Hot summer days-for a change! · Monday August 27, 2007 by Ann
We have a caravan, down on the river at Stourport on Severn. We’ve had a caravan down there for years, since I was fourteen. Last week when stepdaughter Verity stayed with her son Jacob, we went down there as the weather was gorgeous and Jacob loves it.
As usual, we went to the local pick your own farm to get our fruit and vegetable supply for our stay. As we went there and picked our own, the first time Jacob came to stay down there, we have to do it each time.
We had also invited a family friend to come along with us. She has two boys-who are friends of Jacob and Nancy-so we called up stepdaughter Louisa and suggested she joined us with Nancy too on Thursday night.
During the day, we went all went swimming in the on site pool and then went for a walk, down the river to town.
On the way we talked about river management, wildlife and found some interesting stones to take home (another favourite occupation of Jacob’s-we have been looking up the origins of the stones, but need to do more research at the library). We watched barges making their way through the locks from the river up to Stourport’s canal basin and discussed the mechanics of the locks and Victorian engineering, which made it all possible.
Alice and Lucy took the youngsters down to the park, whist we cooked supper, which we ate outside. Outdoor meals on sunny evenings makes the food taste wonderful.
Then after the young children had settled down for the night, Alice and Lucy and I enjoyed an evening with their sisters and our friend.
Since returning home we have been investigating canal locks further, online. I have also been educated in the finer points of Dr Who by Jacob-he and Lucy have spent a fair old time on Ebay, investigating characters for sale.
After the demolition of a huge tin of chocolates (found hidden in the cupboard under the stairs when I did the decluttering last week), we decided to make a ‘stained glass’ window with all of the coloured cellophane wrappers. The design of course was The Tardis-can’t wait to see it on Jacob’s new bedroom window, when we go up to Derbyshire to see their new house.
After Verity and Jacob caught the train home on Saturday, we dashed off to take Lucy to her singing lessons. Her singing teacher has been away for a while, as she is a performer herself and has been away on tour and then performing in a musical.
Lucy has been learning songs from Phantom of the Opera-Lianna was playing the title song for her when we were in Malvern. Now that she is back to singing lessons, she is learning songs from ‘Les Mis’ too. She has come on so well recently with this-until the last twelve months or so, Lucy learning a new song, meant me learning it and the reading it over and over with her until she had got it into her long term memory. This was of course because of Lucy’s reading problem. After all these years of struggling I am thrilled to watch and hear her her, finding the relevant song on you tube and then finding the lyrics online and reading and learning them-and singing them, all by herself.
Lucy still says it was like a switch that was tripped inside her head-until then she knew all of the letters, knew their names and what sounds they made on their own-but could make no sense of the sounds they made together-in English written words. She suddenly started to get it at thirteen-and now reads fluently almost all of the time. She will still ask for help when it is a ‘bad day’ or when she is under pressure but the improvement is outstanding.
She was reading long horoscopes out for her sisters and our friend last week-they all sat and listened with huge smiles on their faces as they of course know of the huge difficulties she has had.
Then after the singing lesson, Lucy went off again on her travels back to Congleton, to meet up with the guys in the band to learn three new songs they have written and record others.
She will be back again by Tuesday, as we have Nancy for the whole week as her granny, who usually has her for half of the week in the holidays is on holiday. Alice has a hospital appointment, so Lucy will keep Nancy entertained til we return home. Then we have promised to take her back down to the caravan for a couple of days-so we will be keeping our fingers crossed for good weather.
We have just received the local home ed newsletters for September-always quite exciting to see the home ed scene re awakening after the summer hols, when many meetings don’t happen because the venues are full of school children.
Lucy starts a sailing course next week with local home ed peers.
Alice did this course not long after we first deregistered the children from school. Lucy started it too, but although she enjoyed being on the water all of the written instructions and especially the maths involved terrified her and she dropped out after the first day. I am so thrilled that she now feels able to cope with all of this. I don’t know yet whether she will need me to be with her when they are in the classroom or not-but she knows she can ask me to. Alternatively I am wondering if we can ask the lovely instructors to use a Dictaphone when they are in the classroom, so that Lucy can play it all back again later to help her commit what they say to memory-which will certainly help with the problems of home work.
Alice has been offered a full time job! She has returned to the soap shop for a couple of days a week until September, when she intended to find a job to fit in around her college hours-when she decides finally what to do-but the shop have come back with an offer of as many hours as she cares to work, up to full time if she wants it. Alice is now considering careful what to do about it. Whether to work full time for a year or so and do an OU course as an extra-or whether to return to some other college.
