that home education could go on forever and ever is too scary. She believes and has told me on many occasions that there is a missing number between six and seven. Apparently when you are six you are still a young child but when you are seven you are on your way to being a grown-up. Maybe she is feeling herself become more independant, I’ve noticed it. She needs me less during the day and reports back to me less often, when I’m away she doesn’t seem to miss me so much. She still struggles to fall asleep without me though and while it is tiresome that she needs to smother me at a time of day that I’d rather be left alone I’m aware that it might not go on for much longer and that I’ll sorely miss it when it stops. Ms R, please stop growing up so fast.

It’s been commented lately, by more than one person, that Ms R is bored. Of course, it doesn’t help that she uses boredom as an excuse not to do things such as going to sleep or as a way of getting attention when my attentions are directed elsewhere. Surprisingly, despite her apparent level of boredom, she never seems to need me when I am available. That is, when I’m ready and willing to spend some quality time doing stuff with her she is always far too busy occupying herself, no longer lacking in the mental challenges that others percieve her to need. What people are really trying to imply is that her boredom could be easily remedied by going to school. That she is bored only because she doesn’t go to school. That sending her to school would solve all our ‘problems’. Suddenly going to sleep wouldn’t seem boring if she’d been mentally challenged in school all day, expecting attention from the adults around her would cease if she’d spent all day with children her own age. Instead she’d be content to watch cartoons and would stop trying to engage (aka interrupting) in conversation with the adults around her. Sometimes I even wonder if Ms R would be a happier, more content child if I set her some work; if I made her read out loud from a reading scheme or if I set her some sums to do. So before I forget what a wonderful, interesting day we had and start printing off Key Stage One activities to do in order that she be challenged I’ll blog:

I woke up to a bang, once again believing that the Local Authority were at our front door with Social Services in tow. I really need to get this out of my head and stop waking up to imaginary bangs. It was early but I found Ms R sat on her bedroom floor drawing up the plans of our house. 

It was early so I climbed back into bed to read a history book (about Celts, Romans and Anglo-Saxons) and heard Ms R wake Master R up to find ‘treasure’ by reading her map. There was no point in staying in bed once everyone was awake so we got up. Ms R found the bit of paper we were using yesterday to write words on that sounded the same but were spelt differently (mints/mince one/won etc) and wanted me to show her some more but suddenly remembered that we were seeing friends today and abandoned the words in favour of doing something for them. She designed an activity for one friend:

And made a Hama bead heart for the other.

Between all of this and 9.30am when we left the house we also fitted in breakfast and getting washed/dressed. On our forty-five minute car journey we covered various topics that started with wondering what would happen if you kept going in one direction long enough. We decided that eventually you’d end up back home again but Ms R was very unhappy with the idea that half way round the world you’d actually be upside down. I talked about gravity and the atmosphere and how even when you are ‘down under’ it doesn’t feel like you are upside down, in fact it doesn’t feel any different at all. She talked about airplanes needing lots of energy to get them off the ground and about space rockets needing fire to get them through the sky and not being affected by gravity once they are in space. I was very impressed that she knew this and had obviously grasped the concept, not sure where it came from. I mentioned about perspectives and how the way we look at things can affect the way they look. We talked about different climates and species and game reserves and she was upset that people didn’t help the animals in some game reserves but rather they were left to nature. We talked about survival of the fittest and what happened to the weaker ones. She asked what happened to their bodies when they died so we talked about water content, scavengers etc and what might be left over and wondered what happened to all of the bones. We talked about different languages and she was interested to hear the few words that I remember of Zulu and Afrikaans and later expected me to be able to speak Chinese. By the time we arrived I thought she might be out of questions but then she wanted to know what would happen to the car if we drove it into the fence post. It was a fairly study looking post so we decided that the front of the car would be damaged and this lead to discussions on the radiator and the cooling system and what a leak might mean for us.

She played for the best part of five hours only pausing occasionally to cuddle the baby, eat something or to tell me she loved me. 

I was expecting a musical journey home but Ms R wanted to know what ‘beheaded’ meant and then wanted to talk about the wives of Henry VIII. I wanted to talk about the Romans and Anglo-saxons that I’d been reading about in the morning and Ms R was happy to listen and asked questions that I either bluffed my way through or promised to look up. Of course, if I was a real teacher I’d not only already know everything but I’d have known months ago that I needed to know it for today.

We had to pop into the supermarket on the way home which was uneventful except for the twitchy customer assistant who was quite bothered by Ms R moving things around on the conveyor belt. She was concerned that Ms R was mucking my order of things up but Ms R assured me she was reordering it in a better way. Like I care what order the stuff goes through.

