Moving!

For all of you who are still following my sporadic posts, I have moved over to here - https://livingandlearninginourrainbowcolouredworld.wordpress.com/ as I felt I needed a new fresh look. Please come on over and say hi! x

Crafting

Are any of you crafters? I am. I love creating things and have done many items over the years. I try and do something handmade for my family at Christmas but I find each year it getting more and more difficult as my skills don't stretch that far!

I have an Esty shop that I have had for some time but I run it more as a hobby shop than as a business. Home Educating the children takes up all of my time at the moment but it's there waiting for me for when I have eventually get more time. They're not children forever so my priority right now has to be them. The business can wait.

In the meantime, I will continue to make and add to my shop and I will continue to get that huge buzz of excitement every time I make a sale. It doesn't matter how many things I sell (I had a craft stall for a while too) I will always get that zing of adrenaline every time I sell something. It's that shot of confidence. Something to just show that what I make is liked by other people too.

Feel free to pop over and take a look. x

A day in the life of a HE mum

"Mum!" calls my 12 year old. "Look what I've done!" He proceeds to show me how he's found a programme on his laptop that gives me a green screen. This means he can make lots of special effects, for him meaning making his own dinosaur or supernatural film on his you tube channel. He goes into vast detail of what he has to do to make it work and if I'm honest, my ears shut down a little as most of what he is saying is going straight over my head! However, despite my lack of understanding, I love that he is so motivated to find out new things and create amazing videos. We've only be HEing him since September and it's all quite new to him. I have to admit that I have wobbly days where I wish he was writing endless stories or drawing endless pictures that he used to do prior to leaving school... but then I realise that despite it only being 9 months, he has grown up so much as a person. The little boy who left school is no more. He may only be 12 years old, but he has grown so much as a person that he doesn't even resemble the boy in Year 6 less than a year ago. And that makes me feel so proud.

"Mum!" calls my 14 year old. "I can't do it!" She looks up at me from her chair in despair. "I hate geography! Why do we even have to do GCSEs!? I just want to be a child and do child things. Why do I have to rush to grow up?" My daughter left school nearly 2 years ago due to severe anxiety. Despite this she was very academic (in the sense of she just naturally did well at all subjects - but loved none of them). Since leaving school I've tried to convince her to take a more relaxed hands-on approach to learning. Telling her if she wants GCSEs a bit later she can choose one or two a year and go from there. But she's so stuck in the school way that she wants to take at least 5 and start studying them now to sit the exams in summer 2019. "But it's so boring!" she says. "My life is all about GCSEs and I just hate it!". So I tell her that she can change that. She chose to do her GCSEs now but she can go a different route if she wants. She can do some practical courses for now and maybe go to college to do vocational courses alongside English and Maths when she's ready... but due to her anxiety the thought of college terrifies her. The thought of sitting her exams as an external candidate terrifies her too. As a mum I am beside myself with worry. What if she bottles out of sitting any exams AND going to college... what then?? I will feel like I've failed her. But right now I can't think of that. I just have to help to guide her in the right way so that she can find her passion. That's what I'm here for. She's only 14. She has time to decide what she wants to do and the jump between 14 and 16 is huge with regards to maturity, confidence and life goals. So I will sit and wait. Help her to experience a variety of things and have trust that she will figure it out in her own way.

"Mummy!! Look at what I made!!" calls my 5 year old. "I made a "hostipal" from lego!" and he proceeds to tell me at great length all of the pieces he used to make it. "Can you help me make a dock, like at the harbour?" I was just about to grab my notebook and sit down with a cuppa to jot some points down for an article I had an idea on. But his expectant face looks up at me and I cave in. "Ok, I'll help you". We spend the next hour searching through endless piles of lego bricks trying to find the perfect ones to make into a dock. By the time we finish my tummy is rumbling loudly. "Do you want lunch?" I ask hauling myself up off the floor. "Not yet" he replies tipping yet another box of lego pieces all over the floor.

I walk into the kitchen and open the fridge.

"Mum!" Calls my 14yr old. "Can you help?" I grab the lettuce from the fridge, put it on the side and go to her. She asks me to explain a question in her book. I read it three times before I understand myself and then attempt to explain it to her. She looks at me confused so I go back through the passage and show her examples of what it wants. "Oh, yeah." she says, finally understanding. I return to the kitchen and open the fridge once more. I take out some more salad, some dressing and some hard boiled eggs I cooked earlier. I put them on the side and go to fetch a plate.