David returned from the music festival he attended last week-he had a great time, the weather stayed okay and he didn’t spend too much money and really enjoyed the music-another good use of Granny Madge’s money-enjoyment in her memory.
He was out at work at the local fuel station again tonight, but has now gone to bed early as he has the 6-10 am shift tomorrow morning, to earn extra on Bank Holiday Monday.
I have often been asked, if we have a totally autonomous lifestyle, where the young people make their own choices completely, without someone telling them what to do, how will they ever learn to get up early for work-or for anything else if we don’t make them-or if they don’t have to get up for school everyday to get used to the world of work?
It really hasn’t been a problem here, David and his sisters get themselves up and organised for whatever they want to do. In the case of work, they are there because they want to be and that is motivation enough. David will get himself up and out on time in the morning-long before I get up.
Alice is away again tonight-staying with her sister Louisa’s house. She went over last night and they have been enjoying the Bank Holiday weekend together.
Makes for a very quiet house here tonight-and gives me time to catch up.
I seem to be too busy..... · Wednesday August 22, 2007 by Ann
I seem to have been too busy to get here and blog anything-let alone catch up in several bites!
In the period I was away from my home computer, Lucy joined some friends back at the site where we went to Peak Camp in Derbyshire in June. She organised herself completely, arranging her tent, equipment, food, clothing and even her transport there and back.
This time round the weather was much better-so much so that they were able to view the Meteor shower.
We had looked at this before Lucy left home, after other home educators posted about it on the main lists. We have an enormous amount of light pollution here, living as we do in close proximity to a main trunk road and to a busy motorway. Rarely do we have an opportunity to do any night sky watching because of it, unless we are away from home. As Peak Camp is held in a beautiful part of the Derbyshire countryside, we knew that Lucy should have a real opportunity to see something spectacular this time. So we read about it and discussed it before she went. Lucy was worried that she wouldn’t remember to look but was reminded that the teenagers often stay up very late, so remembering shouldn’t have been a problem….....or so i thought.
The Sunday evening that the meteors were at their most spectacular was a fine clear night, the teenagers were up late and Lucy saw a ‘shooting star’ and then another and then another and thought “wow” that’s a lot-she had completely forgotten about the
Meteor shower!! Her short term memory problems struck again!
Eventually one of the other teens enlightened her-and then she remembered what we had looked up and discussed.
At home Alice has been offered her old job back in the handmade soap and nice smellies shop. She has been away so often this summer, she had given up the job so as not to mess them about too much. They wanted her back though and offered her first refusal on working for them again. This she has agreed to do until her 18th birthday, which is coming up next month, giving them time to look for and train someone else. She’ll be working three days a week until then. Basically the lovely lady who owns the shop, can’t bear to come back from maternity leave and so needs Alice’s help. Three days a week means that Alice can save a bit of money but still have time to enjoy the holidays whilst she decides what course to take in September.
When we were staying in Malvern, we have been house sitting for some home ed friends of ours. We usually do this whilst they go off to a home ed camp in September-but that may not happen this year as their daughter starts college in the autumn. However we were very lucky as they wanted someone to house-sit and look after and milk their goat whilst they went off to Paris to fetch a spinet.
This time their children aged 16 and 15 stayed with us. Both youngsters are friends of Lucy’s, so it all worked out really well.
The house has about 9 acres of garden, orchard and woodland and is situated on a hill overlooking Malvern-with a beautiful view.
It is lovely and peaceful.
Whilst we were there, Lianna was showing Lucy how to play some pieces on piano, she also accompanied Lucy’s singing. Together they researched more music that they liked and did some work on their website.
They also went shopping in all the charity shops for material for dress making-they found some real bargains and so have started to design the dress they intend to make together.
We also investigated all of the excellent second hand bookshops whilst we were in town and found bargains in Tai Chi, Ballet, Science experiments, Warhammer novels, sociology and law. All very useful for different family members interests.
Whist we were in town, we met up with another HE friend who joined them, staying with us overnight.
The girls all then spent an evening watching DVDs -ranging from scary movies, to Shakespeare. Watching Shakespeare has meant that Lucy was asking more questions about language and the roots of English and how a modern language changes.
Alice joined us after work one day and Robin patiently spent time trying to teach her to play the drums-in return she was teaching him to do cartwheels and other athletic activities-our girls really enjoy all of the space available in this house!