Dinner was had and stories read. Ms R made a point of reading out loud the parents notes that were in the back of the book Master R chose. Master R was thrilled to think he’d chosen a book that was going to help him learn to read one day.

So that was Ms Rs day. Looking back over it I realise we didn’t do anything that involved numerals. Oh well, that will be tomorrows subject then . Master R had a very different day. I caught him this morning trying to weigh things on the bathroom scales and explained to him about the kitchen scales and where they were. Briefly I had a mental image of him weighing things on the kitchen scales and gaining immense mathematical knowledge from the experience, but it wasn’t to be. I hinted heavily that he could get the kitchen scales and then gave up realising that I was starting to hang towards coercion in my quest for spontaneous, autonomous education. He too did some drawing and some Hama beading, this time making a pattern. He didn’t have his glasses but that didn’t seem to hinder him.

him.

He slept both to and from our day out so missed all the discussions although woke up in time for a couple of rounds of eye-spy before we got home.

While out he went off and had lunch with his friend

And afterwards went for a ride

We did have at least two discussions on why it isn’t a good idea to throw stones in a car park although thinking back these were possibly rather one sided. He was later to sleep than Ms R so watched a dvd in bed and then had cuddles.

We’ve made it to the point where I’m happy to say that Ms R can read. I’m not exactly sure when it happened but the general words that are scattered around our life in the form of labels, signs and headlines are now easily understood. This morning at the sandwich chiller she helped Master R choose his lunch by reading out all the fillings for him. She wasn’t consciously trying to decipher the letters on the front, she just knew by looking that it wasn’t just a salad sandwich but that it had chicken in it too. That another one had bacon and another had tuna. There was no place for me to praise her on being able to read all the fillings out loud, I didn’t even bother acknowledging it because I doubt she realised that she was reading. She was just helping her brother which happens almost subconsciously for her; she’ll often pass him something without being asked when she sees him stretching, lift him up if he’s not tall enough to see or explain something he doesn’t quite get. She proved her skills again when we got home by reading on the front of some mail: ‘To the parent or guardian of…’. I doubt she could have read the word ‘guardian’ from a flashcard but she knew what the g word in the context of that sentence would say. After she read it out loud without faltering she took another moment to look at it, sounding the word out under her breath as if dismantling and then rebuilding it so that she’d know how it was made and why it said what it did. I often catch her looking at a word and muttering under her breath, I guess she’s got enough of the required tools to not need any interference.  

We have new neighbours, next door upstairs. This afternoon when the Rs were playing in the garden they became aware that they were being watched, after a while they started waving up at the window and before long were giving their names and ages. They have made friends with Rob who we are guessing is between ten and twelve, apparently there were two more little faces up there as well although they didn’t speak.

The grass is up in our eco-system. It seems to be growing before our very eyes being twice as tall this evening as it was this morning.

It has been hot today, lots of people have been complaining about it. I’m hoping it lasts for at least three months.

Ms R asked about The War today, to which I took to mean the second world war, so before we’d even got dressed this morning we spent half an hour sprawled across the bed reading the relevant chapter from a CPG book. I was quite pleased to get a chance to use the book as I’d been questioning my sanity on the purchase, and of course very pleased that when she asked the question I had a book to wave at her. It seemed to cover the few points that I remember learning about; the blackout, evacuees, rationing, the blitz and the fact that many women had to go to work for the first time. Ms R was very indignant about women earning less money than men but was reassured when I explained that it wasn’t so much the case now.

A couple of days ago we collected a small fish tank from a Freecycler and have made a sort of eco-system in it to demonstrate the water-cycle. We filled a lunchbox with water in the tank, some soil borrowed from Nanny, a couple of small plants from B&Q and some seeds of cress and grass. It is in direct sunlight and during the course of the morning the water collects on the clingfilm top, forming larger and larger drops until they rain down again. The cress has shot up and looks ready to cut already, no signs of grass or flowers yet though. This has inspired some interesting conversations and while Ms R is more interested in the rate of growth of the cress Master R took more time in trying to understand the whole process.

Both of the Rs have been swimming in Nannys swimming pool. Master R is out of his depth but is very confident in his swim jacket, Ms R can touch the bottom. I’m hoping that she’ll be able to have some more swimming lessons during the summer.