"Mum!" calls my 12 year old. "I can't reach the box in my cupboard". So I go up the stairs to help he get said box down from the top of his wardrobe.

I return to the kitchen and begin to put the salad on to the plate.

"Mummy! Can you help me wipe my bum!" my five year old yells from upstairs. "I can do it, but can you check".
"Yes ok" I call back, tummy making loud gurgling noises now and my body starting to feel a little weak due to hunger.

Back in the kitchen I peel the shell off the egg and slice it and place it on the salad.

"What's for lunch?" says my 12 year old as he slumps into the kitchen.
"Whatever you want." I reply. "I'm doing salad, do you want some?"
He turns his nose up and shuffles over to the fridge. Can I make bacon sandwiches?"

I'm trying to lose some weight but I could KILL for a bacon sandwich right now, but that doesn't mean he can't have one. "yes that's fine" I say reluctantly. I pour a small amount of low fat dressing on to my salad and take my plate to the table.

"I'm hungry now" says my 5 year old. "Can I have a wrap?" I debate telling him he now has to wait, but seeing as he only ever has butter in it, and he likes salad too, I decide it will quicker and more pleasant if I just quickly make it and he can join me at the table. So I do that.

As we sit down again to eat, my 14 year old comes in while on the phone to her friend. "I'm just grabbing this" she says taking a hard boiled egg out of the fridge and begin peeling it. "I'll be back for lunch in a minute".

Once I finish my meal I stand up to visit the toilet. "Mum" says my 12 year old..... and 15 minutes later I manage to close the bathroom door and breathe a sigh of relief as I finally have a bit of privacy. Spoken too soon, I suddenly hear a knock at the door "Mum!..."

HE...am I doing enough?

As a normal home educating parent I think it's normal to worry every now and again and have a wobble about whether what I'm doing for the children is enough. When we're having a lazy day and feel like we're not doing anything that looks like "learning". Then I have to take a step back and look at (or ideally jot down as it makes you see it so much better) what we actually HAVE been doing. When we're in our PJs and F, my nearly 5 yr old has been laying on the sofa for the past hour watching Netflix... but in actual fact he's been watching a children's cartoon programme about underwater volcanoes and how they erupt to make islands. (Science, geography, geology). When we start chatting about the time I (his mum) went to Italy and climbed up Vesuvius and then back down to Herculaneum and how the preserved buildings looked. (History) He's full of questions and I answer them as best I could, making a mental note to pick up "volcano" books then next time we go to the library.

Later on, we bake cakes. He helps to measure (maths) and stir the mixture, watching how the ingredients mix together and also watches through the glass oven door to see the mixture turn into fluffy cake (chemistry).

During lunch we chat about our cakes and a bit more about volcanoes and how tomorrow we'll make some salt dough and make our own volcano, what colours we will use and the ingredients we might make. He'll chat about how he thinks he might make it stay upright and planning how he wants it to look. (Design Technology/science)

After lunch we put our coats on, discussing the weather and how many layers we might need and head out for a walk to the park (or a scooter). Large motor skills are really important, not only for health but also to build vital muscle control for future writing. We talk about the trees and the branches and how bare they look at the moment. We also spot a pink cherry blossom tree and get excited that it is a sign of spring and how we can't wait until the warmer days come and we can spend more time outside. (science) At the park he climbs, swings, runs and slides (PE).

When we get home, F decides he wants to do some drawing. He draws his favourite thing - a train and takes great care in doing all the minor features such as wheels, doors, windows, station signs, tracks and even buffers. He asks me to remind him how to hold a pen the right way as he really wants to do it the way the rest of us do. (literacy/art)

He does a puzzle (matching - maths) and then builds some lego (art/dt/hand-eye coordination/maths) and then asks to go on the tablet. He chooses to play minecraft giving me a running commentary of the amazing world he is building (dt/art/science/geography/maths and probably others I've not thought of).

At bedtime we read endless books with him picking out sounds of letters he recognises already.

This is a quiet "lazy" day when I don't feel we've done anything educational and I start to panic that he's learning anything. So stepping back and writing it all down helps to make me realise that it really is impossible for him to not learn. Even lazy days are full of great learning experiences.

Here's to more lazy days in our HE life!! xx

"What do you do all day?"