Tom and I milked the goat, picked the organic vegetables and we all went on long rambling walks-discussing organic gardening, recycling, composting and wind turbines (friends are currently measuring the wind to see if they could run a wind turbine to provide electricity for their home)
So we had a busy but peaceful stay and it was lovely to catch up with our friends, over a meal, when they returned from Paris.
This week, step granddaughter Nancy has been here all day on Monday and Tuesday-and stayed overnight with her mother Louise. Stepdaughter Verity and her son Jacob who is six, joined us all last night-so along with my brother in law, are making this a very crowded place at the moment!
We have been looking at all of the photographs Jacob took at HesFes and editing some of them-such a pleasure to relive that holiday.
We went off to the street theatre this afternoon and now they have all gone off to see The Simpsons’ movie this evening-leaving me with a little spare time to catch up here!
Tom and I were not at all sure of the suitability of the Simpsons when it first was broadcast (back in the days before we were totally autonomous of course) Our children soon showed us how moralistic and educational it is!
Tomorrow we are off down to the caravan at Stourport, on the river Severn for a couple of days-Jacob loves staying there and going swimming in the pool, walking down the river and watching the canal boats going through the locks-and visiting the local pick your own farm!
Apologies for the absence · Monday August 20, 2007 by Ann
I have been away-I had internet access but forgot to take the password to get me into here-so couldn’t blog!
I have so much to blog, I’ll probably have to do it in two or three blocks!
We went along to Iris and Geoff Harrison’s for dinner with Alice. We had such a good time. We met up with Joyce, one of the other trustees for the charity Speaks Volumes It looks like the funds will be made available soon, for Alice to get the software she needs to over come the problems of her severe dysgraphia.
Alic still has such problems with the physical act of writing and the FE college were not helpful at all.
Alice had become disillusioned again and had begun to doubt herself again lately. Going to dinner with Iris, Geoff and Joyce was just the tonic she needed. Geoff kindly demonstrated the voice recognition software and Alice immediately had a go and quickly recognised it’s potential. It was so lovely to hear their laughter and joy from the next room.
Both Geoff and Alice got quite emotional later when talking about the difficulties they have had in the past with getting their thoughts down on paper.
I know I have had to leave blogging about this for a while, as I too got upset when seeing their anguish again, to talk about it.
I am not asking for advantages for my offspring, but do feel passionately that they should be on a level playing field with everyone else when it comes to course work and exam situations.
Suddenly with voice recognition software what is in Alice’s head can be seen on paper-rather than what she can physically write or type in the time allowed.
This type of help is available for someone with these types of specific learning difficulties once they get to university-but as the amount of help they really need is simply not available routinely in schools and FE colleges, so many young people like Alice do not make it as far as university-and therefore never have the chance to show how well they could do in that type of academic situation.
Alice is now very keen indeed to be doing whatever she can to further the cause of this charity.
Let’s hope the applications for funding for ‘Speaks Volumes’ are successful so it can be useful in helping many more people.
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Recovering today · Thursday August 9, 2007 by Ann
The girls were most unwell last night, with Lucy in particular running a temperature. She said she hadn’t felt that unwell since she was a little girl.
I’m not surprised really, I think the girls had burnt the candle at both ends -and in the middle, with their desire to fit in as much as possible at the Big Green Gathering.
The girls have spent today recovering and seem brighter this evening. Alice is having a big tidy up and reorganisation of her bedroom and is playing loud music.
Lucy has been on the computer, writing her diary, keeping her ‘myspace’ up to date and exploring new to Lucy music on ‘You tube’. She recently watched “Walk the line” the Johnny Cash story and has been looking at his music -her ‘myspace’ is presently playing “A boy named Sue”. Lucy’s musical taste is certainly eclectic!
She has just done a tarot card reading with me-interesting that the Tarot card book is one of her learning to read books-it was something she was most interested in and so she has been making a huge effort to be able to read it.
I accept now, that there are good days and bad days for a dyslexic who has had problems as severe as Lucy did and therefore days when she can read better than others. And today, recovering from illness has not been the best of days, so I read a lot of the tarot card meanings-after Lucy had pronounced her interpretation of them.
Yesterdays meeting at the Malvern Outdoor Centre went really well.