Ms R, by her own choice, left the nest for a whole day today. Only for a brief moment did she question whether she really wanted to go and then that moment was gone. She was grabbed by a friend to be a partner and the Rainbows boarded the bus two-by-two. We waved at each other for the best part of half an hour while waiting for the late comers. Extremely annoying as I woke up at thirty minute intervals through the night in a panic about missing the coach and was wanting also to keep the good-byes as brief as possible in order that neither one of us would cry or change our minds. I felt a bit lost afterwards so we visited Nana who was thrilled to see us and gave us a Mars bar to go on our way with.

I wasn’t able to be there to collect her due to work but heard all about it at the end of my day. She had a great time, ate lots of sugary foods and dozed off on the way home. I was partly happy that she was visiting a place that she was familiar with and slightly concerned that she’d be bored by it but I think she enjoyed the novelty of being sheparded around in a large, uniformed group and getting to share a large picnic lunch. I’ve definately felt a shift lately in the amount she needs me and can feel her growing up. Having said that it’s a foregone conclusion that she’ll be wrapped around me when I wake up in the morning.

I thought Master R would be lonely but he didn’t seem bothered. He mentioned about going too but I don’t think he would have done if it had been an option. He looks forward to being old enough to join a similar group but isn’t in any rush. He still likes to exercise his independance while I watch.

Todays education was pretty hardcore for us. If only I could have predicted this twelve months ago.

We started with History which is fairly regular for a Tuesday morning. Not because of well adhered to timetables but because it is the day in which we visit my grandparents and for some reason that incites questions relating to the ‘olden days’. Todays subject started with cars (I think it was “Why doesn’t Nana have a car”). We I talked about the numbers of cars on the roads and a bit about speed and safety and other modes of transport. We discussed I lectured on the topic of small local shops and the sorts of foods available which lead on to the subject of larders. I quite clearly remember Nanas walk in larder so talked about that for a bit. Master R wanted to know if people had larders upstairs too and Ms R told him that houses hadn’t been invented yet and everyone lived in flats . As Nana lived in a large farmhouse throughout my childhood which hadn’t had much modernisation I also remember things like the outside toilet, fireplaces in the bedroom and the old fashioned telephone. We arrived at Grandmas to find her outside preening her roses (or something) and carried on the conversation with her. She enlightened us to some of the joys of only having an outside toilet and somehow linked it to how old men grow such big vegetables so I guess we could call that bit Science. She told us about bathing and about the scullery. It’s fascinating to listen to her talk of the past, she has always been a very modern grandma in my mind. Or maybe we’ve just come a full circle in some things (like breastfeeding, co-sleeping, growing your own, natural remedies etc). The Rs like to play cards at Grandmas house so we did a bit of that. First I played pairs with Master R while Ms R did something similar with Grandma and then we swapped and I taught Ms R a new game which involved picking your opponents cards to try and make a pair and trying not to be left with the odd card, can’t remember the name but remember playing it with picture cards as a child. Grandma and I had a roam around her garden which is beautiful and always in bloom. She is a tomatoholic so there are many plants on the go all of different varieties. Master R has a little tomato plant which he purchased yesterday for 50p, it’s the only thing we are deliberatly growing at the moment. The rest of our garden is autonomous.

After we left Grandma (with crayon on her tablecloth ) we visited the stunningly beautiful reclusive gardens nearby. Usually we just race to a favourite place and I sit on a bench while the Rs run around and make ‘camps’ but today Ms R wanted to follow and fill in the childrens activity sheet on offer. She was already armed with a pencil and looked the stereotypical student with map in hand and bag on back. It had a section for ticking off wildlife that could be spotted at the pond so we spent quite a while there looking for water boatman, lily pads and the like. We saw some dragonflies too, bright blue ones and an orange one. We found our bearings on the map and talked about where North might be and why I might hold the map sideways, she didn’t have any problems following the map or finding the things we were supposed to be looking for. The flowers smelt nice, we saw some birds fairly close up (one eating a worm!) and Ms R rescued a little caterpillar who was stuck in a web and with the aid of her trusted pencil took it safety. It’s the first time she’s shown any interest in wildlife and it was like she was seeing everything for the very first time despite us being regular visitors of the garden.

On the way home we stopped off at the big pet shop. Master R found a puppy to stroke and then tried to convince both me and the assistant helping us that we should take a rabbit home. He seemed to want one very much. Ms R looked at the fish and we decided that we really needed an algae eater to join the little goldfish. Although this is the very last chance, if the little goldfish manages to kill this companion too then it will be living the rest of its days in solitude. At the very least the fish did take us away from discussing the flea cycle again.