I was asked this recently when discussing our life with a friend. This was a friend who doesn't quite "get" home education. And who can blame them? I didn't get it either before we started it. Not really. I was interested in it, and I was jealous of the people who did it. No ties to school runs and expensive half term holidays. Time to enjoy their children before they grew up and flew the nest. But I didn't really understand what it involved.

Since we've started home educating, I've realised that there are generally two types of people who don't "get" HE. The first type are the ones who think our children sit at home all day not doing anything constructive and don't see anyone else in the outside world ("but how will they learn how to socialise??" and the second type are the ones who think the children are chained to the dining table spending 6hrs a day writing in exercise books while I stand in front of them "teaching".

Well, maybe there are those extremes in the HE world, but I am yet to meet anyone who's home ed looks like that. Our reality is this:

I have three children aged 4 1/2, 11 and 14.

My 14yr old has decided on the subjects she'd like to take at GCSE level and has always been a bit of a book-work type of person and so she is quite happy working through ks3 text books. In September we will buy the correct text books for the exams she would like to sit. These will be English IGCSE, Maths GCSE, Geography IGCSE, History GCSE and Biology IGCSE. We'll buy the text books and those along with past papers and various online resources and you tube videos she'll hopefully feel prepared enough to sit the exams in 2019. A lot of home educators don't do them all at once. Often they take one or two each year over, maybe, 3 yrs so that there is much less work and pressure to get the work done. However, my daughter is more of a "let's get it all out of the way all at once" type of person - possibly a bit like her mother!! So she's opted to do all 5 at once - but take 2yrs to study for them. She also does 2 sessions a week working alongside a football coach, coaching children aged between 4 and 11 which is what she loves most of all. Although she doesn't see it "education" she also comes along with the rest of us for trips out which I am sure she learns more from than she realises! (See below!)

My 11yr old is much less workbook-y. He learns best by hands on or documentaries. He uses a maths programme called conquermaths which he's really enjoying (considering maths was always his worst subject at school) alongside Prodigy Maths which is a game based mental maths type game. Again, he'll do this voluntarily without protest which is a huge plus in my eyes!  He is a natural writer and although we do use CGP books for English, he also supplements this with his own story writing. Science we cover in various forms such as Mystery Science which is an online lesson with hands on experiments to complete as well as some written work. We also watch endless documentaries which cover a huge variety of topics relating to science, geography and history. He's also just become interested in hiking and so we go for regular walks locally in the countryside and he'll soon be the one reading the OS maps instead of me. What better way to learn geography skills than getting out there and having weekly (or more than weekly) field trips. These trips often involve stopping off at historic places of interest whether it be old churches, English Heritage castles or just for some stone skimming on the beach!  Talking of beaches, in the warmer months he has his swimming lessons here (when I say lessons, I mean he spends hours having fun in the water but over the summer managed to really improve his strength in swimming) but in the cooler weather we go to the local pool which has discounted HE swimming sessions. Also at the beach we do lots of exploring of the shoreline or rockpools and enjoy identifying things we have found along the way.

My son is a keen photographer and artist and so he often will be seen taking endless photographs of the scenery we've come across or the items he has found and then sketching them once he gets home.

On top of this, he has extra curricular groups/lessons that he attends - drama, parkour and football.

My 4yr old would have started school last September if we had sent him, although he is not legal school starting age until September this year. His education is mainly play based. We do have our routines such as bedtime stories every night and a reading programme called pippoplearning most days. He also chooses to go on Teach your monster to read as and when he wants (often a couple of times a week) and has also recently got interested in minecraft. But mainly he plays. He plays with small world toys such as trains and tracks, cars and his road mat, mini people or character figures, construction toys such as lego, zoobs, wooden blocks and wood and nails! He's also following in his brother's footsteps and is very into drawing at the moment which I am encouraging no end as the more he draws, the more he develops his hand muscles ready for writing. He has written a few things when he's asked to copy something but right now I'm not pushing the writing as he loves drawing so much and feel this is enough at age 4 to develop the correct muscles. He watches tv and you tube - he's so interested in things and how they work that he'll do anything in his power to find out the answers to his questions. As I type this he is watching "Britain's Secret Seas" a bbc documentary which he is absolutely glued to right now, but also watches various cbeebies programmes - the ones with "real" information being his favourite such as "Do you know", "I can cook" and "Octonauts". There's also a programme called "Magic School Bus" on Netflix which at first seems like an annoying Scooby Doo style retro cartoon. However, on closer inspection, it has a huge amount of scienctific teaching that goes on there - some things both myself and my 11yr old didn't even know ourselves so often we find ourselves all watching it as a family. You tube favourites also include "Come Outside" with the lovely Pippin and Auntie Mabel.