I think there were about 20 or so young people there for the actual activities on offer, but several other of our local families who have very young children came along for the day just to socialise. It has always been one of the wonderful things about our local home ed group meetings to see children of all ages and both genders mixing freely. The older ones tend to look out for the younger ones and give them a hand when needed. My heart always warms when i see an older teenage lad, down at eye level with a three year old and chatting seriously. This isn’t unusual in our group and everyone accepts it as normal-until someone new joins the group and comments on it.
The older children had enormous fun and excitement on the high wires course, where they completed and obstacle/assault course high up in the tree tops. This was followed by the ‘parachute jump’ where they climbed a ladder high into the trees onto a platform approx 10 metres from the ground and then jumped off as though they were in a parachute. The harness caught them and they stopped falling several feet from the ground and then they were lowered the rest of the way. Lucy found her courage and succeeded in climbing to the top of the ladder on the second attempt and jumping off. Some of the youngsters made it all look so easy. Activities for the 7-11 age group were on the low ropes course, which included the zip wires and the rope swing (where the older ones joined them for a little while) and then the climbing tower.
Fabulous time had by all!
I had a lovely chat yesterday with the granny of one of the lads in the group. Granny and Grandad do a large part of this lads HE, as his parents work full time and they are the ones we usually see at meetings. Granny has commented before that they have reason to believe that George is dyslexic and was having real difficulty at school with numeracy and literacy.
George has recently found a ‘new’ word game called ‘Backwards’ at a local charity shop. Apparently it requires you to read increasingly difficult words that are written backwards. George and Granny and Grandad have apparently had great fun with this. Granny says it is the best fiver she has ever spent. George is asking to play ‘Backwards’ frequently at the moment and they are now tackling the difficult words. George would still run a mile at any suggestion of working on his spellings or doing a spelling test, yet here he is loving doing just that. Why? because it is fun, in a relaxed atmosphere with no pressure and he is in control of it. George can stop as soon as he likes. Or play as long as he likes
;o)
I’ll be looking out for that game now, as I had not heard of it before.
I have talked about board games, word games and card games before, we play them a lot-when one of the children has a craze on card games we can play for days and find them excellent for helping with mental maths. I remember being down the caravan one time with our children and a couple of HE friends and going out with the girls and coming back and finding David and his mohican sporting friend Ben playing a game of scrabble. The rules they were playing to were not quite what i would have used, but they were playing and having such a good time together. Again I considered this a triumph in our dyslexic family. Dh Tom had always found it such a trial when none of us would play with him before, but now we enjoy a game together.
Absolute Balderdash is a game we play to complete hysterics. It is simply so funny that we all enjoy playing together, in spite of the combined reading and writing difficulties.
All of this fits in quite well with a couple of conversations I have been having with folks lately about what ‘do’ you do if you don’t do school at home? I was looking at posting about this when I came across I live therefore I learn and it says it all really.
The other conversations I seem to be having is do we give the children a break in the summer holidays and was going to blog about that, but Gill has done that so well-and then I noticed that someone has linked to the ‘I live therefore I learn’ post in Gill’s comments! It seems we are all being asked the same questions at the moment!
Malvern today · Wednesday August 8, 2007 by Ann
Home education group meetings seem to be thin on the ground during the school summer holidays, mostly because the venues are full of schooled children!
Today though, one of the other moms locally, has arranged fro a group of us to go to The Malvern Outdoor Adventure Centre
As it is the school holidays, my two nieces Madelaine and Claire are coming too. Lucy is thrilled to be spending time with her cousins, they are very close and have always been good friends.
I’ve to go off and pack a lunch for us shortly. The weather is looking quite good at the moment, so fingers crossed. Lucy and her cousins all had a go on the high wires course last year. This consisted of climbing to the top of a telegraph pole then standing up and jumping to catch a trapeze bar which was about a metre away-at the top of the pole!
Everyone was obviously harnessed and roped up for safety but it was still scary and although Lucy’s cousins managed to get onto the trapeze bar, Lucy did not, despite shinning up the telegraph pole pretty damn quickly. Lucy tells me she intends to remedy that today!