At home Master R decided he needed to do some more school work and continued with the goldstars workbook that he started yesterday. Although he didn’t quite match the thirty pages that he did in the first sitting he did a few and clearly feels proud of himself for being so clever. Ms R made pizza (aka cheese and ketchup on toast) with minimal help and then they took themselves off to play something together.

On arriving home from work I recieved the usual picture/message from them both. Ms Rs had lots of stickers, hearts and ‘To Mummy I love you from R..’ and Master Rs was his usual scribble but today in a different colour. For so long it irritated me that Ms R wrote form instead of from but she seems to have self corrected, she also got the you right too which she’s been finding tricky. I guess it was only a matter of time before she got them right.

Yesterday at the checkouts of our supermarket my daughter had a conversation with the checkout lady. It went like this:

Lady: No school today?
Dd: No.
Lady: Inset day?
Dd: Huh?
Lady: Is it an inset day?
Dd: Erm, I don’t know, I don’t think so.
Lady (getting a bit impatient): Well why aren’t you at school then?
Dd: I don’t go to school.
Lady? You don’t go to school? (Looks at me disbelieving) Are you home tutored?
Dd: No. I’m home educated.
Lady: (quietly and away from me): Wouldn’t you like to go to school and make lots of friends?
Dd: I’ve already got lots of friends.
Lady: You might have lots of fun there.
Dd: I already have lots of fun and I’d miss my friends if I had to go to school.
Lady: Don’t you want to go to school?
Dd: No way. I’d miss my friends and my Mummy and going out all the time and learning things.
Lady: Well why don’t you just try it for a little while and see if you like it.
Dd: No. Because then we’d have people coming round and asking lots of questions and stuff and we don’t want that.
Lady to me: Are you going to do it forever?
Me: I don’t know, who knows what the future holds but for now it’s working for us.
Dd: I might be going to school in September. Daddy wants me to go to school because of my behaviour.
Me: *Blushes"

Then we finished the shopping and the lady complimented me on my daughter. Said she has a really good understanding of things for her age and talks well and that she enjoyed talking to her.

A bit later my daughter wanted to know what ‘Bug day’ was. I think she was slightly suspicious that she may be missing out on something fantastic.

The week long swimming course has finished. It was a great success, not only because she learnt to swim but because she really enjoyed it. She’s shown that she can learn in a group setting, can follow instructions, can be regulated etc. All the things that non home-educators talk about. From day four we had to arrive half an hour earlier to join a different class which was interesting. It was harder work for Ms R and she was no longer used as an example to the others. They were introduced to breaststroke; she got the hang of the arms but her legs seemed to do their own thing and after trying to swim a width of breaststroke she gave me a rather sad look and a thumbs down sign. I wondered if that would end her enthusiasm for swimming but on the last day she discovered she could swim lengths on both front and back and was awarded a ten metre certificate and badge.

Master R has also got loads out of swimming on a daily basis. He liked watching people jump off the diving boards and was really impressed with one person doing somersaults and turns. When we were in the pool he kept jumping in and a couple of times tried twisting round in the air which made him quite difficult to catch. He’s also pretty good at dunking under the water. When he asks me to let him go I push him towards the edge and let go at the last minute so he can grab hold. They both completed their first fitness diary and recieved a voucher for a free swim or a free entry to a soft play.

They’ve both been doing quite a bit of cycling. Master R has got the hang of his pedalless bike so it won’t be long before he’ll want to attempt riding a proper bike.

We visited our very close little park today. It has lots of climbing and balancing things and it was fascinating to watch Master R clamber across everything. He seemed to instinctively know where to put his feet and how to balance on things, it all came so naturally to him. Ms R is two years older and has had the benefit of me helping and showing her but was still faltering and doing it in odd ways.

Ms R has been doing a lot of drawing lately. Her people are still stick people but we can usually spot who is who by their hairstyle. She’s getting more adventurous and is drawing cars, aeroplanes and animals with smiley faces. She’s also taking more time, using different coloured pens and doing decorative borders. A lot of the pictures depict things we’ve done or plan to do and she’s trying to show feelings and thoughts. She drew many pictures yesterday while I was at work and one of them was a picture of Master R thinking (thought bubbles) of a ham sandwich and crying because he wanted me. Another picture showed her and Master R stroking Buzz and others showed all four of us having a fun day. Master R attempted to write an R but it didn’t bare much resemblance to mine. His drawing often consist of a quick round and round scribble which is then presented to me as something he has done especially because I’m the best mummy in the world.

One of our library books has been illustrated with cartoon characters over photographs and we’ve talked about ways of doing this.