On top of all of the above, he also obviously joins us in our walks and explorations, swimming and football. He also does his own two dance classes and gymnastics. All of which he adores. We also meet up with friends at least once or twice a week for play dates either outside or in play centres. He mixes with other children most days and so do my older children either through groups or going out with friends and so I can honestly say Home Ed children really don't miss out socially. In fact, in my own children's point of view, they have a more active social life than most school children who have to sit next to whoever they're told to rather than a friend of choice.

At the weekend we do normal family things once their dad is home - zoo trips, country walks, chores such as shopping and DIY.

Would I change my life? Never. It is the best thing we've ever done!! xx

The good things in life...

"When you finally get something good, enjoy it. 

Don't always go looking for something better."

I saw this quote on facebook today and it really struck a chord with me. Many years ago when my eldest, who is now 13, was very tiny. I used to read a cute little book to her. It was about a mouse family who took walks along the sand, swam in the rivers, lived in the country with fields and trees where they made rope swings and went for jogs... you get my drift. When I read it to my little girl, who was then a toddler, I would tell her that one day we'll get to live by the sea and have walks along the sand, be able to climb trees and swim wildly in the sea or rivers. 

A couple of years later, when my daughter was 3 and my, then youngest, was 8mths old, we moved to live near the sea. Unfortunately I had long term postnatal depression that lasted from when my son was born until he was 2 1/2 yrs old so, despite it being exactly what I had wanted for years, it wasn't something that I appreciated fully for a long time.

A lot has changed over the past 10 years that we've been living here. We've had good times and bad times, the last year being one of the worst we've ever had for varying reasons... but all of that has led to something amazing happening. I have felt this on and off for the past few years now, but not as much as I feel it now. I am so so happy in my life right now. So grateful for what I have. I'm approaching 40 and I guess it's a time in my life that I can look at it and see what I've done. I have achieved SO much. Maybe not in the same way that someone else might view achievement. But for me it is all I ever wanted. 

I live in that house by the sea. We have a woodland running along the back of our garden so our view from our decking and our bedroom window is nothing but green trees and an abundance of birds and wildlife. 

We have been lucky enough for a colony of bees to set up a temporary home in our garden 3 years running and a permanent home once. We don't have a lot of flowers in our garden, but we do have lots of green hedges, and I guess that's just something they must like.

 We go for walks along the sand, swim in the sea, the children climb trees and play in the woods. 

We are lucky enough to have made some wonderful friends since we have lived here and my parents and sister also live within walking distance to our house.

I haven't made a huge career for myself but I do what I love. I write. I create. And I surround myself with my beautiful beautiful children. Home educating 2 of them is amazing. In July I will have all 3 of them here with me learning and enjoying life together. We have great plans for the future and we are so excited for what we hope to achieve. Our home, however busy and hectic it gets, is where all our hearts lie. I love my home and have big plans on how to make the spaces within it work better for when we are all here (watch this space).

I was always the one who was "looking for something better". There was always something that I was searching for to make my life complete. But this is it. This is what I dreamed of when I was a child. This is my life. C x

The end of a perfect day...

We have all had the most lovely afternoon today. We met up with some lovely friends of ours who we haven't seen for some time. The children had grown up together and to be honest I was a little worried how they would be together seeing as it had been so long without contact and definitely for T, life has changed quite dramatically since the last time she saw them. But I needn't have worried. They slotted back into their close friendships as if they'd never been apart. We had a gorgeous (if breezy) stroll along the beach, stopped for coffee and snacks at the park cafe and then wandered back to our car. We had lots to catch up on and I feel, as I often do, that we never had enough time to be together to really catch up with all the news.

However, having decided we will have a weekend away together in a couple of month's time we now have something fabulous to look forward to and a much longer catch up to be had.

I am very lucky to have a selection of very close friends. I'm not one to have a big circle of friends, but the ones I have are extremely dear to me. I guess, again, that's perfectionism. Just any old "friends" won't do. They have to be perfect ones. And I think the ones I have are pretty close to that, and for that I am hugely thankful. xx