Lucy is especially pleased to be spending time with her cousins as she has recently given up the dance classes she has been doing with them. Lucy was in a dance company too and the classes and rehearsals took place on a Wednesday night in the town where Madelaine and Claire live. Wednesday night was given over to more than three hours of classes and rehearsals-a long night but at least it got it all in. Apparently this was difficult for the girls who have home work and school next day and so the sessions have
now been divided up and classes will now take place on one night and dance company rehearsals will take place on another. Lucy has decided that it is no longer possible for her to attend. Two evenings is too much commitment as she has so many other things on in her life, with choir and singing lessons and travelling to sing and gig with the band. Not to mention the camps and gatherings we attend. So from September Lucy intends to join the ballet classes at DanceXchange which is based at Birmingham Hippodrome. We did go earlier in the year, so that she could try the classes out. She will travel into Birmingham on a Saturday morning go the classes and return by herself. Lucy is quite an independent traveller these days
Some of you who read my blog when I posted before, will remember we were talking about setting up a debating group for the teenagers, but we unfortunately never got organised. However some good friends of ours have done so and the girls are both coming with me tonight to join the debates. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.
Well they are back! · Monday August 6, 2007 by Ann
The girls are home.
We had a message asking us to go and fetch them back from Weston today, as Fiona had to come home early, so they hadn’t got a lift.
Nancy, Tom’s granddaughter is here for a couple of days so Tom and I decided to make a day of it and take Nancy for a day at the seaside.
We had a lovely time. The sun shone all of the time and it was good to be outside for any length of time on a beach without plastic macs and waterproofs!
Tom picked up Alice and Lucy at about 1pm and they joined us on the beach-we had a picnic and Lucy played with Nancy to her hearts content whilst Alice slept! They built sandcastles, did cartwheels and handstands played ball and went onto the bouncy castle before finishing off with an ice cream
Apparently they had enjoyed the festivities right up until the very end and it was light before they went to bed this morning-awakening at 11.15am and realised they had to be packed up and off the site by 12 md!
They managed it though!
They have spent all of their money, met lots of friends old and new and had an absolutely glorious time
We left Weston in time to meet my stepson Thomas who is here overnight as he is flying out from Birmingham to Munich first thing tomorrow morning.
We have eaten a big vegan curry with lentil dahl which I had the foresight to make before we left this morning.
Now we are going through photographs from HesFes-and also found some of Thomas from his childhood for his mother to see-he has only recently been back in touch with her and is rebuilding their relationship.
The girls are really enjoying using the bathroom- going to a festival and camping is really necessary to really appreciate an normal bathroom.
I’m off now to listen to more of their adventures,
I've heard from the girls! · Saturday August 4, 2007 by Ann
Alice and Lucy rang me from The Big Green Gathering this morning.
They are having a fabulous time. Alice says there is vegan food stalls everywhere and she is having such a good time, trying them all out. It makes such a change for her to have real choices in meals.
Lucy says she has been doing similar, but that she’ll be eating food that I sent today to save money.
They both have bought a dress each-but have managed to resist buying any more clothes -so far!
Alice said that she keeps bumping into people that they know everywhere and Lucy told me about all of her crowd of HE friends who have gone to the festival too.
The music is apparently great and they are enjoying the ambiance and the opportunities in the healing area etc.
The lads from the band Lucy sings with are also there but haven’t taken their instruments, but hope to be able to use the piano in the cafe area and perform at some point, just for the fun of it.
Hope someone records it for me to watch if they do!
They have a nice place to camp and the weather has been good so far, with just a little rain on the first full day. Now that will make a change from all of the other camps we have been on this year!
Although I wasn’t worried about them, it is good to actually hear from them that all is well.
Tom and I are continuing with the decluttering, we have a few things to make available on Freecycle and plenty of things to go to the charity shop.
Clearing the space in the cupboard under the stairs and storing the HE group equipment there, has meant that there is space on shelves elsewhere to rearrange stuff and clear some space and tidy up downstairs.
This is one of the few downsides of home education-we have so much ‘stuff’!! We have shelves in as many places as we can think of putting them and they are all full!
I’m going to move some of the ‘Philosophy Now’, ‘Scientific American’ and ‘New Scientist’ Magazines, that are stored in box files from the shelves in the dining room, up to the shelves above the stairs(where there is already a shelf or two full of them already-I can get Tom to declutter books sometimes but not these magazines!). Then I can put the craft baskets up onto the shelves and off the floor. I might also be able to move some stuff off the table again-seeing the dining table top is always a rarity at our house-and so always makes me feel good when it is clear!
As a family, we have taken to having an open house party for HE friends on New Years Eve and that always makes us clear the dining table! Some HE friends are coming back from Florida, where they now live, for a holiday-they will die of shock if they come in and can see the table top!
Very quiet here · Friday August 3, 2007 by Ann
It is very quiet here, with the girls attending The Big Green Gathering and David working most evenings and spending time with friends.