The summer holidays are whizzing by, I had visions of long lazy days stretching before us (not that the rest of the year is much different to that). I don’t think we get as much for our six weeks nowadays as we did when I was at school.

They both weighed themselves (which they do every so often but I don’t usually take much notice). Ms R is 20kg which puts her on the 75th centile and Master R is 15kg which puts him on the 50th centile.

I’ve forgotton how to blog, I can never remember if I’ve mentioned something already or if it has happened since I last blogged. So it’s back to lists until I remember how to fill them in a bit more.

Today was day two of Ms Rs week long swimming course. Yesterday she did okay, today she excelled. She swam across holding one of those small rectangle floats in front of her, then she swam across holding it with just one arm, she swam back with it under the other arm and then she put it down and swam across completely independantly. It was quite amazing to see. She raced across like a torpedo and was most surprised to find herself at the other side. So proud she was she nearly jumped right out of the pool and for a good few minutes afterwards she bounced around waving at me and giving me thumbs up. She was then told to show everyone how to float face down which she did wonderfully even she’d never done it before although she told me afterwards she expected to sink and drown. I’ve been getting in after the lessons with Master R so that he gets a chance to splash around. His getting very water confident, enjoys coming down the slide and uses his hands to crab walk back to the steps.

We saw my grandparents who I find quite inspirational, they make being old look great fun. We discussed things like make-up, fashion trends and their recent spur of the moment daytrip to the Isle of Wight. I think my Grandad is a bit confused about the not going to school thing although thats probably because I’ve not mentioned much about it. The way Grandma parented probably didn’t have a label back in the 1950s but I reckon if ever our conversations turned onto more serious subjects she’d be totally for autonomy and attachment.

We shopped. Master R had been treating me as a punch bag all through the day. Ignoring it, instantly meeting his needs and speaking in soothing tones about being gentle doesn’t seem to be doing the trick. It was at the checkout just after I discovered the milk had a leak that I lost it. It wasn’t just a punch, it was now a box (right, left, right) so I said ‘No’ rather too loudly for my own good and then with a clenched fist I made contact with his shoulder. No. I didn’t punch him, it wasn’t a hit or even a hurt, it was just my closed hand resting on him. However, he didn’t see it that way and shared the full extent of his lungs. The five children at the next checkout stared with wide eyes and gaping mouths. And just in case there was anyone in the supermarket who wasn’t quite sure what all the fuss was about Ms R started yelling at me that I mustn’t punch my little boy. Thank goodness it is school holidays, judging by the cashiers response similiar scenes had probably been playing out all day.

The library trip went better, partly helped by the fact that we went a day earlier than usual and it was actually open. The Rs sat at a table and chatted to the librarian about the books they’ve read. I wasn’t sure if I should hover over to prompt them and translate or if it was better to keep out of the way. I opted to keep out of the way but was in earshot so heard Ms R reading out her favourite bits of a book and then heard her prompting Master R who quickly got the hang of talking for himself although there was a slight disagreement about whether he had actually read it all by himself or not as he was claiming. Ms R chose a book and read the title out loud to herself as ‘I want my little on’. I read it back to her as ‘I want my light on’.

A quick trip to the post office restored my smugness and gave my children the chance to stare wide eyed and gaping mouthed at someone elses bad Mummy.

Yesterday we visited friends who had kindly made birthday cards and yummy cakes with candles. Ms R stropped about a bit inbetween having the best time ever and is really looking forward to next time even though at one point she exclaimed loudly that ‘They are the worst kids in the whole world’. Lets all hope that she doesn’t make it into world politics. I’m hoping that she’ll learn some self control and tact sometime soon.

Master R got stung by something, possibly a bee. I expected being stung by a bee to be a lot worse than it was, obviously I wasn’t the one in pain but after Neurophen and a good nights sleep it’s been forgotton.

Sunday was my birthday celebration. We opened my presents, bathed in them, spent it, ate some, visited my Mum and my Nana and then the Rs had a late night. They get as excited over other peoples as they do their own.

The fish wasn’t dead which made it a little easier on me as I only needed to tell Ms R it was sick. She said she thought it was dead when she saw it laying on the bottom but then realised it couldn’t have been because it’s eyes were still open. By bedtime though it was dead and she expressed a bit of sadness but I think this was more to delay going to sleep than genuine grief. I asked her if she wanted me to deal with it which she did (so it went down the loo), she hasn’t asked yet where I put it, maybe she won’t. Poor little fish, like I don’t already have enough to feel guilty about.