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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.