Right now David is devouring his latest copy of White Dwarf so we won’t see him for a while!
So Tom and I are taking the opportunity to declutter-today we’ll be tackling the cupboard under the stairs, which is full to over flowing at the moment.
Apart from that I have a lot more chance for peaceful reading and listening to our choice in music (though I must confess to having the recordings of the two tracks by Lucy’s group included in my play list-it is nice to hear her voice around the house, even when she is not here) Actually, we have found that our choices in music have been changed as much by listening to the tracks the children play (loudly from three different directions in the house usually!) as they have taken to listening to some of our musical choices.
I’ve also started Christmas shopping! Now that is sad! Last year we were lucky enough to come into a lump sum, which enabled us to by a laptop for each of the children once we had added some savings to it. The laptops have revolutionised the lives of the children, especially for Lucy and I credit it with making such a difference to the improvements with her reading and spelling. However having had a laptop each at the end of October, the children knew there was no money left really for any big present for Christmas-but declared themselves happy with the situation.
But I had such fun finding lots of gifts for them to open on Christmas day that I had found in charity shops, on Ebay and on Amazon’s new/used selections.
I found several copies of different musicals-on DVD or video for Lucy and a copy of a Eva Cassidy DVD and some Jazz ladies greats on CD.
Alice had a Bob Marley CD, a couple of Jane Austen DVDs and a didgeridoo!!
And I was very pleased to obtain all eight volumes of a Warhammer series of books very very cheaply indeed and three hardly used PC games off Freecycle for David.
That they knew that they had all been obtained second hand didn’t matter at all to the children, we still had a lot of fun on Christmas Day! Our family has been slowly moving towards being more conservation minded, with saving energy, recycling and freecycling and not buying new where at all possible-so this has fitted in well with our ideals right now. This was further underlined when we watched An Inconvenient Truth in the Groovy Movie Solar Cinema whilst we were at HesFes.
So yesterday I was very pleased when i managed to get a PC war strategy game for David, and a CD and DVD of Bob Marley for Alice-both off Ebay and I am waiting to see if my bid for five Jane Austen novels is successful-having watched all the DVDs Alice now wants to read the books. I’m also watching the price on a CD of ‘Phantom of the Opera’ for Lucy.
But if you know my children-don’t tell them any details!
I was also very happy to receive a phone call from Iris Harrison yesterday. Iris and her lovely husband Geoff have helped to found a new charity for young people with dyslexia or other literacy based SEN, to supply software for computers that will make all the difference to helping youngsters reach their potential. Speaks Volumes now has it’s charity number and some funding has been realised. They have agreed to apply to the fund to buy Alice the software she needs for her computer. They will be supplying the latest voice recognition software, so that she will be able to write her essays and assignments for whatever OU course she decides to start, by speaking into the pc and it will write it for her.
Geoff is an absolute wizz and expert on all types of this sort of technology for dyslexics-born out of his own need to use it.
Geoff will train Alice initially and then Alice will use it herself, but also will be able to help to train others and also to potentially be a spokesperson for the charity in the future. We are all very excited about this opportunity-both to get the software that Alice and Lucy need but also to be in a position to help other people. It will be fascinating to be involved as this charity grows and accesses more funding-applications to some more sources of funding have been made.
We’ll be going over to Geoff and Iris’s home next week for dinner one evening to discuss all this further and for Alice to meet some of the trustees and other people involved with the charity that Lucy, Tom and I have already met, when Alice was away sailing last summer.
Update on decluttering! Cupboard under the stairs now sorted! Several bags of things have gone off to the charity shop-where they were meant to go in the first place and there is now proper storage in that cupbard, to take the main body of excess items that we get in bulk from Suma (which we do in partnership with some other HE families to make up a minimum order)
And I have also found space for the items which belong to our home ed group, which up until now have been stored in boxes in a variety of places throughout the house. Now I’ll be able to access everything quickly when we are going to/setting up a meeting.
;o)
Pleased with myself now.
all quiet at the moment.... · Wednesday August 1, 2007 by Ann
I’m sitting at the computer before anyone else is awake.
There was a flurry of activity in the PC yesterday to make sure all the responses for the consultation went in on time. We have been notified of a responder number 858 so we know that we got many responses in to counter all the LA ones, who will be asking for more powers to monitor our children and assess standards etc.
Any type of externally imposed assessment of standards or progress is IMHO detrimental to our whole learner managed/autonomous style of education. In the case of our children, who left their schools so badly damaged by the experience, any suggestion of being tested by a home ed inspector would have left them terrified.
Even the paperwork sent out by our local LA stating that the HE child should fill out an A4 sheet explaining about their HE was much more than my children could have done-especially Lucy.
We never did do anything like that of course, we have always declined the invitation to have a home visits, never filled in their questionnaire and never supplied any examples of the children’s work.
Instead we send in our ‘educational philosophy’ and a brief report of all of the activities, workshops, and projects the children have been involved in. Nowadays of course I only have to supply one for Lucy, as the other two are passed compulsary school age.
Anyway I am sitting here in peace waiting for the girls to wake up.
They are off together to the Big Green Gathering later this morning. They will return on Monday.
They have a lift with one of their friends that they are going with. Fiona’s mom is giving them all a lift to Weston, where they will catch a bus to the site of the gathering.
The girls were up late shopping for dried food and then packing, so it is hardly surprising they are sleeping still. I’ll have to wake them soon though.
When we deregistered them from school, our aim was to help them regain their self belief and self confidence, by the end of their compulsary education age. We never dreamt that our home education journey would give them that in bucket loads, nor that Lucy would have enough confidence to be going to an event such as this, without me! Because of the severe dyslexia, she has been so dependant for such a long time, but I heard her tell a close HE friend yesterday, that she really had ‘got’ reading now and so can manage life by herself
;o)
I am thrilled for them both that they are going, a little jealous that I am not and not too anxious about there safety as there are a couple of other home ed parents going as well, Jennie who is going to be their responsible adult and another couple, K &T. T will be working at the gathering, with his knife sharpening machine, which is powered by an old bicycle. K&T are happy to be there for the girls should they need it too.
Jennie’s girls will be there too and they are close friends of our girls and another couple of the girls HE friends.
Jennie’s birthday occurs whilst they are at the gathering, so the girls and I have painted a big sheet, with the words “Happy Birthday Jennie” on it, with lots of stars, so that they can tie it to the side of Jennie’s tent during the night, so Jennie wakes up to our birthday greeting. Hope she likes it. The girls thought of the idea as they want to give her a lovely day. We have not added her age!
My brother in law Richard (now recovered from his hospital trip) has gone out early but left the girls £20 each spending money, so that plus some of the money left by Madge, my granny, will mean they should have plenty of spending money too. Lucy didn’t think she would need too much, but I know what she is like, if there are any stalls selling goods at these types of festivals.
We just need to find the camera, pack the sleeping bags and that is it.
Alice has just come down and I can here Lucy moving.
peace gone.
Phew! · Monday July 30, 2007 by Ann
Have had a busy few days.
Whilst the girls were away Tom and I took the opportunity to go off to see DieHard4 at the cinema. We really enjoyed it and as we went on an Orange Wednesday we got two of us in for £6! A real bargain! The children and their HE friends often take advantage of this deal too-especially in term time. We saw the new Harry Potter film for the same price and the cinema was practically empty as went in the day before the schools broke up!
When we first started to home educate, nearly seven years ago, it seemed we would have little time alone together as a couple. It didn’t really matter, as the sacrifices to ensure the children are happy again, were worth it. We didn’t really think we would have much time to ourselves until we had finished home educating our youngest. The reality has been quite different though. As our children have mixed more and more with others in the HE community, they have spent time with their friends, at activities and at their friends houses. Then at other times, their friends come and spend time with us (more on this later). We find as they get older this is happening even more and we often find we have time alone together nowadays. Nowadays we seem to value the times when our family are actually all in one place as that is what is increasingly rare!
The girls came back from Manchester, the band did really well at their gig and were offered another-but can’t do it as they are all going to the Big Green Gathering later this week. Still they do have other dates coming up.
The girls are going to the gathering with another home educating family that we know and will meet with other friends there too.
Everything has to be carried in from the main entrance, there is no vehicular access, so we are busy cutting down on weight of their camping gear as much as possible. We managed to get a reasonably light 4 man tent off Ebay and they tried it out at the home ed camps. Today I managed to get a small ‘Billy Can” for them to cook with. They will be taking my single burner stove, spare gas cylinders and some dried food, so that I am sure that they can have a hot cooked vegan meal each day. There will apparently be a Farmers Market at the gathering, so they will be able to supplement their diet with plenty of fresh fruit, which they love.
We were rather concerned about spending money for this camp-as we seem to have been going through money like water lately. Then my lovely Granny died at the ripe old age of 98. She had been a very active independent woman for almost the whole of her life and she was very much loved by our children and involved in their lives. She didn’t have a lot to leave but there was a bequest of £200 each for each of her great grandchildren and the request that they should spend it having fun, in memory of her. Alice and Lucy are taking some of it to the gathering as spending money and saving the rest towards a trip abroad next year with friends. I am certain they will have enormous fun with it and think of Madge often.
Lucy’s friend Laura had come back with us from the Leicester EO camp, so that she could go up to the gig, as did Alice’s friend Fiona. Laura and Fiona stayed over another night and then returned home via train on Friday. The house has been very crowded again as one of David’s friends stayed over and Tom’s brother Richard is back on holiday from the Philippines and staying with us for a holiday!
I bet you all imagining that we have a huge house, but it isn’t like that at all- we live in a very modest sized semi! Fortunately since we rearranged the rooms a few months back, all the children have room for a friend to stay in their rooms. The queue for the bathroom does get a little long at times though!
On Saturday Lucy and I went over to my mothers and helped her paint her living room. Once again we discussed the surface area of the walls to be painted and worked out approximately how much paint to be used. Maths in real life seems to make so much more sense to Lucy, than problems written on a page. Needless to say we were covered in paint by the time we were finished, but we did feel we had done a good job.
Mom had sorted out a lot of my dad’s musical tapes and offered them to us to play in our car. Alice and Lucy have got a very eclectic taste in music and so Lucy kept some Country music, Sixties compilations, Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Jazz, some classical music and some Johnnie Cash!! The rest we have taken to the local Oxfam music and book shop. We get a lot of books and music from that shop-it was nice to donate some back!
Alice went out on Saturday night to a party with her half sister Louise, but Lucy was glad to stay at home with us and recover from our hard work-and played a lot of the tapes!
David was off out at work and then he went on to a friends birthday party.
On Sunday i began work on our local home ed group’s response to the guidelines Consultation. Taking the views of other members of the group it took me a good few hours to compile, whilst cooking a Sunday lunch and advising the girls on organising the tent for the camp (we have only just got the mud washed off and dried it from the last camp!)
I was also on hand to help Lucy as she was playing on a maths website, after deciding she has to focus more on her maths. She was playing lots of geometrical games.
Then my brother in law Richard was taken ill and an he was advised by NHS direct to call an ambulance! Richard has the same blood clotting condition as Tom and the girls and has suffered a heart attack before. We had a initial response car arrive first and then an ambulance arrived and took Richard to hospital.
Apparently he has accumulated water on his lungs again-but after some treatment IV was discharged home-at nearly midnight!!
We had an impromptu Human Biology lesson again-all about circulation and the functions of the heart and lungs. The girls are always interested in human biology and that relates to blood clotting is very relevant to them.
My step granddaughter Nancy has been here all day today. We have been playing on the PC, on the Cbeebies site. Then Lucy and Nancy made some little sponge cakes and made a chocolate icing for them. We went off to our local town later on, to do a bit of shopping and to go to the bank to pay in some money before the end of the month. Lucy went all around the banks in our local town asking about interest rates and benefits of opening a children’s account. She finally chose a different bank to the one we use and opened an account (and put in the rest of the money from Great Granny Madge). Lucy actually wants to have a Co-op bank account as he main bank account, as she judges them to be more ethical in their investments-something that is very important to her. Unfortunately the nearest Co-op bank is in Birmingham and so not easily accessed. As she has begun to travel more, we need to be able to get to her bank easily and put money in-if she were to need more when she is away. We did this on a weekly basis for her sister Alice when she was away sailing for the whole summer, a couple of years ago. As the band Lucy sings with a ll live about 70 miles away, we know she will be away with them more often, as well as staying with home ed friends. There have been occasions in the past when she has needed money unexpectedly and has had to borrow some. Having a bank account will mean we can send money to her if necessary.
David has been home developing his Fantasy Role Playing Game where he is Games Master and tonight he has gone over to play through the night with some of his home educated and college mates. He’ll come back in time for work tomorrow.
Step daughter Louise has joined us overnight and she and Alice and Lucy are in the process of making some more cakes as they all have an urge to eat something very sweet!
I finally got the local group’s response to that Consultation completed and submitted, late this evening and we got a response number 641! We are getting there. If you still have not responded, please consider doing so before it ends tomorrow. Every response will count! I’ll be so pleased to see the back of this consultation, but do hope we have done enough as a community to make a difference!
